Hi everyone,
John and I been traveling now for about 3 months, which means we are halfway done. I can’t believe it – it feels like so much has happened, and no time has passed at all. This feels like a good time to share some of the darker things we’ve been seeing on our travels, to clear the air before the next half. It has hit differently seeing some of the darker sides of humanity with my own eyes and not on a screen or in a news article.
In Vietnam, the trash was everywhere; it was quite a culture shock. Streets and rivers were littered with discarded plastic containers and refuse. In downtown Hanoi, locals would sweep trash into a bag, only to leave the full bag in a random place. In Bali we saw locals burning trash to get rid of it, even though that’s hazardous to their health. In Thailand, there was also scattered trash about in Bangkok and Phuket but it wasn’t as bad as Vietnam. The rapid urbanization of SEA countries has in large part caused the trash issue because the necessary waste management systems to support such advances weren’t implemented. According to a 2017 report by Ocean Conservancy, five of the top contributors to ocean plastic are SEA nations: the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, and China.
Zooming out globally, according to the UN, more than 400 million tons of plastic are produced every year, and at least 14 million tons end up in the ocean annually. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch has grown to twice the size of Texas. Plastic has entered our food chains, our bloodstreams, our oceans — it’s a pervasive problem. A study published in Nature Medicine earlier this year found that microplastics were 7–30 times higher in the brain than in the liver or kidneys in 52 deceased individuals. Not only that, but the same between 2016 and 2024, the amount of microplastics in the brain tissue rose about 50% indicating an increasing trend. Maybe we will all eventually turn into plastic people.
The plastic refuse isn’t just affecting humans, as we saw in various cases across SEA, but also animals. At Padang Padang Beach in Bali there were a few monkeys sitting in a circle eating out of a torn plastic bag. I wanted to take the plastic bag away from the monkey, but John discouraged that. Just a few feet away sat a burn pile full of trash collected from the beach, and he pointed out they could just go get more from there. I did manage to get a plastic container away from a monkey in Ubud’s Monkey Forest, but a few minutes later I saw a monkey biting a plastic water bottle. Visitors aren’t supposed to enter the forest with food or drinks to prevent littering, but some do anyways. Even here, in a sacred and supposedly protected forest, visitors could pay to have their pictures taken with the monkeys. On a positive note though, the monkeys weren’t picked up or physically forced onto the tourists. Instead, forest staff would place food on the visitors, prompting the monkeys to jump up and grab it. But regardless, being in such constant proximity to humans has increased anxiety and aggression in these monkey species, especially as they’ve come to associate tourists with food. I guess this venue felt a little better on the surface because the monkeys were free roaming? I don’t know.
Honestly though, it was really amazing seeing naturally roaming monkeys like the ones at Padang Padang beach or around our homestay. They were one of the animals I really loved learning about as a kid. But on the flip side, monkeys are one of those animals that are commonly used to entertain tourists or attract their attention. This is detrimental to their wellbeing as they are highly intelligent social creatures who have complex psychological and physical needs that can’t be met in the entertainment industry. We saw this first hand while we were walking through a night market in Vietnam. In the middle of the pedestrian street, a tiny monkey was chained to a stack of plastic stools while the “owner” sat lazily by in a plastic chair. It was clear that this animal was on display to attract customers to his stall. The monkey was so small and its eyes were so big. The poor thing kept shifting uncomfortably, trying to get down, clearly distressed — but its leash didn’t let it. It was the first time I’d seen anything like that, and it made me feel so mad. I wanted to grab that monkey and run — take it to a wildlife rescue so that it could be safe. But my boyfriend reminded me I could be arrested in Vietnam, and the jails there are not nice places to be. And he’s right. But it felt so wrong to just leave it there. And though this isn’t directly related to animal tourism, it’s still worth mentioning – in Padang Padang we watched monkeys navigate construction sites due to deforestation and power lines strung through trees — which are one of the leading causes of electrocution and orphaning among urban primates.
