Go to the zoo

(Baonghean) - On the recent September 2nd holiday, my family did not go anywhere far but just wandered around the city. Thinking that everyone was out having fun and the city would be empty, we decided to take Bim to the zoo.

Unexpectedly, the city people were all out, but people from the suburbs were all coming to visit, so the zoo was more crowded than usual. I walked for a long time but couldn't see any animal cages, only people. Some spread out tarps to eat and drink, others hung hammocks to take a nap under the trees. Many families brought their children along, and the children lay around on the grass. Some mothers sat fanning their children. Men sat drinking beer, eating sticky rice, and eating chicken brought from home.

The zoo is usually a place that not many people go to because of the busy city people, but now it is as crowded as a festival. Little Bim pulled my hand and asked, "Uncle, did we go to the wrong place? Why can't I see any animals?"

The family went around the zoo one more time and then decided to go home because of the crowded scene, noisy eating and drinking, and noisy celebrations. We thought that the free holiday would be a chance to change the air, breathe in some fresh air and reduce the dust from the vehicles, but it turned out to be no different.

Zoo. Photo: Internet

A foreign friend of mine once commented like this when he came to Vietnam, which made me think about it forever. "I have to take advantage of coming to Vietnam while it is not yet a hot tourist destination like Thailand or Bali. If I wait until it is hot and many people come, everything will be "destroyed".

Like the time I went to a waterfall in Western Nghe An. The first time it was still wild and unknown, it was still beautiful and clean. After a while, the media enthusiastically promoted it, and everyone rushed to visit. When I went back the second time, the waterfall was almost unrecognizable. It was full of tourist trash, and there was even a place that smelled like urine because people chose it as a place to relieve themselves.

Tourism is called a smokeless industry, with the expectation of bringing economic efficiency without harming the environment. However, in reality, it may be far from being as expected. Famous tourist countries such as Spain, Thailand, Italy, France all have to pay a huge price for the environment and society. Vietnam is also aiming to build tourism into one of the key economic sectors. Are we willing to pay the price for the environment, or are we ready with solutions to avoid the mistakes of those tourist countries?

Before discussing those distant matters, let’s take a look back and see if we know how to throw trash in the right place or keep the place we live clean and green. Let alone visitors./.

Hai Trieu