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India: Schrödinger's Cat

Plastic bottles in Dharamsala
The effect of tourism is obvious in places like Dharamsala, where piles of plastic bottles litter the hills

One thing I find hard to tolerate in the long-term traveller is the sense of the past always being better than the present. I am constantly meeting people who harp on about how excellent Goa used to be before all the tourists arrived, and how Manali used to be just a couple of huts before the hotel builders turned up. It's faintly depressing, and makes me wonder why on earth these people keep coming back to places that they say have been 'destroyed'.