Kashmir trip

February 25, 2008

I’ve been in Delhi for the last few days. Came here on February 22 itself for Dhruv’s wedding. It was a real blast. My first North Indian wedding in North India! I can almost never get enough of this culture. You can hate it and get sick of it at times, but you can just never get enough of it. There is just something or the other happening with these Northies all the time!! Anyway, the wedding was a lot of fun, Dhruv and his bride looked real smashing and very much in love. I wished them well and chilled out in Delhi until today, when I met Harsh and Bala. Finally it looked like the real trip was about to begin.

Harsh picked me up from Dev’s place, who incidentally turned out to be one heck of a guy, and probably my new best friend from NM. Pretty funny how you finally break the with someone you’ve seeing around campus for nearly 2 years! But he was really awesome company in those 2 days I spent at his place during the wedding. Dam, I’m digressing again.. Anyway, Harsh picked me up and we went to the airport to pick Bala. Then the three of us headed to Pratik’s new place in Delhi as he’d called us over for lunch. So we went there, ate loads of an unfamiliar cuisine, met Pratik’s mom, and got to know Pratik is called ‘Pintoo’ at home. LOL. Then we went to the bus stand to pick up the tickets and realized it was 5:00 p.m by the time we collected the tickets from there, and we were supposed to report back at 6:00 for the boarding pass as the bus was leaving at 7:00. This was pretty much impossible to do, as we had to take the Metro back to CP, then go to Harsh’s place, where he has to pack, then come back to the Bus Stand. It didn’t look like we can even make it by 7:00!! Seemed like a very bad idea to take the Metro to the Bus Stand, when we could have just gone by Harsh’s car. We took the Metro, for a ‘Metro Experience’ from CP to the Bus Stand, and that’s what delayed us in the first place!

Anyway, we rushed it, and after all the yelling from Harsh’s mom for coming late and missing out on all the delicacies she had prepared, and after all the curses on the road because of Harsh’s driving, we finally made it to the Bus Stand at 7:10 p.m when the Bus was already outside the dock and on the road and waiting just for us to get moving.

Well, we made it, and played cards till we fell asleep and were on our way to JAMMU.

February 26, 2008

When I opened my eyes and looked out of the window, I saw a signboard saying ‘Aircel in Jammu and Kashmir’. ‘Jammu and Kashmir’!!!! I was suddenly wide awake… I’m actually here.. I’m actually at the famous J&K!!

We soon reached the city of Jammu and it was biting cold when we got off the bus. I’ve never been a fan of the cold weather and I really couldn’t take it. Was somehow managing to stay alive only because of a jacket that Harsh decided to take, and I was so thankful that he took it, coz for some strange reason, I didn’t expect J&K to be that very cold and didn’t get any jackets with me! Of course, the other reason was that I was carrying with only one hand bag and couldn’t pack any jackets. I usually try to travel with just a hand bag coz I hate waiting for the check in bags to come through after arrival at the airport. Anyway, we went to a hotel that the rickshaw driver who lit Bala’s smoke took us and we settled in to have a bath and fix up a means of transport to get to Kashmir. After a cold water bath in cold cold Jammu, we were on our way to Srinagar (the real Kashmir) in a Tata Indica driven by Rajiv Bhaiyya, who we were gonna get to know pretty well pretty soon.

This journey from Jammu to Srinagar was simply brilliant. Harsh had told us a lot about it, but it is really one amazing road trip to go on. The roads for most of the journey are pretty smooth, and in places where it isn’t, its because of a landslide that occurred just some hours back!

The best part of the journey is the way the mountains begin peeping at you from a distance, just teasingly showing you a glimpse of their snow covered peaks, and as you go along, the amount of white begins to overcome the brown of the mountains, and before you know it, you are actually on that mountain, driving in between all the snow! Its truly amazing. There is also a 3km long tunnel that goes through a mountain called ‘Jawahar Pass’ that comes along the way. This is the really exiting part, because you enter the mountain with bits and pieces of snow around you, and you come out completely engulfed in the white water crystals.

I was simply enjoying the ride. When we stopped for lunch at this hotel on Patnitop, I felt snow for the first time in my life! Felt it with my bare hands!! It was something I’ve been wanting to do forever, and couldn’t manage it even after a long and exhausting trip to Rohtang Pass from Kulu-Manali, which I did only in the hopes of seeing snow around 5 years back! Anyway, I even got this virgin experience of mine with snow on tape and gonna treasure it forever!

We reached Srinagar at 8:00 and went to a place called Hotel Taimoor, which Rajiv was familiar with and we simply loved the place. We were anyway way too tired to check out any other places and simply went straight into the room that was offered to us. After that we came out for dinner and these guys wanted to try out the mutton that was being sold on the street right outside our hotel. It was road side fried stuff, and obviously looked delicious, but they weren’t too sure about the taste. But after they had it, they just couldn’t stop raving about it! It was hot mutton kababs with cold roti and spicy chutneys. It was so darn tasty that these guys ended up making me feel so bad that I was on lent and couldn’t have non-veg! And boy, was I being subjected to some ’temptation’ with those mutton pieces!! This was turing out to be my toughest lent ever!

