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I read The Beach during a summer off from University after finding it on a relative's bookcase. I'd just seen the movie and I remember thinking how much better

by iamben 8y ago

I read The Beach during a summer off from University after finding it on a relative's bookcase. I'd just seen the movie and I remember thinking how much better the book was than the movie (which I'd enjoyed, but that always seems the way). I spent the best part of a year backpacking about a year after that in the very early 00s - so still remembered the book well. When I got to the Koh San Road (in particular) after about 6 months in Asia, I remember thinking how much it had changed from Richard's experiences in the book, and how much the other places I'd been to (Laos, Cambodia etc) probably felt more like the book. I went to the Koh San Road a couple of years ago and really couldn't believe how much it had changed. The islands as well. In the early 00s, I was amazed at how connected Asia (Thailand in particular) was compared to the UK - I had a small web business, I could email pretty much every day (obviously phones weren't connected back then), there were Internet cafes _everywhere_. But now it was like a late 90s Ibiza - the chilled 'watch a pirated movie in the evening with a beer/smoothie' vibe had totally been replaced with music, booze and nitrous oxide balloons. 24 hour party. I think even now the book would be a great read - particularly if you'd never holidayed in Asia. But times have changed, and Niven's comparisons at the end of the article are pretty apt. It'll be interesting to see how the further future looks back at stuff like this. Everything moves so quickly and periods like this are just so _fleeting_. Fitzgerald and Hemingway - it sort of seems like you can place them anywhere in a period of like a hundred years. But books like The Beach - you're thinking, "right, this is after Gameboy, but before mobile phones and Google..." Anyone younger than me read it and have thoughts? If you've been the Thailand or not? I'm getting old. :-\

jcomis 8y ago
Same experience. Backpacked around Thailand in the early 00's a few weeks after reading the book. I could see that it had changed, but it still had a bit of the vibe from the book IMO. Very few things were "neatly packaged". Some friends went to the islands recently and it seemed more like a frat party than anything else.
RileyJames 8y ago
> ‘watch a pirated movie in the evening with a beer/smoothie' vibe Is now available in Hampi, India. And I’m sure many other places. The whole ‘the beach’ setting felt a lot closer to India (about 5 years ago) than any of my experiences in Thailand. Arambol, Goa & Hampi specifically.
- bartread 8y ago
  It may not be like that now. I suspect these kinds of places/experiences will become rarer and rarer: the democratisation of travel is, I think in many ways, a good thing (especially in a world where equality is prized), but it also has downsides, such as the fact that everywhere and everything becomes commercialised and oversubscribed.
  - ethbro 8y ago
    Hell is unrestricted tourism.
roymurdock 8y ago
I'm 25, just got back from hiking in a somewhat remote part of Georgia (the country). Haven't read The Beach, but got a good sense of it from the article. I think hiking culture, where you either camp or stay in people's homes as you move from village to village through the mountains, is one of the last/best ways to travel and stay disconnected. No cell service in a lot of these places, no room for a laptop in your backpack. Also, no party culture in these hostels, just appreciative eating of a simple meal at the end of a long dusty day of hiking. Read a book and record the day in your journal. Have a snickers bar and a few beers for dessert. Lots of young people from eastern europe and israel doing the hikes in Georgia. No tour companies (yet), the infrastructure isn't good enough. Still, as you chat with other trailgoers, you realize that everyone is generally following the same webpage/guide because it's the only one on the internet. Georgia is on trend now and being marketed everywhere, so I expect the infrastructure to be built up similar to the way popular destinations in SE developed in the past 20 years. Quicker if they are able to join the EU. Check out Switzerland if you're looking for a similar but less rugged experience, I did a 14 day hike there last year and can't recommend it highly enough. You can do it with wife/kids/managing a job for sure if you pick the right route. And easy to access from the UK. To your other point - yes, I feel like time periods are condensing from war/early tech infrastructure-defined 20-30 year intervals where one author is able to capture a zeitgeist snapshot of their era, into a large gray mass/melting pot of media that tells all stories at once, but no specific story at all. The meta story is one of globalization and blurring of identity, and a growing global middle class, where it's difficult to capture and affirm exactly what is going on because everything can and does change in an instant. The modern-day equivalent might be a book about traveling Instagram influencers/festival goers living the jet set life between LA, NY, London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Bombay, Ibiza, etc. This last line of the review is dark, but basically nails it: What will the generation that reads the novel now, and those that come after them, find in its pages? They will find what generations before them found in the pages of F Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, as their protagonists drank and smoked and gazed at the landscapes of Italy, or Spain, or Africa: characters damaged by where they have come from, looking for release – or correction, or illumination – in strange new corners of the world and finding only disaffection, ugliness, self-absorption and ego. Finding only the things they have brought with them.
- 8y ago

