On September 26 in Kargil we checked out the travel situation to Srinigar in Kashmir. We had been uncertain whether we would be able to travel safely to Kashmir, as there has been violence in the valley all summer. Over 100 Kashmiris have been killed by the Indian security forces in Kashmir since June. The Kashmiris, mostly boys and young men, throw rocks and the security forces shoot back. Curfews are often imposed. But everyone we talked to in Kargil, including people from Srinigar, encouraged us to go. We left Kargil for Srinigar in a jeep with three others at 2, in order to travel the final leg through the valley at night, when the rock throwers are confined to their homes by the curfew. Actually, we really got going about 2:30 as there was a big traffic jam just out of town, including perhaps 50 army trucks, and many other trucks and other vehicles. Just north of town is the junction of the Drass and Suru Rivers, and a bridge that leads to Pakistani Kashmir only a mile or so away. We followed the Drass upriver through a narrow valley, with lots of military encampments and memorials along the road to fallen soldiers. Signs warned us that "You are under enemy observation." The Pakistani lines are just north of the Drass and about 10 years ago the Pakistanis made an incursion and were repulsed by the Indians, with the loss of thousands of lives, I've been told.
We followed the Drass up past the camps and memorials and a village or two till the valley widened, with trees and agriculture before we arrived at the town of Drass about 4:30. We had a tea stop there till 5, with views of pyramidal, snow-capped Tiger Hill, where fighting took place in 1999. After Drass the valley scenery became much more dramatic, with rocky, snow-capped mountains on either side that seemed to rise almost vertically. We crossed the Zoji La (Pass) at 11,600 feet at about 6:30. The view on the other side was quite dramatic, with three long switchbacks leading down into another valley, which was almost 2000 feet below. Unfortunately, the light was fading, so we made the three long switchbacks down for the most part in the dark. It was quite a narrow road, too, with lots of trucks. I'm surprised the jeep drivers don't leave a littler earlier so they can do that road down the pass in the daylight. Hundreds of trucks were parked along the side of the road, in several different places. That, and the oncoming trucks, made getting down difficult. But we reached the town of Sonamarg, at about 9000 feet about 8, and had a 40 minute dinner stop, for some greasy mutton and rice. The last two hour drive to Srinigar was pretty strange, with almost no traffic but a few trucks and our group of three or four jeeps. In the towns we passed all the shops were shut, with shutters down, and I don't think I saw more than 10 people on the streets, and most of those were at police checks on the way. Entering Srinigar, we passed Dal Lake on its eastern shore and our jeep took us to a hotel just southwest of the lake. We had to wake the proprietor to get in, as everything on the street was shut. I took a shower and got to bed just after midnight.
The next morning there was some, but not a lot of activity on the street near our hotel. We got out about 8 to look for a houseboat. When the British first came to Srinigar they were not allowed to buy land, so begin to stay on houseboats on the lake, which has become a tradition. There are more than 1400 of them now, I've read. The streets nearby had quite a few troops with batons and rifles, and checkpoints with concertina wire. There were Kashmiris on the street, though. We walked to the Houseboat Association office and there met Mohammed Taba, who took us in a jeep to his houseboat, a trip that again took us along the east side of Dal Lake and then to Nagin Lake, just northwest of Dal Lake. There we met his brother Habib and looked over their sumptuous boat, the Palace Heights. It is 105 feet long, 15-20 feet wide, and filled with beautiful furniture, of walnut for the most part, Kashmiri rugs and cedar carved wood interiors. There were easy chairs, tables and a desk and even a television and a refrigerator. It had three bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, a dining room, a sitting room and a balcony off the back. It was definitely a deluxe class houseboat, and we got it for about $15/day each, which included breakfast and dinner. Tourism has been hit hard by the disturbances in the valley, and it definitely is a buyer's market. In fact, I saw only one other western tourist the entire time I was in Srinigar.
We had breakfast in the boat's dining room and then rather than go back to our hotel by jeep to pick up our things, we took a shikara, a gondala-type boat with a canopy. We were paddled across Nagin Lake and through the waterways connecting it to the southwest extention of Dal Lake, passing houses and farms and other shikaras on the way. It was quite an interesting trip as we lounged on the boat. At the southwestern part of Dal Lake are hundreds of houseboats, and this was where I had stayed in 1979. Habib and Mohammed said they moved their houseboats (they have six) to Nagin from Dal to avoid the congestion, and it is much less congested on Nagin than on Dal Lake. It was quite different in 1979. The build up of hotels along the lake since 1979 is quite disappointing. We docked and got our stuff and then were paddled back to our houseboat, another beautiful trip, each way taking an hour and twenty minutes or so. There don't seem to be any motor boats on the lakes and waterways, which is nice.
