By LizGoodwin04
There’s a phrase in Thailand that one will see plastered on t-shirts and hear spoken by Thais all over the country and it is “same same but different.” This phrase means exactly what is sounds like; it’s used to describe something that is essentially the same, but just a little different.
This past week, our program travelled to Koh Chang, an island off the coast of Thailand, to study tourism and it’s impacts on the environment. The island of Koh Chang has two sides. One can turn left and visit the local, preserved side of the island, or one can turn right and visit the developed, touristy side of the island. Ultimately, both sides of the island are the same, but different.
While developers have built up the right side of the island, causing many environmental problems like the accumulation of waste and water pollution, the left side has remained relatively untouched, only inhabited by the locals. The locals on this side of the island are hoping to increase community-based tourism; a system where locals would run the tourist industry and the money from tourism would go back into the community rather than leaving in the hands of developers.
Throughout the week, my classmates and I stayed with host families on the left side of the island learning how to promote community-based tourism and how to prevent environmental degradation from development policy. We had a boat tour around the island and went snorkeling so we could see the coral reef that is being destroyed by tourists who have damaged the coral by touching it and we hiked over a mountain to the only beach left on the island that hadn’t been bought by a developer yet. On the second to last night we were in Koh Chang, we travelled to the other side of the island; the right side that has been built up by developers.
On this side, the streets were covered by neon signs and shops catered to foreigners. There were hardly any Thais in sight and everything in this area was dirty and polluted. I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to come to this side of the island when they could have an amazing, local and immersive experience on the left side of the island. Although the two sides of the island are ultimately the same, they are so very different.