Mind your ways: The dangers of irresponsible tourist behaviour
HYDERABAD: Summer season calls for vacation time. After long, arduous months of hard work, friends and families look to take a well-deserved break up North. In search of cold winds, most Indians either travel to the Himalayas or choose Europe to escape the scorching heat around this time.
With all the excitement about vacation also comes some terrible experiences. A recent video of tourists driving an Audi through Ladakh’s Pangong Tso has gone viral on social media. People have expressed shock over the video that shows three men off-roading through the lake. A portable picnic table with drinks and snacks on the lake’s banks has further irked netizens, who have called for action. Heritage enthusiasts and travel bloggers speak about the dangers of irresponsible tourist behaviour and the need to take serious action.
“Such tourists’ etiquette is not very different from how they live and behave at home. They are used to throwing waste out of the window of a moving car and do not bother about the nuisance they cause to people around. Earlier, we carried water bottles when travelling, so we could fill them up and reuse. Today, we are comfortable with the idea of buying plastic bottles and discarding them any and everywhere,” shares Anuradha Reddy, co-convener at Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage, Telangana.
his trip to Pangong Tso
Explaining the reason behind such behaviour, Anuradha says it is primarily because of lack of empathy for locals of the place. “People sometimes go crazy when touring a new place. With all that excitement, they forget that there are people who live there and the surroundings need to be kept clean. Just because it’s not their home and they won’t be recognised, they shrug responsibility off their shoulders.”
She adds that even pilgrim tourism has been causing Indian tourism more harm than good. “People bathe in these sacred rivers/seas and do various businesses inside the water, while dumping the puja samaagri,” she laments.
Anuradha points out the behaviour of a unique kind of tourists: “I know of some people who have been to the U.S, Australia or Singapore who have no qualms about maintaining a queue, not chewing and spitting paan there, who religiously dispose garbage responsibly. They come back and talk about how ‘cultured’ people of those countries are, only to display the same crass behaviour when in India! This irresponsibility is growing from generation to generation with children looking up to elders not behaving any better. While the government can help with raising awareness about such issues, it must largely also come from within,” Anuradha says.
Travel blogger Shagun Segan, better known as eattripclick on Instagram, says, “Earlier, it was only about the thrill of doing something random. But with social media, places like Shimla, Manali, Kasauli and Dharamshala are full of tourists that take pride in being loud and irresponsible. Some of them sit atop their cars and play loud music on their speakers.
Most of them show up in big SUVs like the Fortuners, Scorpios, Xylos, Range Rovers, etc. It’s gotta be as over the top as possible!” In fact, he says, “Pangong Tso is known to be a secluded place where people park their car/bike farther away and then walk to the lakefront. Since there’s no clear law here about trespassing, people take advantage of these loopholes. It’s disheartening, especially because the ecology of Ladakh is already delicate, with the place being home to more than 350 species of birds and pretty lakes. Such acts risk the habitat of many engendered species.”
Tourist etiquette
- Do not harm nature in any way
- Your garbage is your responsibility
- Be mindful of people around you and respect their privacy
- Do not spit paan any and everywhere you feel like
- Do not try meddling with museum property
- Do not inscribe your name/love stories on the walls of monuments
- Rash driving, loud music at public places are a big no-no
- If no one else is doing something, it’s always best to not do it