Back on the boat, we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, mostly on the balcony on the rear. It was beautiful on the lake, and very peaceful. Sunset was just after 6 and it was great to watch the lake grow dark. The mosques' calls to prayer began soon after sunset and echoed across the lake, with some of the romance that I remember when I first heard them in Istanbul 30 years or more ago. Now I have to admit I mostly find them irritating, especially early in the morning. Unfortunately, they amplify them, usually on pretty poor sound systems and they amplify not only the call to prayer but the continued wailing of the guy leading the prayers, which can go on for a long while. Venus set in the west about an hour after the sun, and another planet (Jupiter? Saturn?) rose brightly over the high mountains to the east. We had an okay dinner on the boat.
I got out about 7 on the balcony to watch the lake in the early morning. The sun rose over the high mountains just east of Dal Lake a little after 7. There were kingfishers, with irridescent blue backs, herons, hawks, small red-faced ducks, some other type of duck, and other birds on the lake. Fishermen on canoes sat patiently fishing, catching fish about a foot long. There is a lot of green duck weed on the lake, appearing only over the past 7 or 8 years, I was told. It is bright green and said to help cleanse the lakes, which are fed by springs. The water is quite clear.
Kirsty left after breakfast, to fly to Jammu, as she had to leave India in less than a week, and Phil and I left about 10:30 on a shikara ride that took us, after more than two hours, across Nagin and Dal Lakes to the eastern shore near Shalimar Bagh (Gardens), built by the Mogul Emperor Jehangir in the early 17th century for his wife, Nur Jahan. The gardens had beautiful flowers, fountains and a somewhat derelict pavilion with the remants of a fine painted ceiling. We spent about half an hour looking around and then walked a short distance to have tea with the boatman's brother's father-in-law, a very friendly gentleman. We then took the shikara south along the eastern shore to another Mogul garden, Nishat Bagh. It is right on the lake, but not as nice as Shalimar Bagh, I think. The long trip back took an hour and a half, into the setting sun. We got back to the houseboat just after sunset, at 6:15.
The next morning Phil and I walked into the old town, southwest of Nagin Lake. We left about 11 and it took us an hour or so to get there. There weren't many shops open, though there were pedestrians and cars on the streets. There were quite a few police with rifles and batons, and roadblocks with concertina wire. Nobody stopped us and the people were friendly. There were posters of Khomeini, Khameini, Achmadinejad and Nasrulllah (the Lebanese Hezbollah leader) along the way, in what was obviously a Shia part of town. Most Kashmiris, I've read, are Sufis, a gentler form of Islam. We also saw "Go Back India" and "Go Back Indian Dogs" graffitti.
We passed through an old city gate built by Akbar, who conquered the valley for the Moguls in the 16th century, and up to a ruined 17th century mosque and a Sufi shrine just below the massive fort (closed to the public as the army still uses it) that sits on a hill above the town. The Sufi shrine, with graves of two Sufi holy men, was very nice, with friendly people. One man had a goat, which peed and then pooped on the carpet. I saw a woman scoop up the poop, but didn't stick around to see what happened to the goat pee.
The giant Jama Masjid was closed but we did visit a couple of other Sufi shrines and mosques, one of which, the Shah-i-Hamadan, was quite beautiful, with papier mache decoration inside and out. We stopped by the Rozabal Tomb, claimed by some to be that of Jesus, with a sign quoting the Koran about how Jesus was not crucified. The streets became quite full and most shops were open as the afternoon progressed and we wandered the narrow streets of the old town. At the last mosque we visited two friendly little girls showed us their dyed hands. We got back to the houseboat just after sunset and on the way back the roadblocks and soldiers were gone. We did see a bunch of them boarding buses at one location.
