Nature reposes in all its majestic glory in the Himalayan and Nilgiri mountains in India. Most of the hill resorts were developed during the colonial period mainly as a retreat from the summer heat for the British. Darjeeling, Ooty, Mout Abu, Shimla, Nainital, Mussoorie are a few examples. However, today from the tourists’ point of view these hill resorts are being marketed with varied attractions. For example, let us take Darjeeling.
From Darjeeling, the beauty of whose sunrise is famous the world over, one can see Phalut, Everest, Mahakalu and Kincherying – the first, third and fourth highest peaks respectively and more than twelve peaks higher than any in the world can be seen. To these natural resources have been added attractions like the Tea Festival during which the cultural heritage of the region is kept alive. A journey on the toy train is another attraction in itself.
Mountaineering, trekking, rock climbing, sking, river rafting, golf, nature tours, etc. are packaged as tourism products, besides the natural scenic attraction. Efforts are being made by various governmental organizations and the private investors to highlight the natural attributes of the mountain regions to the optimum and maximize their benefits for the tourist industry. Most of the hill stations have been large tourist enterprises, particularly from the colonial period onwards. In many hill regions tourism is the largest business enterprise on which the local economy thrives. Most of the mountain resorts of India are known for the three T’s;
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Tourism,
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Teaching, and
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Tea (with specific reference to Darjeeling),
Variety of herbs and wild flowers and plants mushrooming in abandon, covering the mountains in thick foliage, add to the natural beatuty and richness of the mountains. In order to preserve this rich foliage and plant life, many hill stations have maintained botanical gardens. Llyod’s Botanical Garden of Darjeeling far out surpasses the other public gardens in variety and size. Cryptomaria, introduced from China and Japan (by the British imperial rulers), Birches, alders, maples, oaks, rhododendrons, gloss-leaved pepte, scarlet blossomed Erythrims, dahlias, lilies and hydrangeous and primrose bloom in abundance. There is another prominent botanical park at Ooty. It was initially laid out by a gardener specially called from Kew, England during the nineteenth century.
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Emily Eden, sister of the Vicroy Lord Eden during 1830s, expressed these natural aspects and the impression it had on the weary travelers. She described the mountain air as “a cool sort of stuff, refreshing, sweet and apparently pleasant to the lungs.” She found the Himalayas to be “the sweet pretty like hills, with “red rhododendron trees in bloom in every direction and beautiful walks like English shrubberies cut on all sides of the hills.” The colonial rulers likened the Indian mountains to the European hills. Many of the scenic landscapes of the mountain ranges of the Southern Asia (in particular) were compared to the European landscapes. Sir Thomas Munro, Governor of Madras during the nineteenth century, compared the face of Ooty’s “numberless green knolls of every shape and size” to the “smooth lawns of an English park.”
Mountain’s refreshing air also has natural regenerative power to attract the tourists and the invalids. It is not without reason that the mountain places are considered natural sanatoriums. For the tourists, Indian hill places have offered great facilities of restoration to health to those laboring under maladies. Thus, for the aged and the invalids, mountain sites have been ideal environs to recuperate.
For foreign tourists, these hill stations have the climate akin to the temperate climate of Europe. If the heat of the Indian plains becomes unbearable for those from cooler environs, then the hills are the natural choice. It was one major reason why the colonial rulers of India set up Summer capitals up in the hills at Shimla, Darjeeling, Nainital, Ooty, Ranchi, etc. A number of educational institutions with boarding facilities at various hill resorts have added to the tourist traffic. The local communities are devising new ways to exploit these natural resources for tourism — the latest being opening of remote hill tribal areas to tourists.