The Kashmir Diary: An
Unforgettable tour to the Heaven itself!
(1st Sept. - 3rd
sept. 13)
Travelling, exploring and experiencing how the people at different
places on the same earth live, is so addictive that once you start you cannot
stop. Kashmir had been in my ‘to visit
for sure’ list since long. I had planned it so many times, but every time
there would be some issues to put dust on my plans. But this time, Kashmir
called; just a casual talk over phone with my college friend Angmo from Leh,
when I asked her “Toh Kashmir kab ghuma
rahi hai tu?” and her quick reply,” Abhi
Aaja” made my adrenaline rush through my whole system. I said, “Are you sure?” She guessed from my tone
that I was serious, so she said that she will check out the situation in the
valley and then get back to me. I prayed for the situation to be normal, as few
days back there were some disturbances which led to curfew in the valley. And yes,
my prayer got answered. She called while I was in Macloedganj during my Triund
trek, saying everything was alright and we can go ahead with the trip. My elder
sister and niece showed their concern when they came to know that I would be
travelling alone from Chandigarh to Jammu. But to find a company was quite an
issue for me at that time of the year, when all my friends were occupied with
this and that in their own world. Still I called randomly to some of my
friends, and at last it was Annie, who was there in Chandigarh to attend one of
her friend’s marriage. As the wedding was on 30th Aug., I had to
postpone the trip till 31st Aug. and informed Angmo about the same,
who was also travelling with one of her friend, Sonam from Leh to Srinagar. So
we were all set for the ‘Mission Kashmir’!
To visit Kashmir was one of my childhood dreams; the epithet ‘Heaven on
earth’, the fight between India and Pak for its occupation, various folktales
associated with it, the talks of its beauty by millions and ongoing news of
this and that, made this land quite mysterious to my little eyes, which I
wished to witness in person. So here goes the account of our little trip. J
We boarded the bus to Jammu at
9:00 pm on 31st night, which left around 9:30 pm and reached Jammu
by 4:50 am on 1st September, in the morning. We hired taxi from
Jammu to Srinagar; it was a shared taxi which charged Rs. 600/- per person. The
driver informed us that it will take 8 hrs to reach Srinagar. Our mobile phones
had already gone out of network.
(DAY-1: 1st Sept. 13)
We left Jammu at around 6:00 am
as the taxi waited for few more passengers to accommodate. And the drive was one of the awesome; driving
through a lot of curves, witnessing sun rise, the orange and yellow rays of
which played hide and seek through the trees and small mounts. The city of
Jammu looked beautiful from a distant hill rise. The valley of Jammu was quite
peculiar in its own way; low lying hills, which was quite expanded and spacious
and the drive was good as the condition of roads were better than ours at some
parts of Himachal, plus the driver played Kishore ji’s songs, which along with
the beautiful scenery outside, was quite a treat to our day dreaming senses.
The taxi stopped at Sarmola where we
got fresh and had our breakfast. After that the drive got quite sleepy, as all
the passengers dozed off to another world, until the driver stopped at Kud, to get some sweets, as later we
came to know from Angmo that the sweets at Kud were famous of the valley.
After Kud, again we got our eyes
to witness the beautiful scenery; the low lying hills got higher and higher
till we reached a top, called Patnitop, a
famous hill station of the valley, from where again the descend started,
following same pattern of curves. Our eyes became wider, out of excitement when
we were entering a long tunnel (Nehru tunnel). Oops! The tunnel was longest we
had ever seen. It was 2500 mtrs long, and that was just awesome! We loved that.
From there started the Kashmir
Valley, Srinagar being 85 kms from there. And the whole scenario changed all of
a sudden, when we saw check posts at every few meters, and army people and army
trucks became common sights. There was peace but still no peace. We saw girls,
very few of them, walking with their heads covered and looking down. A sudden
odd feeling erupted in my heart.
We halted at Qazigund, for lunch at 1:30 pm, and had Rajma Chawal at one of the
restaurants. We called Angmo from the driver’s phone, informing her about our
arrival at Qazigund from where Srinagar was still 69 kms. She told us to get
down at TRC i.e. tourist receptions centre once we reach Srinagar.
