Manali: When in Manali, borrow a vehicle from friends or family or hire a self-driven vehicle and hit the road to visit the different tourist destinations. This is the only way one can ensure a trouble-free and stress-free holiday in Manali.
God forbid if you don’t have a vehicle and are left at the mercy of the tourist taxi drivers. If that is the case, you might as well kiss your holiday goodbye, for it is the taxi driver who will decide if or not you will travel and how.
It doesn’t matter that you spent hundreds of Rupees to visit Manali or have travelled thousands of Kilometres: once you land here, your destiny is in the hands of the taxi drivers. That is what a group of tourists, who had embarked at after travelling hundreds of miles from the other States.
These days a video is becoming very viral on social media.
Taxi driver attempting to con tourists visiting Manali#Manali pic.twitter.com/QnlAFfPFNh
— HillPost (@hill_post) January 29, 2023
The tourists from South who were trapped in the clutches of some greedy taxi driver. It is hard to believe how these taxi drivers get into misbehaviour and abuse with tourists for the sake of a few bucks, but this is the truth. “Atithi devo bhava” has remained only in name, now it has become looto bhava.
Greedy taxi drivers threatening to take these tourists back to Manali for not renting out snow dress i.e. plastic shoes and dungarees
The greedy taxi driver is forcing the tourists to wear cold nylon shoes and a light dungaree, and is trying to make a commission from those shopkeepers by threatening them in the name of challan by the police for not taking them.
Such people have defamed the tourist places of Himachal, one of which is Manali.
Significantly, tourists were going to visit Solang Nala. These three tourists were wearing warm gloves, jackets and caps to roam in the snow, yet this driver rents boot coats to tourists due to the fear of the police and the orders of the government due to the small commission.
Forcing them to rent out snow dresses. Such drivers are giving Manali a bad name. Legal action should be taken against these taxi drivers and strict instructions should be issued through the taxi union that no such taxi driver should force anyone to take cold plastic shoes and dungarees.
Sanjay Dutta, an engineer by qualification but is a journalist by choice.
He has worked for the premier new agency Press Trust of India and leading English daily Indian Express.
With more than a decade of experience, he has been highlighting issues related to environment, tourism and other aspects affecting mountain ecology.
Sanjay Dutta lives in a village close to Manali in Kullu valley of Himachal.