We spent the next day relaxing on the boat, planning to leave the next day. But the next day was a Friday (when demonstrations often occur after Friday prayer service) and the day after the High Court in Uttar Pradesh State had issued a decision about the future use of the site of the Ayodhya Mosque, which was destroyed in 1992 by Hindu activists claiming it was built on the site of a former Hindu temple where Rama was born. Habib said the authorities were expecting trouble, had imposed a curfew and no jeeps were going to Jammu, our next destination. So we spent the day on the houseboat. We did leave about 1 to walk to the nearby Hazratbal Mosque, a gleaming white 20th century construction on the shore of Dal Lake, to see the Friday prayers. There was a security check, with police frisking people. I was told there would have been many more worshippers there but for the curfew. We infidels weren't allowed into the mosque, so contented ourselves with watching all the activity outside. Afterwards, we watched a man making big paranthas, about two feet wide. He flattened out the dough on a wide disk and then tossed it into a vat of oil for about a minute. I had about half of one with some delicious pumpkin filling. It was all delicious, but greasy. Nearby, I had some potatoes (French fries) and peas and onions fried in batter. Perhaps not the most healthy meal.
We spent the next day, too, on the houseboat, Habib told us the curfew was still on and no jeeps were going to Jammu. We were beginning to wonder if that were true or if he just wanted to keep us paying customers on his houseboat. Still, it was very pleasant on the houseboat, watching the morning and late afternoon activity. It is chilly in the mornings, with temperatures in the 50's. Srinigar is at about 5700 feet. I watched three fishermen just beyond our boat that last morning. One guy caught eight fish in a little less than an hour, while the others caught none. One guy gave up and moved to another part of the lake.
We did leave the next morning. Habib took us in his jeep through town past several check points where he had to show his pass and I had to explain we were going to catch a jeep to Jammu. The police were not uniformly friendly. We boarded the jeep (already with several other passengers) about 7:15 and set off for Jammu. We saw hundreds of police as we traveled south through the Vale of Kashmir, mostly concentrated in the towns but also along the road in the rural areas. Also, about ten buses were carrying troops south. It took us a couple of hours to reach the mountains at the southern end of the valley, passing lots of wheat fields being harvested. We had a breakfast stop at a little town and then went into the mountains and through the Jawaharlal Nehru Tunnel, at about 7500 feet. We passed through mountainous scenery thereafter for several hours, going along the Chenab River for a time. We passed very large flocks of sheep and goats, herded by fierce-looking mountain people in shaggy beards and clothes, wearing turbans and with very dark, sun-burnt faces. They move their flocks from high mountains pastures to lower regions this time of year, and it takes some time to pass the flocks on the narrow mountain roads. There were still troops along the road, but fewer than in the Vale of Kashmir. We climbed another mountain pass, with pines along the route, and finally reached predominantly Hindu rather than Moslem villages on the other side. We continued through hilly country until we reached Jammu about 4:45, nine and a half hours after our departure from Srinigar. We found a hotel and then went to the main Hindu temple in town, the Rajunath Mandir, with thousands of ammonites (one guy told us 33,000,000, but I don't think there were quite that many) encased in cement in rooms around the main temple. It was nice in there, but with a little too much bell ringing. Jammu is mostly Hindu, Kashmir mostly Moslem and Ladakh mostly Buddhist, so there are some that want to split the state along these lines (especially the Ladakhis).
We left the next morning a little before 8 on a bus bound for Chamba. First, we crossed the flatlands between Jammu and Pathankot and then headed back into the hills on a very curvy road lined with wildflowers. Jammu and Pathankot are both only a little more than a thousand feet in elevation, and we climbed to more than 5000 feet before descending and traveling along the Ravi River, now dammed, with a big reservoir beneath steep brown mountains. We got passed the reservoir, crossed the now whitewater river and climbed the cliff above it to reach the town of Chamba, on a bluff several hundred feet above the river, at about 3200 feet elevation. We arrived about 5, after another nine hour trip. Chamba is one of India's oldest kingdoms, dating from the 10th century. In the center of the town is a large grassy area called the Chowgan, where townspeople gather to meet and talk, or to exercise, or to play soccer or field hockey. I didn't see anybody playing cricket, though, which is the sport you see most often in India. Above the Chowgan is the white former palace, dating from the 18th century, of the former maharajah. It's now a college. Also above the Chowgan is an even earlier red palace, smaller and stouter.