Anyway, I did have Rajiv for vegetarian company and we went to a veg place for dinner after Harsh and Bala had their mutton feast, and this was brilliant too! We ordered Kadi Pakoda, Baingan ka Bartha and Rajma, along with plain rice and lots of roti. Every single dish on the table was so tasty.. including the green chutney that was kept there! I was gorging on the food. It was our first good meal of the day as we only had omlettes for breakfast and some really sad kashmiri pulao for lunch!

After the really cool meal, we hit the sack, and hit it real hard coz it was freakishly cold in our hotel room. I had three layers of bedsheets on me, and still shivered myself to sleep..

February 27, 2008

Srinagar really doesn’t have much snow. Its just freakishly cold! But we wanted to play in the snow, so today we travelled to a place called Gulmarg, which is 2 hours from Srinagar and hosts the winter games of India. So the snow there is really good! We left only at 11:00 coz we took our own sweet time to have our baths in the blistering cold, and left with just time from 2:00 p.m to 7:00 p.m at Gulmarg.

However, this turned out to be one of our most eventful days of the trip. We began the day by doing some sledging on the snow. Not the kinds the Aussies are famous for, but the kinds Calvin and Hobbes tend to do at times.

We sledged till a point where ‘Gandolas’ or chair cars took us to a higher altitude. Here, we tried on some skis. Then got back in the Gandola and sledged back to base. Here we tried making a snowman, but didn’t

have the time, as we had to get back in a tempo we had hired along with some people who were in the room opposite to the one where we had stayed. We decided to share the tempo to save costs, but had to compromise on time, coz they really wanted to get back. Anyway, the tempo just went down the hill and dropped us off at the point where Rajiv was waiting for us. Rajiv was in no real hurry and there was still lots of snow around. So we continued the snowman creation, and this time it was complete. Turned out to be a really good snowman too!

We had actually changed our attires today. Thanks to a man on a cart selling jackets. I picked up this awesome cream coloured jacket that had a totally radical design to it. The guys kept calling it a Gucci duplicate! Harsh also picked up a neat looking jacket. Then on Gulmarg, Bala tore his pants while sitting on the sledge. So he borrowed the Feren (the long robes that Kashimir wear) from the sledge assistant and eventually, he became ‘The Kashmiri’ and me the ‘Milan Model’.. it was really funny! We got back by 9:00 and it was too late to go to a House Boat that we really wanted to spend one night at. But we had one more night in Kashmir, so decided to do it tomorrow.

February 28, 2008

Today we decided to spend the day shopping and sight seeing around Srinagar itself. There was a guy waiting for us to drive him to his shop, courtesy the caretaker of the place we were staying who informed this chap that we intended to spend big bucks! So we go to his shop, and we shop! I normally never shop. Get most of my clothes as gifts or pass-ons. But this time I shopped. I shopped for 5k worth of stuff! And funnily, none was spent on me. I bought things for family, friends, everyone else but myself. But anyway, I had no idea when I’d be returning to Kashmir, and the stuff I was picking out was really good; carpets, pashmina shawls.. so just had to splurge. Bala and Harsh did a decent bit of shopping as well. After this we went looking for a house boat to spend the night. And this was the best part of the trip. The house boats on the Dal lake of Srinagar are the best places in the world to stay in. they are these beautifully designed little boats that are accessible from the land from a tiny 4 man boat called a Shikara. And these house boats come with everything! They have electrically heated beds, a bath tub, teak walls that ensure the heat is kept in, and most of all, a dining table suitable for a king! Everything designed really nicely and all the wood-work crafted to perfection.

We simply fell in love with the first house boat we saw. This was the one recommended by the innkeeper of the place we stayed and promised us a good deal on the house boat. He charged us just 900 bucks for a day. We were flabbergasted. Barely 300 bucks per person for paradise!! We took up the place immediately, settled in, and then went out for lunch; once again in the Shikara. The whole experience was just amazing.

After lunch we went sight seeing. Just about managed to see the Hazrathbal Mosque there. We missed out on the Shankracharya mandir as it was too late and didn’t really feel like seeing any of the other places coz they were just gardens and stuff. One thing that we managed to do was stop at a small tea stall on Dal lake and watch the sun set beyond the mountains. Was such a beautiful sight..

Well, we got back from our sight seeing and went straight to our pretty little house boat. We asked the caretaker to put out chairs and a table on the terrace along with something called a Khati, which is a mini furnace that you can keep on the table and enjoy the warmth from it. We just sat there and these guys drank (dam my lent again!) then we went downstairs and had the food prepared in typical kashmiri style at the house boat and after lots of jokes and laughs, called it a night.

