Niagara! - Nature at its best.... Man at his worst!!

  I had been to Niagara couple of weekends back. For the people who come to US and Canada visiting Niagara is like a must do activity! I was also curious to see the Nature's marvel as many of my friends had praised the place a lot and had told me to visit it without fail. Because of all their description and because of the fame of the place I joined the team of my friends and decided to visit Toronto and Niagara on a long weekend.

Whenever I saw the pictures of Niagara, I was amazed by the Nature's marvel and the beauty of the place. But had heard from some of my friends that it is very commercialized. But I never gave a serious thought about that... until I landed there!!

  When we started from Toronto after watching the bird's eye view of the town from the top of the tallest tower in the world -the C N Tower, it was almost 6.00. By the time I opened my eyes our van was in Niagara city! After dumping all our luggage we decided to go to view the lights on the Niagara. 

  

    To reach the view point from the Hotel where we stayed we have to walk for around 2Kms through the center of the town. I never imagined that such a busy commercial center exists near the falls. While I was walking in the streets I felt that I am in some busy commercial city. All around the streets there were Bars, Casinos, Dance clubs, Night clubs, Some horror museums, Flashy Giant Wheels, and lots and lots of crowd.

  I started wondering how much more we have to walk to see the falls! According to my guess (and experience till then!) this much busy streets cannot exist near the falls. I was thinking man cannot spoil this much the surroundings of the falls! But I was proved completely wrong!! As we walked just down the streets, we could see the colors that are getting reflected from the mist of the falls. A few more steps ahead... and there it was.... falling through the magnificent rocks in enormous volume, which is hard to even imagine!! The lights on the falls was adding to its glory. Just as I was enjoying the falls when I turned back all the flashy lights of the town was lighting up the whole night. If I face towards the city I could not believe that there is a Nature's wonder just behind me as I was not feeling any essence of Nature there! The whole place is exploited for the commercial purpose so much that if you are a true lover of Nature you feel suffocated and deeply hurt by witnessing that tragedy there!

As the night passed, it was the time to view the falls in the morning. I was already down as I had witnessed the miserable state of the mother Nature last night! So decided to make some images of that perspective to show the ugly face of man and and his dirty deeds at that place!

 After viewing the falls from the bottom, my friends decided that they will spend some time in the commercial place, visiting Reply's Believe It or Not Museum and all other stuffs. I decided to stay back near the falls. I spent almost one and a half hours near the falls. Sometimes it felt that the volume of the water that flows and falls at that place was actually the tears of Mother Nature which is crying after seeing the state of the place!! There is no surprise even if you feel that the falls is also 'made by man' to build this commercial place called 'Niagara'!!  I would have convinced if the city was built at a distance from the falls, say at 5 or 8 Kms from the location of the falls. There was no necessity to build such a commercial place just on the banks of the falls. It is nothing but utter foolishness of man and his arrogance towards Nature! In this respect the falls in India are much lucky! Wherever you go you will feel atleast little of essence of Nature. Even though there may be some plastic litter around the place but as a whole the feeling is worth experiencing and far far far better than the feel of the 'Place Niagara'!



We left the place in the afternoon to reach Ottawa by night. When I closed my eyes in the bed there was only one thought in my mind which said:

Niagara - Nature's Wonder.... Man's Blunder!!


Regrets,
Ash