After a good night's rest, we woke up early, looking forward to the continued bliss. The bus was ready, all the passengers were ready on time.
Now the trip was toward Gangothri. From Janaki Chatti to Uttarkasi to Harsil. It was a total of about 200 kms or less.It took four hours to reach Uttarkasi. There were many Temples in that area, Ekadasa, Gnaneswar, Kuteti Devi and Rudra Temples, to name a few. And at about 5 kms from there was Viswanatha Temple. We had good darshan there. We did not visit the others. Also, the lunch break of two hours was ample. Uttarkashi to Harsil was another four hour journey.
I saw signs like 'do not throw plastic in the river'. 'Do not pollute' etc. Along the road I also noticed many empty plastic bottles and lots of garbage. When I mentioned this, one of my fellow passengers advised that we should not focus on those since we are on a pilgrimage. I obeyed. Bottled water was the safest way to consume and we were spending a lot of money on that.
I saw children of all ages walking alone and in groups. I admired the 'fear free' life they led there. I continued enjoying the beauty that nature had provided.
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
2 comments:
I think this post brings up a good point: the collateral environmental damage of booming tourism at these holy sites. It is great for the local economy for pilgrims such as you to go to these places and spend money, but to stay safe, you need to drink clean water. This leads to the pollution you describe. In the short term, there will only be aesthetic problems, but it seems like long term pollution is a real problem.
I don't know what the solution is. Clearly, everyone would benefit from clean water supply, so that one can be confident in what comes out of the tap. This would require a major investment by the locals and their government and is therefore unlikely to happen anytime soon. Of course, as we see here in the US, even the assurance of perfectly good water coming out of the faucet will not prevent some from consuming bottled water.
What you said is very true. I would like to add that there were public water faucets, so called rest rooms on the way. But when you see the surroundings, you don't want to go near them. But the dhabas that provided food also provided water. We bought the bottled water there. Part of the population cannot even read those signs written in English.
Post a Comment