Ellis Riding, a British travel vlogger from the YouTube channel Skint Northerners, said his visit to Guyana was marked by a pattern of “bad experiences” that he said stood apart from his experiences in more than 60 other countries.
In a nearly 30-minute vlog filmed largely in downtown Georgetown, Riding and an unnamed female companion documented what he described as repeated unfriendly, dismissive, and sometimes hostile encounters with people during their visit. The video, posted on January 1, is titled ‘Nobody Visits This Country… And Now We Know Why’.
Riding described several interactions with service workers. He said he visited a Popeye’s restaurant and asked an employee what the drink he saw was. She replied “juice”, Riding said, and then “she just stood there giving a sh*t eye, looking us up and down.”
He said similar encounters occurred in shops, stating, “You go in a shop and just ask someone ‘How much is this?’ They’ll just shrug their shoulders and walk off.” Riding suggested that these experiences contributed to an overall sense that people were unhappy to engage with them.
“Nobody seems to care about anything,” he said. “It’s really bizarre. Nobody cares about anything at all.”
Reflecting on the broader pattern, Riding surmised that most people seem to be hostile and rude, while a smaller share are “really sweet and nice.”
He thought aloud about why people behaved this way: “Is it because we colonised them? I don’t know.”
Riding also commented on how people appeared to behave differently once they realized they were being filmed. “When the camera comes out, ’cause people know it’s going on the internet, they play up. They be nice all of a sudden,” he said. “It’s really weird. It just creates this fake sense of realism.”
On Carmichael Street, near The Bishops’ High School, Riding filmed an overflowing garbage container beside a sign reading “PLEASE KEEP GUYANA CLEAN.” Looking at it, he asked, “Do they not know how to read here?” Later in the same area, he and his companion bought coconut water from a street vendor. The vendor warned them against crossing into what appeared to be Water Street, saying it was dangerous for white people.
Riding said he came, after learning about the newfound oil wealth, but was disappointed in what he saw in the capital. He concluded that it is clear the government is pocketing some of the oil wealth, while most people do not benefit, and that this could be why some people seemed so annoyed.
“We’ve had a lot of bad experiences here that we haven’t really had anywhere else in the world,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll be coming back.”
The vlog includes some positive moments, including kindness shown to them by some Guyanese, them feeding manatees at the National Park and a conversation with a Colombian man living in Guyana, who said he preferred Guyana for its peace and felt comfortable with the culture after spending time in Trinidad and Tobago.
Recently, a French travel vlogger, Antony D’Oliveira, posted a video of a man shoving him as he walked into an area at Bourda market. The matter is being probed by the police. He also had other unsavory experiences during which he said Guyanese barber shops refused to cut his hair, leading him to seek out a cut at a Cuban barbershop. He expressed disappointment that, as a black man, that was his experience.
During another instance, someone approached him, demanding that he delete his footage of the area. Team Mohamed’s said on Facebook that it was a security staffer of Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha who demanded deletion of the footage because it included video of one of Mustapha’s homes.
The viral videos have led to discourse on social media about the treatment meted out to D’Oliveira and Guyanese hospitality.
