Blog du Wren

The Photo Not Taken

One of the main tourist attractions in Bali seems to be instagrammable photo ops. The roadside is littered with colorful signs to , [albeit beautifully] woven , and galore. Never, however, was this photo-in-lieu-of-actual-culture made more apparent than today at the Handara Gate.

Due to a series of circumstances too convoluted to get into, Della and I hired a private taxi for the day to take us to some sights and drop us off at a somewhat off the beaten path mountain town. Sights included UNESCO World Heritage (which were pretty magical), a on a lake and surrounding gardens (which felt a little like Disneyland, i.e. contrived for tourists but still kind of nice), and the Handara Gate (actually a gate to a golf course resort).

The at the gates epitomized the it's-all-about-Instragram phenomenon that we can't help but sometimes feel overwhelmed by. You had to pay $3 and stand in line for 20+ minutes to get your photo op. And that's it. You never got a chance to actually admire the gate, since there was always someone posing there. There wasn't anything else there (unless you wanted to get in a quick 9). These hoards of people drove to this spot to stand in a line to get the photo and leave. But we weren't going to become one of them. We hopped back in our taxi (much to our driver's surprise) and were on our way.

The gates are beautiful. And we understand the draw for sure. And if we pass by again when the line is shorter or we don't have a complicated situation with a taxi driver, maybe we'll join the masses. But at the moment, we couldn't bring ourselves to do it. So instead, I thought I'd Photoshop myself a nice little picture. So I cropped myself out of a from earlier in the day, and badabinga: you can't hardly tell*.

Pictures are a part of travel for sure. It's a great way to remember a place and a time. I cherish some of my travel selfies and look forward to taking many many more. But I hope that the next time I find myself lining up to get a picture in front of a faux cultural icon, I stop and take a moment to reflect. And then probably go post it on Instagram.

Monday January 20 2020

File under: travel, indonesia

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