Earthlings run for cover or celebrate, at ‘world’s end’

PARIS: Diehard doomsayers will be scurrying to the nearest shelter in fear of a Mayan prophecy of the world’s end today, but many more from Delhi to Sydney will ring in the date by partying like there’s no tomorrow.
One thing is certain: From off-the-shelf bunkers to “World’s End” menus or trips to esoteric hot spots, Dec. 21, singled out by the Mayan “Long Count” calendar as the end of a 5,000-year era, has spelled big business worldwide.
Across the Mayans’ ancestral homeland, a vast swathe of Central America including parts of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, “The End of the World As We Know It,” or TEOTWAWKI, has been a shot in the arm for tourism. Ancient Mayan sites will be buzzing with activity today, hosting ritual reenactments, conferences and sound-and-light shows — often against the backdrop of protests by indigenous groups who complain their culture is being hijacked.
But elsewhere around the globe there will be no shortage of shelters or shrines to host the fearful — or simply curious — crowds through the night. Apocalyptic-minded folk in Brazil can head to the village of Alto Paraiso, a place pulsating with “mystical energy,” as local lore would have it, that has been readying for the end for years.
An anti-Armageddon ceremony will take place on the Island of the Sun, in the middle of Bolivia’s Lake Titicaca, the highest in the world, where legend has it the founders of the Inca empire were born.
Or there is France’s apocalyptic spot of choice, the Pic de Bugarach in the foothills of the Pyrenees, though the site is cordoned off to keep out the hordes, and a local hotel will set you back 1,500 euros — payable in advance. Short of a sacred site to weather the doomsday storm, there is always the man-made option of a good old bunker.
For 30,000 rubles ($970) per head, the wealthiest Muscovites can check into a Stalin-era communications bunker 65 meters underground, which is offering 300 people a 24-hour experience called “A chance to survive.”
In the United States, the growing ranks of “preppers” — who believe in planning for bad times, be it economic chaos or natural disasters — are more than ready for the end with everything from food stockpiles to pre-fabricated underground bunkers.
No-nonsense authorities in China have adopted a dim view of the Mayan prophesy, rounding up more than 400 members of a Christian group who have been publicizing the world’s end.
But elsewhere in Asia, the end of times will be the best of times, featuring a techno soundtrack and fine dining. “This is potentially the very last dance so you know you’ve got to be there!” reads one flyer for the Ssky Bar in New Delhi.
In Hong Kong, the Aqua restaurant is promising to pick up the tab for its HK$2,112.12 ($273) six-course meal if the apocalypse does appear.
South Korean social networks have been buzzing with a spoof “prophecy,” attributed to the 16th-century French seer Nostradamus, that ties “Gangnam Style” singer Psy to the Mayan apocalypse.
Ominously, believers note, the ever-climbing number of YouTube views for Psy’s “Gangnam Style” video, currently at nearly 972 million, stands to hit the billion mark around Dec. 21.