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Kashmir Travel Guide
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Sights of interest in Kashmir |
The state of Kashmir (officially Jammu & Kashmir) is located on the northernmost tip of India. Kashmir is one of the most volatile regions in the world, and conflict erupted now and again between India and its neighbour Pakistan over control of this region. Nevertheless, traveller venturing into Kashmir will find a metaphorical Eden of the Maharajahs, indeed Kashmir is one of India's best kept secrets.
Mountain scenery at Gulmarg.
Tim's Varanasi Travelogue: November 11-14, 2004
On a frigid November day in 2004 I arrived at the tightly guarded airport of Srinagar, the capital of Jammu and Kashmir, with a group of participants from AsiaExplorers. We could feel the temperature dropping as soon as we stepped onto the tarmac. We were held up for a while at the airport because our travel documents were not in proper order.Our tour guide in Delhi did not mention that we need to bring along a list of all the participants, showing our passport and visa numbers. I was rather irritated over this matter, of course. We had to prepare this list at Srinagar airport. It was a while before we were let out of the airport. Outside, the air was chilly. After some confusion over locating our Kashmir guide, we boarded two awaiting jeep and off we went.
Along the way we began to realise the tight security that the Indian government placed over Kashmir. All along the Kashmiri highway we came across soldiers with submachine guns. They were a manacing sight, but we comforted ourselves that with them around, our safety would be more assured. The road in Kashmir, and in pretty much everywhere else in India, was dusty. Most of the roads are very straight with poplars growing tall on both sides.
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Shikara rowers on Dal Lake, Srinagar, Kashmir
We passed through the city of Srinagar. It is a fairy-tale type of town with quaint houses and bridges. The Kashmiri people wear thick parkas called fedora. The children are adorable, with distinctly Aryan features. We saw carts, horses and donkeys along the roads. In the shops, there were more billboards in English than Hindi, while the Jawi script was I believe Urdu.
After negotiating its way through the bustling city, our jeeps arrived at the shore of Dal Lake, the biggest lake in Srinagar. We will be staying in the houseboats in the middle of the lake. These are gypsy-like floating abodes that has all the necessary creature comfort - unfortunately, during our trip, there was a general blackout in Srinagar. A few weeks earlier, there had been an accident at a school in Kashmir, where the power line collapse killing a few children. Some people "retaliated" by burning down the powerstation. As a result they are now without electricity - a case of cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. Since then, power came intermittently, and we were at the mercy of generators. This being late autumn, our stay in Kashmir was one of bitter cold.
But the beauty of Kashmir more than made up for all the discomfort. Dal Lake was so placid, it calms the senses just watching the shikaras passing by. Shikaras are Kashmiri gondolas. They are often gaudily decorated, something like waterborne jeepneys. We took the shikaras to ferry us to our houseboats.
The Kashmir houseboats were gorgeous homes and (if not for the lack of electricity) very comfortable. Each has a living room, a dining room, and three bedrooms. That fit our group of 12 persons just nice. Each houseboat has a caretaker who would look for us and clean up after us, in general making us feel absolutely at home. Due to the continuous turmoil in Kashmir, foreigner tourists have dived to a trickle - indeed we hardly saw any foreigners in Kashmir except for ourselves, so the houseboats rely heavily on domestic tourism to sustain themselves.
If we thought living in the houseboats would cut us off from any opportunity to shop, we are wrong. It's the case in Dal Lake that if the tourists couldn't go to the shops, the shops come to them in the form of shikaras. Day after day, from early morning until long after dark, streams of vendors would visit our houseboats, hawking Kashmiri pashminas, jewellery, papier-mâché ornaments, fruits, ... you name it. They were a persistent lot, and at time, quite a bother, for they usually start off with a ridiculously high price and expect us to bargain it down. At times I pity them, but more often, I am irritated by their badgering.
During our stay in Kashmir, we went sightseeing around Dal Lake and explored other places by jeep including Gulmarg, Srinagar, the Mughal Gardens, among other places. Please click on the thumbnails below for details on each destination.
Tourist Attractions in Kashmir
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Tim riding the Shikara in Dal Lake, Kashmir.