February 29, 2008

We had to leave our pretty house boat early today as we had a long drive to a place called Pahelgam. After which we had to drive to Katra and reach there by dusk, so that we can climb the mountain to the Vaishnodevi temple at night. So we left around 8:00 a.m, after a nice breakfast at the house boat and reached Pahelgam by noon. This place was also snow clad, just like Gulmarg, but it was far more pretty. The snow looked really clean and there were little boulders and shrubs sticking out of the snow at different places, and the entire city was surrounded by snow clad mountains! It was a really beautiful place. Again there were bunch of tourist guides wanting to show us around. But all we really wanted to do this time was simply play in the snow for a while and get back on our journey. Thankfully I also had gloves this time and we having awesome snow ball fights! Played around for about an hour and then resumed our journey.

We reached Katra by 8. The delay was a traffic jam caused by an accident and a fire. Apparently a truck went over a scooter and then the truck burst into flames. It was a pretty bad scene. We were just hoping the poor scooter drivers survived.

Once we reached Katra, we checked in and got ready for the 26 km trek up and down the mighty Vaishnodevi mountain. But by the time we finished dinner and decided to go on the climb, the ticket counter that was to sell the tickets for the climbers was closed. They close at 11 p.m and we went there only at mid night. So we couldn’t make the trek at night itself, which augured very well for me, because I just didn’t feel like walking all night up a mountain after such a tiring day. Would have much rather preferred resting a bit and then taking up the challenge.

So we got back to our room, slept till 5 a.m and then got ready for the climb. We planned to begin the climb by 6 itself, but it was nearly 7 by the time we did! And this was the start of the finish of our exiting trip to Kashmir. The climb up was pretty painful, with Bala taking a break every 5 minutes. But we somehow managed to reach the Vaishnodevi mandir by noon. All along we kept seeing helicopters flying from the base to the top of the mountain taking passengers that paid Rs. 2500, which we kept thinking was probably a better option than do the trek. But then Harsh would never buy it. He wouldn’t even take a slightly shorter route that would save 2kms. He wanted to stick to the original and longer path and do it barefoot too. The guy really has some strong religious fundamentals.

Finally, after making it to the mandir, we washed up and went inside the cave to see the goddess. I could barely get a glimpse of it as we were asked to keep moving because of the crowd. Harsh was telling us that the crowd this time was hardly anything compared to the numbers there are during the peak season. Yet even this time there was so much pushing and shoving!

But we did manage to visit the mandir and now we had to climb 2 more kilometers up the mountain to another temple called the Bhairo mandir as they say the pilgrimage to Vaishnodevi is not complete until you visit even this second temple. Now the trouble was that we had a bus to catch in the evening at 6, and were way too tired to take another arduous climb up the mountain. Not only would we be famished doing it, it would also take way too much time. So we considered our options; we had just about enough money between the three of us to take a pony ride till the top. After that we would be left with just 50 bucks for our climb down and we need to have lunch too. It was pretty tight, especially since we kept buying juice\water and things like that during our climb up and that’s a lot of expenses.

Anyway, we really couldn’t do the climb, so decided on the pony’s. this was one funny trip! Sitting on the pony’s are initially a bit scary because the creatures go galloping up a path that is really narrow and winding. But then you kinda get used to it, because you begin to trust the animal. It after all does have instincts, and better yet, a pair of eyes. So you wouldn’t fall off the mountain unless you actually slip off the pony! So I was getting the hang of it and Harsh was anyway taking to the pony like a cowboy in texas, but Bala looked like he was about to face circumcision or something! He was just way too scared on the pony. I cant even explain the sight Harsh and I were trying hard not to laugh at. He was clinging on to the pony and constantly shouting at the pony caretaker to make the pony go slower. His pony was as it just cantering, and he wanted it slower than that too! Because of him, Harsh and I just couldn’t go any faster, and worse, we just kept snickering looking at the guy. When we finally got off, Bala stomped off super pissed with the pony, the caretaker and both of us. Of course, he eventually realized he was at least alive and began talking once his heart started beating normally! But this had to be the most fun part of the day.

Well, we reached Bhairo mandir, and after a quick prayer, got back on our trek. This time the entire walk was downward, so it was going to be much simpler. There were also stairs at certain places which helped cut the long drawn path as it got us down the acclivity a lot faster. But Harsh couldn’t take the stairs, not only because he was intent on actually doing 26 kms, but also because he was bare foot and it would hurt more down the stairs. Bala and I did the stairs at some places, but I mostly stuck with Harsh. I was a little worried for the guy in case he needed help. He was pretty much whimpering because of the gashes on his foot by now. Anyway, we all got to the base by 5p.m in one piece and got back to our room, took a bath and made it just in time for a special Kahmiri form of chaat and the bus ride back to Delhi.

The super awesome trip to Kashmir just ended with a painful, yet satisfying spiritual journey to Vaishnodevi. And this was by far one of my best trips, because not only did I get to see snow for the first time in my life; something I’ve just always wanted to do, but also did a bunch of fascinating stuff like staying at a house boat, doing a 26km trek on a mountain, holding an actual AK47! It was one unbelievable experience. Gotta thank Harsh for taking us around and Bala for all the laughs along the way.

Till the next trip..