Kashmir. The name brings beautiful images to my mind. And therefore this was it. Our first vacation together :)
A little bit about Kashmir
Kashmir is actually considered unsafe given the kind of history it has had. It has been an part India (Bharatkhand) from as long as the Himalayas have been existing, but has unfortunately been a place of bloodshed and fighting in recent times. During the Mughal era, Islam was spread there and Hindus were allowed to live peacefully. According to statistics, the Hindu population is only about 4% there. Pakistan wants a piece of Kashmir, so does China.There is a popular internet joke, pasting here:
In the United Nations Assembly, the representative from India began: "Before beginning my talk I want to tell you something about Rishi Kashyap of Kashmir, after whom Kashmir is named. When he struck a rock and it brought forth water, he thought, 'What a good opportunity to have a bath. He removed his clothes, put them aside on the rock and entered the water. When he got out and wanted to dress, his clothes had vanished. A Pakistani had stolen them."
Immediately the Pakistani representative jumped up and furiously shouted, "What are you talking about? The Pakistanis weren't there then."
The Indian representative smiled and said, "And now that we have made that clear, I will begin my speech…And they say Kashmir belongs to them!!!"
The Trip
Coming to our trip. Our trip was 8 days and 7 nights. May 13, 2015 to May 20, 2015.
We booked the hotel and cab through A Lifetime Trip India Pvt Ltd.
Schedule:
Day 01: May 13th : Arrive to Srinagar from Bangalore - stay overnight
Day 02: May 14th : Sonmarg - stay overnight
Day 03: May 15th : Gulmarg - stay overnight
Day 04: May 16th: Gulmarg
Day 05: May 17th: Pahalgham
Day 06: May 18th: Pahalgham
Day 07: May 19th: Srinagar
Day 08: May 20th: Leave Srinagar to Pune
Our driver-cum-guide there was one Ishfaq.
Day 1 : Srinagar
The flight from Bangalore landed in Srinagar at 3PM.
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| View from the plane |
It was cold and windy at the airport. After picking up our luggage, we contacted Ishfaq. He had the typical Kashmiri look : fair, with a prominent long nose and light colored eyes. He was probably 40 something. It was a Toyato Etios that we would be driven around during our trip. From the airport we were taken to our stay in the houseboat.
On our way in the drive, we got a glimpse of the city of Srinagar. The city was recovering from the floods that had affected it badly in the previous year's monsoon i.e. September 2014. Many houses had tumbled down, some were reconstructed, some were in the mid state being half broken. Though the population was sparse as compared to a city like Bengaluru, we did notice police personnel here and there.
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| Random street in Srinagar |
We also caught a sight or two of a woman driving car, of course covered in hijab and other things. We also some beautiful Kashmiri women walking along the pathways.
We drove to Nagin lake, which is part of the Dal lakes. We reached the shore of the lake and were taken by a boat to the houseboat, which would be our stay for that night. To be honest, the boat looked fragile and I doubted whether it could take our weight and the weight of our baggage (1 big American Tourister bag, 2 American Travellers, a backpack). But of course it did. And we moved over the lake, which was so calm. And then I started feeling cold. Until then from the airport, in the car I had not realized the weather. Now, over the lake I could feel the cold breeze brushing against us.
On the other side of the banks were identical looking houseboats docked, in one of which we would be staying. There were all wooden with beautiful carvings on them.
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| Rows of boat houses |
We reached our houseboat and we were warmly welcomed by the staff and taken to our room. We kept our luggage there and freshened up a bit. We were then offered the popular Kahwah chai there.
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| The Kashmiri kahwah |
Yeah, that's the one! The colourless liquid that you could almost mistake for water :-) It is supposed to be a syrup of dry fruits. It tasted okay, not too great.
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| Drinking the Kahwah |
The entire houseboat had exquisite woodwork. There was this other sweet which was kept in our room. I don't know it's name, but it was delicious.
