Living under the blazing sun in an oasis of chaos and pollution isn’t the normal definition of a relaxing vacation season for most. This is the true reality being faced by most living in the cramped cities, the only respite found by most of us is an escape to the cooler tourist destinations. The way towards a desired pleasant climate is through environmental reforms and the onus of improving the environment lies upon all of us and we need to constantly strive for betterment.
Where we have hundreds of cities and towns we only have a few hill stations per region and thus born out of this geographical imbalance is the heavy influx of tourists ( from the city ) into the hill stations. This huge tide of tourists has caused havoc for these summer retreats due to their incapability of handling such huge numbers. Shimla a popular tourist destination during the summers is undergoing a huge water crisis and to add to its woes is its burgeoning tourism industry, the picture painted isn’t a rosy one but one raising serious alarms.
This imbalance has left us with an unsavory recipe riddled with serious problems to be dealt with. Traffic snarls, destruction of natural cover and littering are part of an endless list of problems being created. We would see headlines daily highlighting the problems being faced by these places and the inconvenience they cause to the residents and the municipal corporation, but inspite of these alarming headlines little is being done by us.
Recently a friend of mine traveled to Manali and what would have normally been an 8-hour journey turned into a 16-hour nightmare on the roads in the unbearable heat. What was just a story in the news was actually experienced first hand by one of my friends . Also with such a huge number of tourists going into these places the natural cover is being destroyed in order to be able to accommodate that huge number. Ironically the scenery attracting these tourists is being destroyed for their accommodation, instead of being protected. The tourists are disrupting the lives of the locals there and causing an unnecessary menace.
What we as tourists should do is being mindful when planning all our getaways and designing our itineraries. The welfare of the environment and the locals hosting us into their cities is equally or even more important than those few days of relaxation; putting them before our desires is very important and doing that we become more humane than ever. In the end, I would say that we shouldn’t be the reason for someone else’s unhappiness and inconvenience.