The Shame of Feeling Traveller’s Guilt for the First Time

Intro

Up until this point, I’d only ever gone on holiday in Europe. Culturally different to the UK, yes, of course, but never in ways that made me seriously question my set of morals and ethics regarding traveling.

Nepal changed all that. It made me question myself and what it means to be a good or a bad tourist. It was also the first time I ever truly experienced culture shock.

These were the first two times I ever experienced traveller’s guilt. Moments that made me question myself and my behaviour.

Gawking at a funeral pyre

A friend of the school where I taught English in Kathmandu died in a tragic accident. I attended his funeral at the cremation Ghats.

I felt a tinge of guilt. I didn’t know this man. I had just been asked to attend the funeral because I worked at the school. I felt both honoured to be included and ashamed to be there — a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a cultural voyeur amongst the grieving.

I saw other tourists across the river taking photographs. I imagined going to a funeral of a loved one at home and having tourists take pictures of it. I couldn’t imagine it. It seemed so ridiculous. It felt wrong.

I hated those people at that moment. Treating people in a tender, heartbreaking, human moment as if they were animals in a zoo.

I hated to think that I had been skipping across on the other side of the river just days before, gawking with absent-minded curiosity at the burning Ghats.

That could have easily been me photographing a funeral across the river. I felt dirty at the thought of it.

Meeting a Living God

The second time was in Patan, Durbar Square in Kathmandu. I was excited to meet a Living God.

But when I arrived, I was mortified to discover that the Living God was a child.

She has to sit alone in a room where people come to see her, they kneel in front of her, and she gives them a Tikki (red dot on the forehead). She has to do this all day, she has to be silent, and she isn’t allowed to express any emotion. She rarely gets to play with other children or do anything that other children are allowed to do.

I felt sorry for her and guilty that I had thought of her as a tourist attraction.

I was also confused because I was judging another person’s religion and culture as wrong and cruel. But to me, she’s just a child, a person, a human being, many things other than a God.

I had been part of exploiting her. How could I have treated a child this way?

Final Thoughts

We often like to talk about how beautiful and awe-inspiring travel is, how much you learned and grew as a person. But we don’t often speak about how and why you grew. It’s these kinds of moments where a mirror is held up to you, and you don’t like what you see.

Nobody is perfect, and we all make mistakes. I’ve made a lot. But what’s important is to look at them and ask, was I wrong here? Was I ignorant? Was I behaving insensitively? Was I racist in any way?

These aren’t easy questions to ask, but we need to ask them. The more we do, the fewer reasons we will give ourselves to feel guilty in the future. More travellers will learn not to treat people like tourist attractions. And most importantly, more people will be treated with the empathy, understanding, and compassion they deserve. After all, it’s not all about you.

Thank you for reading! Hearts and tips are always welcome and your support is very much appreciated.

This story was originally published on Medium

If you enjoyed this, you may also like 👇

Georgina Nelson. Traveller. Writer. Photographer. Yoga teacher.

Sh*t Happens - because the things that go wrong make the funniest stories.