Aroma in the Air. Stinks in the ground
This marketing effort would be termed "excellent" if it was done by the coffee board. But for tourism it is totally irrelevant and a waste of money. That is because Araku is already bursting at the seams with low to medium spending tourists. The roads are crowded, chaotic and filthy. Mountains of organic and plastic garbage are strewn everywhere. Lines of squatting children do their job on the road sides. So much for ODF! There are no public toilets and what little is available is sub Saharan standards. In the roads surrounding Araku we come across heaps of Plaster of Paris and plastic sheeting removed from some old film set. Thermocole packing material and styrofoam plates lie in the fields everywhere. In the absence of any organised solid waste management every hotel and lodge takes their garbage across the road and chucks it into the bushes. Other than the APTDC property all lodges have poor standards. The RTC bus stand is one of the worst anywhere with ha...