Angmo had already got everything arranged as she had the privilege of
her Uncle being posted there on a reputed position. Two rooms had already been
booked at TRC itself. We checked in by 3:50 pm, got fresh and had tea and the
four of us (Angmo, Sonam, Annie and Nawi) set out for our mission Dal Lake, which was at a walking
distance from TRC. From the condition of Market, the crowd and the polluted water
at the tail of Dal Lake, we expected very little from Dal lake excursion, but
in fact we got more than expected.
The houseboats, the shikharas, the Lotuses, the markets on boats;
everything on water, wow! A world within a world; it was quite fantastic and
wonder to our eyes and senses. Peace prevailed throughout the lake. We hired a
shikhara, which charged us Rs. 500/- and took us around for quite a long ride.
The lake was one of never ending. The shikhara man was very polite and co-operative,
as well as patient to bear us “a bunch of hooligans’. Lol. We stopped at Nehru
Park and couple of shops. Angmo bought 2 pcs. Of Kasmiri shawls for Rs. 3500/-
from one of the shops. Our eyes were wonderstruck and our lips mumbling ‘wow’
wow’ when we looked closely at the carvings of the houseboats. We kept asking
questions from the shikhara uncle, who replied politely with whatever knowledge
he had.
We came out of the lake by 8:30 pm and went to a nearby restaurant
‘Stream Restaurant’, had our dinner and were back to the rooms by 10:30 pm.
(DAY-1 was awesome; felt the magic Kashmir offered)
(DAY-2: 2nd
sept. 13)
“Keep your expectations low, and
then only you’ll get more than you expected kind of thing.”
We didn’t expect our tour to be that much easy, comfortable and
beautiful. But contrary did happen. Angmo’s uncle’s driver came on time as it had
been already arranged by her uncle. We were touring around so comfortably and
almost free of cost, feeling like princesses that we ourselves envied us for
our good luck; esp. me and Annie. Lol
The cab picked us up at 9:30 am. The driver, named Mr. Altaf was a
middle aged man belonging to Kashmir itself. We had our breakfast at TRC itself
and left at around 9:40 for ‘mission
Gulmarg’, which was almost 40 kms from Srinagar. The road to Gulmarg itself
was a beauty, which received our admiration with every ‘Wow’. After travelling
from long, straight and beautiful roads, we reached at Tangmarg, from where there was diversion for Gulmarg, an upward
ascent of almost 12-13 kms, climbing through the beautiful, wide, curvy roads, echoing
with our ‘wow’ wow’, we reached Gulmarg at around 11:30 am. And heaven! The
entry to the land, made us all speechless. Could such a beauty exist on earth?
It was unbelievable! Our eyes became wider and wider, and our ‘wow’ got struck
at our throat. We had no words, for we felt like ‘we had entered the real
heaven’. Hmm.
Driving through the lush green and clean areas, still rising up and
up, eyeing on different areas, beautiful bungalows, colorful flowers, good
horses, lots of tourists, finally our cab stopped at Gondola station.
‘Gondola is the name given to
electric cable cars (sort of lifts), made on French lines. Riding it takes us
to the topmost point, from where we can have full view of the valley.’
The driver uncle arranged the tickets for us for the Gondola ride. It
had two phases, each of 2.50 kms distance. The phase-1 was up to Kongdori peak, at 3050 mts above msl,
from where we could enjoy the scenic beauty of Gulmarg, and phase -2 stopped at
Apharwat peak, which was at 13500 ft bove msl, where there was no
vegetation, but for a mighty mount, full of mighty rocks. The ride was
beautiful and thrilling. Our ‘wow’ became countless, for we all had no words to
describe the beauty and express our feelings, but to feel deeply and wonder at
the creators’ magic.
At Apharwat top, we encountered
many local tourists’ wooers and I warn you, “Beware
of them!” Lol . They kind of were befooling the tourists. It was cold up
there, but it was bearable for a few minutes or hours of excursion. But some of
the hawkers came offering us jackets, saying we might get cold and sick if we
intended to trek up to the top. Some of them came with horses, offering us a
ride to LOC, and to the Snow line for Rs. 500/- per head. Some of them tried to
rent us long boots, if we wished to walk on the snow, saying,” you cannot walk on snow in your floaters”.
