Life

Lif
environment philosophy heroes science travel paranormal sports
When the Alps call you not, nor the allures of the Parisian
markets enchant you, but the abandoned buildings in Pripyat
intrigue you and horrifying tales of heinous crimes get your
pulse racing, then you are in for a vacation that could change
you forever… Anu Gulmohar throws light on dark tourism.

Holidays
from

Hell!
l i f e

“W
e have
not had
any
tours to
the eruption site at Eyjafjalla-
jökull as the surrounding area
has been closed. We did, how-
ever, take almost 700 persons
in different tours to see the
eruption in Fimmvorduhals, a
few weeks before the eruption
in Eyjafjallajökull. One tour
was a coach tour that drove
into a valley next to the erup-
tion so passengers could view
from a safe distance. Another
tour of ours drove the passen-
gers up to Myrdalsjokull gla-
cier and from there they went
on snowmobiles to see the
eruption up close. The third
one was a super jeep tour
driving in as close as one km
from the eruption site. Our
customers were from all over
welcome relief to the coun-
try’s government. It also
posed a challenge of handling
visitors 24x7 and rescuing
several of those getting too
close to the zone and not tak-
ing sufficient precautions.
Cut to Gopinatham, a
small village in Karnataka,
which is (in)famous for being
home to Veerappan, the forest
brigand, responsible for the
reign of terror. He murdered
184 people, smuggled sandal-
wood worth Rs 103 crore and
poached about 200 elephants
for twenty long years on 6,000
sq km of forests. While the
forests have finally been freed
of this bandit, his exploits still
arouse much interest among
the people. The government
has come up with a plan to
launch tours based on the life
and trails of the notorious

“Part of me has always wondered

what a place would be like if people
suddenly vanished”
the world… UK, USA, Scan-
dinavia. Many Icelanders
went there as well. To see a
volcanic eruption is once in a
lifetime experience for most
people. You get to see the
forces of nature in action
which is just indescribable,”
said Gudrun Thorisdottir,
Sales Manager, Iceland Excur-
sions – Gray Line Iceland
(www.grayline.is). The disas-
trous impact of the volcano
eruption – from forcing Ice-
landers to flee their homes at
2am to travellers stranded for
days at various airports – has
captured the world’s attention.
In addition to voicing their
outrage, the multitudes were
also seen struggling to pro-
nounce Eyjafjallajökull (AY-
uh-fyat-luh-YOE-kuutl-uh).
Iceland has been grappling
with a severe financial crunch
and the foreign money
brought in by the tourist
eruption following the erup-
tion of the volcano gave some
smuggler/poacher. This
would include a trekking
scheme called Mystery Trails,
which would include legends
and myths around Veerappan
and re-trace his hideouts and
escape routes. K Viswanatha
Reddy, Tourism Director,
does not take kindly to the
‘terror tourism’ tag though. “It
(the tour) will definitely have
universal attention though
not universal appeal. It will be
successful because it is in a
negative note,” said Reddy.
When presented with the
concept of the tour, Sue St
Clair, a Canadian, said, “Yes, I
would be interested in under-
taking such a tour.” Sue is a
self-confessed dark tourist.
What is a dark tourist you
ask? Dark tourism is ‘the act
of travel to sites associated
with death, suffering and the
seemingly macabre’ [Stone,
P.R (2006) ‘A Dark Tourism
Spectrum’, 146], for people
who travel not just for the
sun, sand and shopping, but
for a chance to glimpse at the
macabre and gulp down each
and every horrifying detail.
While German extermination
camp at Auschwitz, Poland, is
perhaps the best known site
for dark tourism, Sue listed
her favourite dark spots to us,
“The Tower of London (grisly
history), Jack The Ripper
walking tours (London, Eng-
land), Underground Cata-
combs (Paris, France), Dracu-
la Tours in Romania, all have
a very dark history, and are
enjoyable.” The volcano in
Iceland isn’t her idea of Ibiza
though. “I would not want to
be breathing in that ash nor
risking being too close to it,
and possibly being injured or
worse. I prefer dark history,”
she reiterated.
Hinterland Travels (www.
hinterlandtravel.com) is a UK-
based company which has
been organising tours to Iraq
for 30 years. Owner & Man-
aging Director Geoff Hann
said, “In Iraq, although we
concentrate on archaeological
and historical sites, we also
visit the Shia pilgrimage or
Shrine cities of Karbala and
Najaf. We look at some recent
history sites such as Saddam’s
Palaces… Inevitably, we do
pass through or stop at places
where atrocities have been
committed. We mention
these, but do not make it an
integral part of any of our
tours. For example, when
exploring Kurdistan, we visit
Halabja and the prison in
Sulaimaniyah.”
On April 26, 1986, Cherno-
byl's Reactor No. 4 exploded
and caused the worst nuclear
power plant accident in histo-
ry. As radioactive plume filled
the atmosphere, millions fled
from Chernobyl and neigh-
bouring towns. Still unfit for
human habitation, there are,
however, tourist companies
that will take you into the 30