There were 2 people in the boathouse. The manager and his assistant. The manager looked like a stern guy and his assistant was more like a cool dude. The assistant was all chatty with us. Much later when the manager wasn't around, the assistant was telling us how his dream is to go to New Zealand and that one day he would go. We nicknamed him Mr. NewZealand. Mr. NZ also mentioned that Ro looked like one of his Kashmiri friends. That amused me, but apparently Ro has had this told to him many times before :O
Then we went for a boat ride the same evening.
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| View while on boat ride |
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| Another view of the lake |
It was calm and peaceful, we were enjoying the scenery...
But uh-uh. Interruption. A man on another boat insisting us to take pictures with Kashmiri costumes. This was going to be our first of many instances where we saw the desperation of the local people. Tourists are a great source of income for them. Maybe that's the whole reason they let people visit them. Winters are cold, there can't be any farming. People in general lack education or skills or both. Doing petty jobs for tourists and receiving money is their big aim in life.
Coming back to this guy for the photo. Not that I didn't want such a pic, but I didn't expect it coming to us putting a break to our nice boat ride. We did take the pictures. He would get the prints for the next day. Again he was insisting us to print 5-6 photos.
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| Posing in the traditional attire |
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| This time with another prop :D |
After that we continued our boat ride.
We stopped at the Hazratbal Shrine. As the name suggests, there is supposed to be hair of some renowned person here (and is worshiped ?).
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| Hazrathbal |
The ride back to our boat house was colder as the sun had set. Our rowing man was singing some songs. And we were also lost in a dreamy mood..
We had dinner at the boat house that night (our first Kashmiri meal, so to say). It consisted of some curries and chapati like roti, but a lil thicker.
After dinner, we had a visitor at the boat house. This was a lean, old man with a long white beard. He had come with a suitcase to sell us stuff (of course). His merchandise consisted of Kesar (Saffron) and stuff made from Kesar like beauty creams etc. He said he was selling the original stuff and things you get elsewhere were not genuine (now why would I argue with him on that). We said we didn't know if we really wanted to buy any product, for which he said we can think about it and he would come again the next evening. So it was very apparent that there was an arrangement between him and the boathouse management.
Coming to the products, I was interested in Kesar out of curiosity. I had no idea of how it looked, tasted or smelt or even how to use it. The price he quoted was Rs.200 for, wait-for-it ONE gram of Kesar! Yeah. 1gm. And it comes in this small transparent plastic box. He was going to on and on that this was the only authentic product and we should buy it. Finally I gave in and bought one dabba er one gram of Kesar from him.
The next morning after breakfast we left the boathouse. It was only a night's stay there. We had to cross the lake on the boat.
While on the boat we met our photographer guy. He had promptly got our photos printed for us. They actually looked nice and I was glad I bought them. It is at present framed and sits in our living room.
We got back into our car, Etios, with our driver Ishfaq.
Day 2,3 : Sonmarg
Our driver Ishfaq was not a talkative person. He was quite most of the times, leaving us to ourselves. Which was a good thing, given the beautiful rides we were having. But he would answer to any queries we asked, again telling us as much as required and not dragging the conversation.
En route to Sonmarg from Srinagar is when we started witnessing the true beauty of Kashmir. Indeed, the destination didn't matter here. Wherever we went, there was beauty all around. Throughout our car ride we saw beautiful sights of lakes, mountains, clouds and the blue, blue sky :)
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| En route to Sonmarg |
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| En route to Sonmarg |
While our driver was taking time to eat and socialize with the locals, we had a stroll around the place.
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| Now we're looking at the tea shop from the previous pic ;-) |
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| A stream ahead |
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| The stream up close |
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| Pretty house on the other side |
It was time to head back, but not without exploring the shops around. There was a tiny shop selling clothes & bags. I am up for buying something from a place, for the sake of buying, to serve as a utility and a souvenir as well.
So I eagerly went to the shop to explore. It had salwar material (which has to be stitched later) and bags made of cotton. The USP of these was the embroidery work. The embroidery was nothing extraordinary, but it was a distinct variety for that place. Now if I see that kind of cloth anywhere else, I would easily recognize it to be from Kashmir. The salwar-kameez materials were similar to what the local women wore there. Both the salwar and the kameez would be of the same single colour and there would be an embroidery on the front side of the salwar. The cost depended on the extent of the embroidery. Most of them were embroidery on white material. From the shop I bought a bag made of cotton & embroidery.