But we ignored all of them and decided to ascend and explore on our own, and we
kept moving up. We could see a board on the top, in green color which we
assumed would be the LOC. We kept climbing up and up with a resolve, at least
to touch the board. And stumbling through the rocks; climbing, jumping from one
piece of rock to another and clicking pictures of surrounding views as well as
posing ourselves at our best, we reached quite higher, when at last we
encountered one army man standing there with a gun. He had got his face fully
covered. At a distance of around 500 mtrs, we could see another soldier in same
position. Some of the tourists joined us, who were finding it difficult to
climb up as they were not used to mountains, being themselves from the plains
of Delhi. Annie and I walked ahead and talked to the soldier. We asked him
about the LOC, which he said was at around 15 kms distance from there, and
moreover we were not allowed to go there. It was here that for the first time
we caught up the hawkers lies, who promised to ride us on horses till LOC, as
the soldier said,” they befooled you just
to make some penny.” We couldn’t help but laugh. LOL but we also felt a
little disappointed for being not able to see LOC.
We stood there for a couple of
minutes more, talking with the soldier. He told us about the situation there,
as of why their faces were covered and why we cannot click their pictures, and
how they missed their family.
“Your life must be one of the toughest!” we tried to empathize. But
he seemed happy and contented, for he was serving his country, which meant
everything to him. And our hearts went to all those, who just for the sake of
nation, let go of their own individual needs and desires, protecting the
borders, so that we all could sleep soundly. We sighed, wished him luck and
started trekking down with different feelings /mixed emotions rushing in our
systems.
From the top the lush green, or
to quote myself “the dark-2 green”
view of the valley was a real magic, with the hide and seek game of sun and big
chunks of white sheets of rising clouds, making it more beautiful, mysterious
and heavenlier.
Then Annie and I went down to the snow point, on our left, while Angmo
and Sonam left for the Gondola station, where our driver uncle had been waiting
for us. A little sheet of snow or a
little glacier we would say was left which itself was covered with black dust,
and thank god we hadn’t hired the long boots, the hawkers had to offer as there
was no point walking on the snow. We clicked some pictures and then returned to
the station.
We had our lunch at one of the restaurants at Gulmarg at 2:30 pm. Then
we went to Shiva temple at Gulmarg
itself, where the famous song ‘Jay jay
shiv shankar’ was shooted, as per driver uncles’ account.
Then we started our return journey, with all satisfied hearts and from
those hearts ceaselessly admiring the creator of Kashmir. True were the words
of Emperor Jahangir, who admired the
beauty of Kashmir in his own words, “Gar
firdaus ruhe zamin ast, hamin ast hamin ast, hamin ast!” (If there is
heaven on earth, it’s here, it’s here, it’s here) No more words to add, for we
were speechless! Hmm.
After reaching Srinagar, we went to Mughal garden ‘Chashme Shahi’ and it was another beautiful Heaven, with
different varieties of flowers and lush green surroundings, neatly and well
maintained, and its main attraction, from which it got the name, was crystal
clear spring water flowing beautifully. We all admired and filled our bottles
and quenched our thirsts from that water. We rested there for an hour and then
returned to TRC, thus closing our second day on a satisfactory note.
(Day-3: 3rd
Aug. 13)
We, the four of us, were up and
ready by 9:15 am, and we decided to have our breakfast outside as we all wanted
to have paranthas, whereas the TRC had to offer us bread omelets only. We
enquired from the caretaker uncle about a good restaurant to eat, and we ended up
at Krishna Dhaba, which was the most
famous of the area, just at the back of TRC at walking distance of 10 mnts. We
had Alu paranthas and curd there, which we all relished, making yummy faces and
with a resolve to come back again, either for lunch or dinner.
The driver uncle picked us up from Krishna dhaba itself, and we set
for our first mission of the day ‘the Shankaracharya
temple’, located at a peak (Hari
Parbat), and which was Annie’s heart’s wish to go and take blessings there.
The security was very tight there, due to its vulnerability. We were stopped at
many points. The security checking at the gate of the temple was even tighter; we
were not allowed to take our mobile phones and cameras, which we had to leave
in the cab only, and we were checked from head to toe.