by iamben 8y ago

jcomis 8y ago

Same experience. Backpacked around Thailand in the early 00's a few weeks after reading the book. I could see that it had changed, but it still had a bit of the vibe from the book IMO. Very few things were "neatly packaged". Some friends went to the islands recently and it seemed more like a frat party than anything else.

RileyJames 8y ago

> ‘watch a pirated movie in the evening with a beer/smoothie' vibe Is now available in Hampi, India. And I’m sure many other places. The whole ‘the beach’ setting felt a lot closer to India (about 5 years ago) than any of my experiences in Thailand. Arambol, Goa & Hampi specifically.

bartread 8y ago
It may not be like that now. I suspect these kinds of places/experiences will become rarer and rarer: the democratisation of travel is, I think in many ways, a good thing (especially in a world where equality is prized), but it also has downsides, such as the fact that everywhere and everything becomes commercialised and oversubscribed.
- ethbro 8y ago
  Hell is unrestricted tourism.

roymurdock 8y ago

I'm 25, just got back from hiking in a somewhat remote part of Georgia (the country). Haven't read The Beach, but got a good sense of it from the article. I think hiking culture, where you either camp or stay in people's homes as you move from village to village through the mountains, is one of the last/best ways to travel and stay disconnected. No cell service in a lot of these places, no room for a laptop in your backpack. Also, no party culture in these hostels, just appreciative eating of a simple meal at the end of a long dusty day of hiking. Read a book and record the day in your journal. Have a snickers bar and a few beers for dessert. Lots of young people from eastern europe and israel doing the hikes in Georgia. No tour companies (yet), the infrastructure isn't good enough. Still, as you chat with other trailgoers, you realize that everyone is generally following the same webpage/guide because it's the only one on the internet. Georgia is on trend now and being marketed everywhere, so I expect the infrastructure to be built up similar to the way popular destinations in SE developed in the past 20 years. Quicker if they are able to join the EU. Check out Switzerland if you're looking for a similar but less rugged experience, I did a 14 day hike there last year and can't recommend it highly enough. You can do it with wife/kids/managing a job for sure if you pick the right route. And easy to access from the UK. To your other point - yes, I feel like time periods are condensing from war/early tech infrastructure-defined 20-30 year intervals where one author is able to capture a zeitgeist snapshot of their era, into a large gray mass/melting pot of media that tells all stories at once, but no specific story at all. The meta story is one of globalization and blurring of identity, and a growing global middle class, where it's difficult to capture and affirm exactly what is going on because everything can and does change in an instant. The modern-day equivalent might be a book about traveling Instagram influencers/festival goers living the jet set life between LA, NY, London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Bombay, Ibiza, etc. This last line of the review is dark, but basically nails it: What will the generation that reads the novel now, and those that come after them, find in its pages? They will find what generations before them found in the pages of F Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, as their protagonists drank and smoked and gazed at the landscapes of Italy, or Spain, or Africa: characters damaged by where they have come from, looking for release – or correction, or illumination – in strange new corners of the world and finding only disaffection, ugliness, self-absorption and ego. Finding only the things they have brought with them.

8y ago