Chapter 3 - The Global Tourist Pieter Albert Bik

Summary

The gradual development of an increasingly personal and leisurely, touristic mode of colonial travel occurred roughly concurrently with the emergence of European tourism. Yet the true extent of the similarities of the two phenomena becomes apparent only with a comparative close reading of the primary sources. For this Pieter Albert Bik's manuscript provides ideal material, describing as it does both European tourism and colonial travel. This chapter will delve into a close reading of parts of the manuscript, analysing those sections in the context of similar published materials of the time, in order to get to the detail of what this touristic mode of travel looked like in practice, and how widespread it was. The sections are defined geographically, as each of the major travel destinations under discussion—the Rhine in Europe, Java and Japan overseas—is considered separately. Each section will look at a set of features at the core of the phenomenon of modern tourism: regularity and comfort of transport and accommodation; routinised practices of sightseeing; and the aesthetic appreciation of landscapes. The comparisons serve to prove that each location provided the regularisation and institutionalisation of travel, and the minimal level of comfort and support infrastructure that were the prerequisites of a touristic travel experience, and that the experiences recorded exhibit an unmistakably touristic, personal yet superficial attitude. The final section of the chapter focuses on the question of encounters with locals and local culture, examining how these are presented and interpreted, and whether there are notable differences depending on location.

Mass Travel on the Rhine

On the Rhine, as already discussed, steamboats with their reliability and schedules allowed the flourishing of early mass tourism. When Bik travelled the Rhine with his wife in 1837, the steamship was their primary method of transport, used on five separate trips: Emmerich-Cologne and Cologne-Koblenz up the river; and Mainz-Bonn, Bonn-Düsseldorf and Düsseldorf-Emmerich on the way back. By 1837 Bik was apparently already accustomed to this way of travelling, for it passes mostly without comment. A passage from the previous year depicting a trip from Nijmegen to Rotterdam in the Netherlands provides some first impressions: “[t]he journey by steamboat is very enjoyable, there is good company throughout while the service is outstanding and one finds everything that could be hoped for.”