The temple was still higher,
located at the top, with steep rising steps made for the yatris. I kept
counting the steps, while ascending and it was only 247 steps, though we felt it
was more than 500.
The temple seemed quite old, made by some Raja, dedicated to Lord
Shiva, in the memory of Shankaracharya, whose meditation cell was still there
intact. Inside the temple was a ‘Linga’ which was the biggest of what I had
seen till then. It would have been 3-4 ft tall as I assumed. After paying
obeisance, we took a round of the temple, from where we had a nice beautiful
view of the entire Srinagar city, which seemed thickly inhabited. We descended
down quickly as we had no cameras with us to make good use of our time. LOL.
Crazy we were!
Then uncle drove us to Dalgate,
near hotel grand, where we were to have motorboat ride, as pre-booked by
Angmo’s uncle, including lunch at a houseboat in the lake itself. To you guys,
I say,”Please don’t envy us, for we had
envied ourselves a lot.” (Wink wink)
The motorboat ride was the awesomest , I tell you. The never ending
Dal Lake offered a lot to amaze and amuse us. We reached and explored all the
places in the lake, where the shikhara ride could not take us or we couldn’t
have made it due to time constraint. But 2-3 hours ride on motorboat, we could
have maximum out of it. We passed through Lotus
gardens, Char Chinar, Floating gardens, Hazratbal shrine, vegetable market, Nagin lake and many more, passing through
many bridges, big or small, admiring the beauty of every inch of the lake, taking pictures, shouting hellos to school children on bridges, and waving them goodbyes. It was just A-Awesome. We all blew a satisfactory sigh.
After all the sight-seeing, we stopped at a Houseboat, owned by one Mr. Altaaf, which was marvelously made inside-out. Everything in the houseboat was wooden and hand crafted. Mr. altaaf told us that the houseboat was built before he was born, i.e more than 40 yrs. We couldn’t resist taking out our cameras and doing the needful. : P
“You are very lucky to be part of the real Jannat. How does it feel to
be part of it?” I asked Mr. Altaaf.
His reply indicated that though the place was heaven, people living
there were simple human beings with simple human needs, when he said,” for us, it is Jannat, when we have good
business and be able to feed
ourselves, otherwise its all the same.” And true he was, for most of the
Kashmiris survive and make their living out of tourism only. We couldn’t
comment further. So, after lunch and having some light conversations with Mr.
Altaaf, we thanked him for his hospitality and left. The motorboat driver
dropped us to the same point from where we boarded it. We thanked him too for
the lovely and memorable ride and for showing all the places patiently and for
offering us lotuses and garlands of lilies, and most importantly for tolerating
us for our craziness. Angmo was quick to offer him Rs. 150/- as a token of
thanks, which he denied but had to accept after our constant insistence.
Then we drove for our next
destination, another Mughal garden ‘Nishant
Garden’, famous floral garden, made by Asaf Jha. It had a variety of
beautiful flowers, lined beautifully. As we were so tired by that time, so we
sat down under shade and rested there for a while. Then we explored the nearby
Nishant shopping complex, from where Angmo and Sonam did some shopping, whereas
Annie and I relished some Maggi and tea.
With this, our third day of the
tour ended, and it was also A-Awesome. We wished to go to Shalimar garden,
another famous Mughal garden, but couldn’t make it as it was closed due to some
ongoing issues. But never mind, we had a satisfactory 3-day ‘Kashmir tour’. J
We packed our bags and left for our respective routines on 4th
August, and reached Chandigarh on the morning of 5th Aug., after
travelling continuously for 17 hours.
While travelling back, I had many
questions arising in my mind for the beauty of Kashmir, which had become kind of
curse for the people living there, due to over-ambitions of some of the people
on authority. Cannot Kashmir be independent? Can it ever breathe fresh air? Can
the innocent people out there ever live as their heart’s desire? I just pray
for a miracle to happen. The Kashmir tour was one of the most memorable
experiences of my tours till now, and I recommend everyone to ‘Visit Kashmir
for sure before you die’. Thank you : Nawi
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