We got back into the car to explore more magic from the mountains.
Indeed, such a beautiful place. I knew Sonmarg was going to be beautiful.
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| Stream frozen. |
And behold!
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| So. breath. taking. |
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| Happy :) |
Could the grass get any greener? :)
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| Our hotel was like one of those building at the left bottom of this pic |
While we were enjoying the stroll, there approached another local claiming to act as a "guide" and was requesting (read persuading) us to employ his services. We spent 10 to 15 minutes saying no. He was still not giving up. Finally Ro took out the camera and started video recording, which sort of frightened him and he left the place.
We continued walking on the slopes of the mountains. This time again we were approached by the "sledge" guys. These were locals holding a piece of wooden slab, tied with a rope whose other end was in their hands. The slab also had small wheels attached, so they were pulling it along like how a dog would look with a leash on. The idea was to sell us a sledge ride. Our polite nos were met with stubborn persuasions. In their own words "hume bhi thoda paisa miljayega aur aap bhi khush honge" (we will get some money and you will also be happy). They were asking Rs. 50. The point was not about the money, but we simply wanted to be left alone. But they wouldn't give up. Finally, we made a mistake and accepted their offer. We were asked to climb up hill. We went up thinking there must be something more to this. After we went up they asked us to sit on the sledge and that would be pulled down. Seriously? Lol. We said no thank you and we gave the money and asked them to keep it. That seemed to make them go away.
We later pledged not to give in to any more of this kind of nonsense in the coming days of the trips.
(We also learnt later about something similar that happened to a good friend of ours. They were on a family trip and this sledge trip actually broke our friends mother's back :(. Please avoid if you come across this.)
We continued walking around. We came across a small tent, with 2 men. They offered us tea and we had it with pleasure. We had a nice little chat with them and then we moved on.
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| Garam chai in the cold |
The sun was beginning to set.
And the mountains were glowing more than ever now.
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| Sunset and the glow |
Day 3 was Sonmarg still.
Today our plan was to go on a horse ride. Yay!
The local buzz that day was "Salman Khan ki shooting chal rahi hain Glacier point pe". Bollywood doesn't cease to craze the Kashmiris too :) Our personal choice is to avoid very "touristy" (i.e. crowded places). The whole place was very beautiful, we couldn't see why just that one spot had to be beautiful. But yes, horse-ride to glacier point was the plan and we were up for the adventure ahead.
No sooner had we stepped out of our hotel that 2-3 people came asking us to take them and their horses. We went with one guy who said he has the besssttt horses and that he was a registered tourist guide.
We got two horses - named Khargosh (mine) and Robin (for Ro). Khargosh was a young horse and hence hyper active. It was jumping and hoping every time it saw other (female) horses. I was getting pretty nervous already. Robin on the other hand was older, mature horse. All it did was drop it's poop every 3 minutes :D
So our horse journey started. I had started to panic with my hyper active horse already and to add to my shock - I realised there was only this guy managing with both of us! I felt betrayed :( He said it was "no problem" but that didn't calm my anxiety. Sigh. We moved on.
We saw another big group of tourists, all perched on horses like us, moving towards the same destination (or so it seemed). Our horse man wanted to avoid them and the other horse tour guides, so he decided to take a different path. What we didn't know was our 'different' path was er.. not a path exactly.
After going a bit uphill, we stopped so that our horses could have their breakfast.
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| Breakfast time |
Finally we reached the Glacier point. The place was brimming with tourists. I still don't know what was very special about that place. It was beautiful like any other part seen so far.
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| Horses at glacier point |
We had some snacks there. There was also the supposed movie shooting going on.
After spending some time there, we got ready to return back. We requested our guide to take the regular route please and he started grinning :D Now in the regular route my horse Khargosh was super active, hopping every now and then. Sometimes it even made a small run and my heart was skipping beat. Finally after what seemed like a big ordeal for me, we were nearing our hotel. We were coming down the hills, Ro was behind me and all of a sudden his horse Robin slipped and Ro fell down. In that same instance my Khargosh started to make a run on the road. It was panic mode for me. But thankfully, two young local boys came and stopped my horse. Uff! That was some experience. I sighed a relief as I got down from the horse.