In Phuket, Thailand, John and I saw a goat tethered outside a shop in Old Town, dressed in a onesie and diaper to draw in customers — a gimmick, likely born out of economic necessity rather than cruelty. Interestingly, Thailand introduced a law in 2015 making animal cruelty illegal, but the wording is exceptionally vague — still allowing tiger shows and orangutan boxing matches like the ones we saw advertised in downtown Bangkok to continue. This practice continues in Bali, notably through the Mason Elephant Park, which markets itself as a Sumatran Elephant sanctuary but offers elephant rides and bathing experiences. These are practices that World Animal Protection says contribute to the harm of over 75% of all captive elephants. Lady Freethinker conducted an investigation into the conditions at Mason Elephant Park and the results can be found here. World Animal Protection also found that 100% of venues in Bali holding captive elephants, tigers, dolphins or civet cats, and 80% of those holding primates, failed to meet the animals’ basic needs. But tourists still go, signaling that most are either ignorant to the suffering of the animals or simply don’t care.
We also witnessed instances of child labor in SEA: In Padang Padang, I saw a little boy out on the street drumming a plastic box for change around 10pm. When we were in Nusa Lembongan, girls who looked 12-14 were working at massage places, which made both of us uncomfortable to witness. According to the International Labour Organization estimates 160 million children are engaged in child labor, with more than half involved in hazardous work. In Southeast Asia, millions of children work in informal sectors — selling snacks, massaging tourists, collecting recyclables. There are also problems of child sex trafficking across SEA. ECPAT International reported that Thailand has been one of the most prominent hubs for sex tourism in the world, which we did witness when we went to Khao Son Road in Bangkok… chiefly in the pairings of young asian women and older beer bellied white men. Luckily, in recent years the number of children trafficked through Thailand has lowered but is still an ongoing issue across SEA.
And reflecting on all this… in the United States — my home — it seems like we are sheltered from these issues, and it can be easy to think they don’t matter because they aren’t happening directly in front of them. Less than 2% of Americans are involved in agriculture, and most have never witnessed the realities of animal slaughter or factory farming firsthand. Prostitution is illegal, and happens behind closed doors instead of out on the street. Child labor is illegal, yet some factory farms in America have engaged in it. Whereas these problems are more outwardly apparent in SEA, our systems make these things easier to hide. Meat comes in clean packaging, not with eyes and a spine. Workers who package and slaughter animals are more often migrants or undocumented immigrants — invisible themselves or caught in a politicized system of immigration. It seems like in America, we buy, we eat, we dispose — and rarely question. We visit other countries and ride dolphins or pose for photos with orangutans because they are cute or it feels cool and exotic — without thinking about these animals as emotionally complex, sentient beings. But I also know there are people in the U.S. who are actively questioning these systems, too — who care deeply and are working toward change.
Regardless, it’s all connected. One world. Many conflicting and conflated issues… and the people who benefit the most from the systems work hard to keep them in place.
But these organizations are doing really good work to try and address some of these issues:
- Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand
- Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
- The Ocean Cleanup
- ECPAT International
- Compassion in World Farming
Final Thoughts
Many of the people I saw participating in these systems weren’t villains — they were vendors, families, and shopkeepers trying to make a living in a complicated world. But that doesn’t make any of this alright. I still struggle to appreciate the progress that is being made when I’m witnessing bits and pieces of the harm in real time. John tells me to lighten up sometimes — and I tell him to let me have my moments. But again he’s not totally wrong. My goal for this trip is to practice dialectics: to hold contradictory truths as real at the same time. Millions of animals are being taken from the wild and used for entertainment, and there are people working hard to save them. There’s an overwhelming amount of plastic polluting our planet and our bodies — and somehow (I’m still figuring this one out) I get to enjoy myself even when I’m noticing all the trash. There is darkness, and there is light. And if you only see one half of the equation, you’ll never fully understand the outcome. I’m grateful to have seen glimpses to the harsher sides of life, and I’m learning how not to let that wreck me when I do — so that I can be constructive with my feelings. The majority of us are trying to do our best, even when it’s not good enough, and that does create change with enough time.
Be safe y’all and more soon,
-W