the sunday indian 50 23 may 2010


Diary of a
dark tourist
“C hernobyl itself isn’t
entirely abandoned,
but the neighbouring town
of Pripyat is a proper ghost
town. We were taken around
by a guide with a Geiger
counter and we were allowed
to see the actual reactor but
not for too long due to the
radiation levels. We weren’t
allowed to touch the ground,
step on the grass or touch the
monument outside the power
station. We were taken to the
hospital, school/kindergarten,
fairground, police station,
apartments, culture centre
and the old sports stadium.
What was once a playing field
was now more like a forest
and all of the buildings had
things left behind such as
documentation. The radia-
tion levels were lower here
and we were allowed half an
hour to wander around each
abandoned building.
Chernobyl is a place
where humanity only lives
as memories in derelict
structures but that nature is
reclaiming. It was tinged with
sadness that Pripyat looked
like such a wonderful place to
have lived before the reactor
exploded. I was saddened to
see all the abandoned toys
in the Pripyat Kindergarten.
Chernobyl is a place that is so
peaceful but when you see all
these buildings and hear only
the voices of birds, you know
instinctively that something is
very wrong. I do not have any
definite plans to visit other
places with a troubled history,
but I would not be averse to
the idea of visiting Chernobyl
once again.”
- Anonymous Girl, 26,
England
the sunday indian 51 23 may 2010
km ring of the exclusion zone.
A twenty-six-year-old lady
from England (name with-
held) is one of the millions
who have undertaken such a
tour (See ‘Diary of a dark
tourist’). She recalls, “I was
motivated to visit Chernobyl
out of morbid interest and be-
cause I have a fascination
with post-apocalyptic scenar-
ios. Part of me has always
wondered what a place would
be like if people suddenly
vanished. How would nature
take over? What would the si-
lence be like?”
But what makes people for-
sake a trip to Switzerland and
instead, head to Iraq or Cam-
bodia? Experts believe the
motivations of a dark tourist
stem from the need to height-
en their sense of mortality,
a quest for a novel experience,
a celebration of crime and
deviance. Reverence, nostal-
gia or plain basic voyeurism
could also be the reason
dark tourism
(prev page) Extermination camps at
Auschwitz, Poland; (From left) Fim-
mvorduhals volcano; Hotel Taj Mahal
Palace, Mumbai; (box pic) remains of
the Chernobyl, Pripyat nursery.
to visit a cemetery or a battle-
field or a shipwreck or a
disaster site like Ground
Zero in New York or Jallian-
wala Bagh in Amritsar. Re-
veals Geoff Hann, “My clients
are motivated to see these
places for themselves because
of the sheer volume of media
coverage. They are also suspi-
cious of the motives of that
news. They want to commu-
nicate with the people in
these areas.”
Most people may feel the
label of a dark tourist as de-
rogatory, but the truth is that
almost all of us at some point
in time have been a dark
tourist. Many of us would
have been to The Indira Gan-
dhi Memorial Museum, and
walked in the rooms where
our former prime minister
once lived, and around the
exact spot where she fell after
her bodyguards’ bullets tore
into her body. I, for one, have
taken the tour, and like an
unashamed voyeur wondered
how life would have been in
the same rooms, and paused
with reverence and grief at
the spot where she was slain.
But voyeuristic rubberneck-
ing around a site of crisis can
result in hurting people’s sen-
timents; case in point when
actor Riteish Deshmukh and
filmmaker Ram Gopal Verma
decided to take a tour of the
Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai
right after the three-day siege.
Dark tourist sites can be
disturbing places where the
excesses of humanity have
caused much grief and serve
as reminders to the gravest
mistakes and misdemeanours
of mankind. As long as one
goes with the right attitude,
there’s a lot that one can take
away from the experience.