We headed back to our hotel. We left to Gulmarg that afternoon after lunch. It was a quite drive after our adventurous morning. We reached Gulmarg by evening. It was almost getting dark that day.
Day 4,5 : Gulmarg
Gulmarg I noticed had a lot of pine trees. This was our pretty hotel that we checked into.
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| Our hotel stay at Gulmarg |
We were happy with our room. The balcony had a nice view.
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| From the balcony |
On the sides of the roads everywhere were these shrubs with small flowers. I was picking some of them and adding to my hair, haha.
Here too we were getting hoarded by so called guides, offering us to show touristy spots. Apparently there was even a place somewhere around where Bobby movie's shooting had taken place :)
Our next plan was to take a Gondala ride.
A ticket is needed to take the ride. And there was a queue for that. Here too we got offers by guides to buy tickets for us, so that we can save the time spent on queue. But it wasn't as time consuming as it looked. The queue moved pretty quickly. We even met one of the Gandola ride management team's officers while in the queue and he was quite a talkative person. Good for us in the queue :) He asked us where we were from. This officer mentioned that Ro looked like one Bilal he knows in Kashmiri. Aha, that is two Kashmiri lookalikes for Ro :)
The Gandola ride had 2 levels. We took tickets for going till the 2nd level.
At the first level we had to get off and get into another line.
Gum boots and gloves were being sold, to walk on the ice at the top level.
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| Young at heart & comfortable in a dhothi ;) |
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| Inside the first level gandola stop |
The journey from first level to the next level was even more beautiful. We started seeing more whites and less greens. In fact, the white of the snow was too bright for our eyes! No wonder sunglasses were also being sold there.
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| Going up & up |
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| And that's how we came (see left top) |
See how the snow looks so muddy? Hehe. Well, I didn't expect that. There were skiing opportunities as well, but we didn't go for that.
We came back that day and explored more of the neighbourhood of the hotel.
The next day we were leaving to Pahalgham.
Day 5,6 : Pahalgham
Pahalgham was Ro's favourite.
It was long drive from Gulmarg to Pahalgham. We stopped at a clothes store that our driver recommended. After that our driver stopped at another store selling dry fruits and other eatables. We bought plenty of stuff like kajus, dry grapes, walnuts, badam, kesar, elaichi etc. One packet of cashews were finished by Ro in the remaining drive.
We continued seeing more beauty on the way.
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| On the way to Pahalgham |
We reached our hotel, which was at the other end of a long busy street called Chandanwadi. There were lot of hotels along the sides of this road and small restaurants too.
After checking in, we went to explore the place around for the rest of the evening until sunset.
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| View from the window |
The next day we set out to explore more of Pahalgham.
It was soothing to see all the greenery around.
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| Pahalgham |
After more such exploring the neighbourhood, we came back to our hotel. On chandanwadi road, we came across a shop selling oil paintings made on wood. We bought one of those. It's a beautiful painting that typical Kashmir scenery.
Further, we came across a temple here to our surprise. We paid a visit there.
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| Shiva Temple |
As we walked, we discovered another place which had a nice stream flowing. There something engaging just watching the water flow in the stream.
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| Shaanti from stream |
That was the end of Pahalgham. The next day we left for Srinagar.
Day 7: Srinagar
We stopped at a Nishat Bhag, a garden and tourist attraction. Something like the Brindavan gardens of Mysore.
We found a big rose among other things there. The thumb is to give size perspective.
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| Thumbs up to the big Rose |
Well that was it! Our vacation came to an end.
We took the flight from Srinagar airport back home the next day.
End note:
Kashmir is a beautiful place. Don't miss an opportunity to visit it. Being in the colder parts of the country, spring/summer i.e. April to August would be an ideal time to go. But of course, check the news for the situation there as it can be unpredictable.
For now, see you. Thanks for reading.
Perfect post ! Text & pics were so vivid, I got to journey Kashmir.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to posts on Paris, Lakshadweepa & more !
Keep them coming.