Good Food, Bad Trash
By Thomas on March 1, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Suffering badly from Sri Lankan beach withdrawal, we headed straight up north to Varkala, a buzzing seaside town famous for its stunning cliffs. Being a serious traveler’s hangout, the place comes with Ayurvedic massage centers, yoga sessions on the beach, bars, plenty of restaurants, meditation courses, rock music, caffè lattes, and traditional art performances. Add to that some of the best seafood, tandoori chicken and cheese cake in India, and you’ve got yourself a little piece of paradise. Or do you?
Varkala has a dark side. Just look at the photo below. Locals, including restaurant and shop owners, use the spectacular cliffs as trash chute dumping plastic bottles, wrappers, cigarette butts, glass, and tissue paper over the edge down on to the beach. Talk about urinating in your own water supply or killing your own packhorse – oh, wait a minute. We’ve actually seen all of that in India – never mind.
Sorry if I sound cynical but what could be a pristine beach community, has turned into an ugly dump because of irresponsible trash disposal. And I’m not only blaming locals. A lot of the trash, such as plastic bottles, is produced by tourists, a necessary evil because of questionable water sources. Any snack food you buy comes excessively prepackaged, sometimes wrapped in two or three layers. Sadly, I’ve even seen tourists throw their ice cream cone wrappers down the cliffs. Nice job!
It’s amazing what people can ignore when they’re baited with good tuna steak and cold beer. In fact, maybe I should put all the blame on us. What signal are we giving to locals in Varkala by flocking to their trashy beach? It’s okay to dump your crap on the beach – we don’t mind the stench?
Well, I’ve had enough. I hate to think that what I eat and drink is going to end up contributing to the huge dunes of garbage backing a once beautiful tropical beach. Maybe it’s time to reexamine tourists’ own culpability in supporting irresponsible tourist development.
Topics: Food, India | 2 Comments »
March 1st, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Boy, Does that bring back memories of Southeast Asia Travels. Since the 90′s each time we visit we witness the daily mountains of trash being buried under the sand on the local beaches.
Last time we visited Southeast Asia and were on a popular small island, we witnessed the local workers loading mountains of trash on a raft and dumping it just off the beach in the local waters.A great deal of this trash was plastic.
This particular island is known for its rare greenback turtles which the locals proudly display the roped off areas for the breeding turtles.
March 5th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Absolutely fantastic blog! I enjoy traveling vicariously with Tony and Thomas seeing places I have been and new places to visit. Beautiful photos and video.