jjamwal
Active Member
I have posted this in one group on facebook and I thought it should receive as wide coverage as possible. I hope it is allowed and that this is the right section for it.
Jokes aside, I normally don’t care if the tourists are just ignorant or well meaning naive people. But a vast majority of Indian tourists are the worst people a beautiful place can have. Over the years, a number of amazing places in many corners across India have turned in to concrete jungles full of rubbish, plastic and various kind of annoying touristy dumpyards. When I first visited Lahaul Spiti in 2011, there was only 2, maybe 3 campsites near Chandrataal and the whole place was mostly clean and pristine. Now there are probably a dozen people setting up camps with dozens of tents in each and there is rubbish and shit everywhere. There are some regulations and it seems like that they are never implemented. When I visited in 2015, I kept awake for most of the night due to some retards playing loud stupid music for most of nights, shouting, singing after getting drunk and driving in mud.
It was even worse in 2017. Campsite owners had brought excavators to dig pits and had even dug up hills, which is illegal. Instead of disposing of trash properly, all the waste plastic, ceramic was just being dumped in pits and covered up. Toilets were just connected to hastily dug open pits covered with plastic sheets and whole place stank. Everyone likes to use bottled water, soft drinks etc and all the plastic bottles, snacks packaging etc was just being thrown carelessly everywhere. Tourists are stupid and camp owners will just bury the rubbish instead of disposing properly, just to save a hundred rupees every month. At best, they’d just gather the rubbish and burn it. Instead of a scenic campsite in wilderness, it now looks like a stinking refugee slum.
It is not even like these campsite owners are well meaning people with no facilities. A majority of them just care about making money in anyway possible. Dozens of vehicles ply on this route and it’s just takes a little work and money to gather this trash and send it away. But it’s done once in a blue moon, if at all. They are also not immune to lying to tourists and fraud. I met 2 foreigner tourists who were mislead in to staying in to one campsite after the owner lied to them about route, facilities provided and they were stuck there with no option than to wait till they could get transport.
This how garbage is being disposed off. By burying in shallow pits.
Another pit used to bury garbage, mostly non bio-degradable
Uncontrolled movement of vehicles everywhere. Campsite owners digging up hills
Lots of plastic and other waste like this in water sources for the campsites.
Trash like this comprising of food packaging, clothing, cans, alcohol bottles all around campsite
Local shepherds bitterly complained how tourists scare away their animals, destroy vegetation and don’t stop their activities even after dark. Additionally, the animals will eat up plastic and get sick, just like it happens in cities. Most of campsite owners use water from some nearby streams and even those had all type of waste in them. Earlier, the annoying tourist in these kind of places would be the one playing some dumb punjabi, bollywood bjohpuri type song on a mobile phone. There are still quite a few of them, but now there are a lot more of pretentious instagram snapchat type of crowd playing hipster songs on portable speakers which is even more disturbing to people looking for a quite place to relax and enjoy nature.
Link to full post: Another rant against tourists
Jokes aside, I normally don’t care if the tourists are just ignorant or well meaning naive people. But a vast majority of Indian tourists are the worst people a beautiful place can have. Over the years, a number of amazing places in many corners across India have turned in to concrete jungles full of rubbish, plastic and various kind of annoying touristy dumpyards. When I first visited Lahaul Spiti in 2011, there was only 2, maybe 3 campsites near Chandrataal and the whole place was mostly clean and pristine. Now there are probably a dozen people setting up camps with dozens of tents in each and there is rubbish and shit everywhere. There are some regulations and it seems like that they are never implemented. When I visited in 2015, I kept awake for most of the night due to some retards playing loud stupid music for most of nights, shouting, singing after getting drunk and driving in mud.
It was even worse in 2017. Campsite owners had brought excavators to dig pits and had even dug up hills, which is illegal. Instead of disposing of trash properly, all the waste plastic, ceramic was just being dumped in pits and covered up. Toilets were just connected to hastily dug open pits covered with plastic sheets and whole place stank. Everyone likes to use bottled water, soft drinks etc and all the plastic bottles, snacks packaging etc was just being thrown carelessly everywhere. Tourists are stupid and camp owners will just bury the rubbish instead of disposing properly, just to save a hundred rupees every month. At best, they’d just gather the rubbish and burn it. Instead of a scenic campsite in wilderness, it now looks like a stinking refugee slum.
It is not even like these campsite owners are well meaning people with no facilities. A majority of them just care about making money in anyway possible. Dozens of vehicles ply on this route and it’s just takes a little work and money to gather this trash and send it away. But it’s done once in a blue moon, if at all. They are also not immune to lying to tourists and fraud. I met 2 foreigner tourists who were mislead in to staying in to one campsite after the owner lied to them about route, facilities provided and they were stuck there with no option than to wait till they could get transport.
This how garbage is being disposed off. By burying in shallow pits.
Another pit used to bury garbage, mostly non bio-degradable
Uncontrolled movement of vehicles everywhere. Campsite owners digging up hills
Lots of plastic and other waste like this in water sources for the campsites.
Trash like this comprising of food packaging, clothing, cans, alcohol bottles all around campsite
Local shepherds bitterly complained how tourists scare away their animals, destroy vegetation and don’t stop their activities even after dark. Additionally, the animals will eat up plastic and get sick, just like it happens in cities. Most of campsite owners use water from some nearby streams and even those had all type of waste in them. Earlier, the annoying tourist in these kind of places would be the one playing some dumb punjabi, bollywood bjohpuri type song on a mobile phone. There are still quite a few of them, but now there are a lot more of pretentious instagram snapchat type of crowd playing hipster songs on portable speakers which is even more disturbing to people looking for a quite place to relax and enjoy nature.
Link to full post: Another rant against tourists
