Horrible Srinigar

Good Morning Srinigar! - Daal Lake, Srinigar

We woke up early morning to start our day by heading to Gulmarg. Gulmarg is a mountain resort in Kashmir that is situated about 60 km from where we were staying. The drive is about two hours. But before we got on our way it was early enough to catch all the action on the lake as the day started. There were parents taking their kids across the lake to let them go to school, farmers selling their stock, and genral commute back and forth on the lake. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Dropping the kids off at school is physically demanding here - Daal Lake, Srinigar

Mother returning from mainland after dropping her kids off - Daal Lake, Srinigar

A tired farmer trying to prove his stock is worth the price he's asking for - Daal Lake, Srinigar

A tired farmer, desperate to sell his stock - Daal Lak, Srinigar

After a while we were all set to go, but my dad started feeling quite sick. After five minutes on our drive to Srinigar, we had to pull over so he could throw up. The brother of the travel agent suggested we go to a chemist, which loosely translates to a pharmacist/doctor over in Canada. The chemist gave my dad some antibiotics and a few antacid tablets. We started our drive again.

Yesterday I saw the nice part of Srinigar. I quickly realized the "developed" part was just outside the Airport with fancy houses and shining windows. The Srinigar we drove through was very much old India. One lane narrow roads through busy streets with little maintenance being done. In retrospect I should have taken a lot more photos but was advised not to by the driver because there was of course an army officer always stationed every 50 m complete with good intimidation techniques and heavy weapon presence (AK 47 and tanks with huge chain guns). The drive to Gulmarg was interesting to say the least. The road was narrow and winding with a few potholes here and there.

My first impression when we first arrived at Gulmarg was wow... that's disgusting. No wait, a better a description would be Banff covered in plastic bottles, horse shit, plastic bags, and sewage all in one. Some resort... The shanti hotels barely resembled at best a very low class hostel and the stench was putrid. The mountain was covered in heavy fog and the elevation was 1700 m according to my tissot.

There are apparently only two things you can do at Gulmarg. One is to take the Gondola up and the other is to take a horse ride around. As soon as we stepped out of the car 5 horse sheparders surrounded us insisting we go for a horse ride. From this pack, our guide, who was the house worker for the travel agent's brother, Bilal, deemed one that was allowed to chat with us. Of course, he was good friends with him. The sheparder was a jerk and couldn't take "no we're not interested" as an answer. He kept insisting that there was nothing up on the gondola and it was a waste of money. He finally let us go, and another sheparder jumped at the chance to swoon us as we walked towards the Gondola. He just wouldn't leave us alone and finally my dad gave in. And so, we were all put on horses and followed a vehicle road up a little hill, away from the gondola towards the back area of Gulmarg.

Apparently, the area was used for the filming of Mission Kashmir (Hindi Movie) and is also the border between Kashmir and Independant Kashmir. Independant Kashmir being the Pakistani owned Kashmir. There are quite a few surprise attacks that occur from just over the border behind the trees.

Not too much to see at Gulmarg

My horse was too small for me and it was definitely not helping my stomach upsetdness. My sis desperately needed to go to the washroom so we started heading towards a kids park where there was suppsoed to be clean toilets. Along the way we stopped and one of our sheparders hit my horse in the face to make him go. The horse went too fast and in the opposite direction and I slipped off. I clung on for dear life as the saddle snapped of the horse. Before I hit the ground one of the sheperdards caught me. I got lucky otherwise I would have been covered in mud and horse shit. They gave me a new horse and we arrived at the kids park. You had to pay to get in and the place wasn't as great as they promised. There was nothing actually. The washrooms were really dingy and my sister was incredibly frustrated that she couldn't pee. So we travelled to the next washrooms which were porta pottys. Lol, she definitely wasn't going in there. Finally they headed towards the golf club while I stayed on my horse. One of the sheparders asked me how much my watch costed. I lied and told him I didn't know. I saw the look in his eyes.

Lonely Sheppard - Gulmarg, Srinigar

Horse Sheppards - Gulmarg, Srinigar

We finally got back to our car and we took a couple of pictures with the sheparders. I tried some egg fried rice at the local restaurant while Bilal, our useless guide ate our packed lunch because we refused to eat Kasmiri food. It wasn't treating us well. Egg fried rice with kashmiri style of cooking isn't so good.

Kashmiri Carpet Store - Srinigar

Carpets Galore - Srinigar

We headed back to Srinigar and it was already pretty late in the afternoon. My parents decided to check out one more carpet place and we ended up liking the guys because we could barter with them. They bought two kashmiri carpets both quite exquisite silk on silk. The salesperson asked us not to tell the travel agent's brother that we bought from them, otherwise they would charge heavy commission for referring us to them. And so it all began to unravel what the kashmiri trip was all about. We then headed back to the boathouse and the travel agent insisted that we talk to a jeweller to see real kashmiri jewellery. The guy was stupid. I think by this point, I was getting fed up with India because everyone is connected and everyone refers toursists to everyone else to see how much money they can make them spend.

Silk on Silk Carpet - Srinigar

With that, I went to sleep. I don't ever want to come back to Srinigar or visit houseboats again. I honestly felt that this part of the trip was a complete waste and I definitely will not refer those travel agents back in Delhi to anyone. Pshaw!

Night sets on Daal Lake

To be fair though, Kashmir is always under constant attack and I guess if you've grown up with that lifestyle day in and day out you do what you can to survive. Just because I have harsh words to say about Srinigar it doesn't mean anyone else shouldn't check it out. It's a beautiful landscape; if only it wasn't under a constant tug of war between two nations, it could be great. Why can't we all just get along?

Sunset at Daal Lake - Simple beauty of Srinigar (I would come back if only to witness this again)