Attractions to Avoid

Live-Animal Markets

One place you won't want to spend your traveler's checks is at a live-animal market, where you can pick the animal you'd like to take home to eat or have killed on the spot—a horrifying spectacle that often involves beating the animal to death. Deprived of food and water for days, dogs, cats, and other animals await excruciating deaths packed into cages so small and crowded that standing up is often impossible.

Once purchased, dogs are hanged and violently beaten while still conscious in order to increase the level of adrenaline in their flesh, which is believed to boost the virility of men who eat it. Cats are thrown into large pressure cookers and boiled alive in order to extract their "juice," which is sold as a tonic.

Live-animal markets are believed to spread viruses and disease, such as the avian flu, swine fever, and foot-and-mouth disease. Nevertheless, the markets thrive not only in Asian countries such as North Korea, South Korea, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Laos, but also in U.S. Chinatowns, such as those in Southern California and New York City. Tucked amid the other merchandise, tiny, barren tanks also imprison turtles, frogs, crabs, and other animals facing a similar fate, and merchants often get away with violating cruelty-to-animals laws and health codes.

Learn more about the plight of dogs and cats in South Korea and how you can help.

Watch a video to see what happens to animals at live-animal markets and afterward.