The next morning we looked around town. Early on, the Chowgan was filled with soccer players and people doing morning callisthenics. After breakfast, we walked up the narrow medieval lanes above the Chowgan to a series of six temples, called "hut-style temples" that rise to maybe 3 or 4 stories. The oldest dates from the 11th century and they had some good stone carvings on them. We went into the now quite dilapidated former palaces and up to three other temples on the mountainside above the town, with great views below of the town, the river, and the surrounding mountains. After lunch, we visited quite a good museum, with some wall paintings from the old palace and many of the miniature paintings that India is famous for, especially during the Mogul period. The ones in the museum were mostly from the Chamba school, which was particularly active during this time. There were also some great photographs of Chamba a hundred years ago and more.
About 2:30 we left on a crowded bus heading further up the valley, to Bharmour, about 40 miles away. The road was narrow and dusty, and the scenery became quite dramatic as we got further up the valley, although marred by recent hydroelectric building. At one point we had to wait about 20 minutes while a bulldozer cleared away a landslide. You could see where an entire hillside had given way, leaving a long slide of rock ready to slip further down at any time. The rock slide went all the way to the river's edge. In the river below the slide was an orange truck, a victim of the slide. After the bulldozer cleared the way, we hurried past the slide area.
We reached the junction of the Budhil and Ravi Rivers about 8 miles before Bharmour and made our way on a road cut into the rock above the high, narrow gorge of the Budhil. The road was cut into the rock in such a way that the rock hung over the road in places. The valley widened a bit and there were remarkably steep agricultural terraces built into the very steep mountainsides. I don't think I've ever seen such steep terraces, even in the Andes. Bharmour, which we reached just after 6 and just before dark, is in a beautiful location. We checked into a surprisingly good hotel and walked up to the temple area at the top of the town. There are several temples, most of the same style as in Chamba, and some dating from the 7th century. Bharmour was the capital of the Chamba principality before the town of Chamba became the capital. We watched the local people praying at the temples and talked to the inquisitive children. The temples are set in the midst of a wide plaza, and off to one side was a huge flock (I would say 300-400) sheep and goats, tended by mountains folk. They culled the littlest lambs and took them off, perhaps to a warmer place to spend the night. I was surprised to see such a large group of animals near the temples, but I've read that these temples are the main place of worship for these herdsmen. About 8, after most of the shops had closed on the lane from the temples down past our hotel to the road out of town, I heard and saw the goats and sheep being driven down that lane.
Bharmour is at about 7000 feet and it was chilly the next morning when I walked up to the temples at 7:30. There were a few worshippers in the early morning and I watched a priest open one of the temples with a smoky censor and prayers. The sun came up over the steep mountain to the east before 8 and I took a walk to the eastern end of town, with great views up the narrow valley. An old man was smoking a water pipe in front of his wooden home. Another man was shelling peas and invited me into his nice home to have a cup of tea, with milk he told me he had milked from his cow half an hour before.
I came back to the temple area, now filled with school kids ready for school. Some were very inquisitive and friendly. There were no other foreigners around. There were several varieties of school uniforms on display. The schools started at 10, and we watched two groups of schoolkids line up in the temple plaza for their opening ceremonies. There were chants and speeches and singing. At one point they raised their arms straight out in a sort of fascist-style salute and recited patriotic slogans. Then they marched off to school.
We had a late breakfast and then caught the noon bus back to Chamba, though now I wish I had spent the day in Bharmour,a very nice town. After another crowded but scenic journey, we got back to Chamba about 3:15 and boarded the 3:30 bus to Banikhet, retracing our journey in part from Pathankot. We got to Banikhet about 5:45 and boarded the bus to Dalhousie, only about 4 miles away, arriving about 6. Dalhousie is a former hill station, established in the 1850's to escape the summer heat of the plains, like Shimla and other places. It is named after the Governor General of the time. It is at about 6500 feet, with steep hillsides covered in pine, oak and rhododendrun. We made a steep hike to a pretty good hotel and then looked around a bit in the dark. There are lots of Indian tourists here, but few foriegners. It was the major hill station for Lahore, but since partition and Lahore's placement in Pakistan it has been less visited and so is a relatively quiet place. Still, it is said to have over a hundred hotels, some of them from the colonial days.
I spent the next day walking around, with some great views over the thickly forrested steep mountainsides. I visited several old hotels and took a walk out of town a mile and a half or so to a memorial to freedom fighters. It was a lovely walk. It was very sunny in the morning, although with haze, but clouded up in the afternoon, with clouds drifting up the mountainsides. It is quite a pleasant place.
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