Day 3 /4 Srinagar - Gulmarg 13/09/2012

Srinagar has a very strong Muslim community which lead to a rather poor nights sleep on the house boat. Upon alighting my room in the morning I 'bumped into' the manager again who tried again to insist the importance of booking his proposed itinerary, I was reluctant due to the cost which seemed excessive. Shortly after I bumped into a couple of lads staying a couple of boats down who promptly informed me of the managers infamy in Srinagar for being a vicious profiteer. We met up with another house boat tenant called Pascal who joined us for a jaunt into the city proper. The Kashmir&Jammu province is a tumultuous place due to political unrest which is caused by a movement of people who desire independence from the rest of India. I include this in my blog as on our walk to town we came across a unarmed protest against the police/military which was an unexpected first hand experience into this ongoing unrest in this the northernmost province of India. That morning I joined with the fellow travellers and managed to make an identical itinerary as was offered to me for 7 times less with a group to boot! The gentleman who helped us make the arrangements was a really nice guy and he told us the owners of the house boats we were staying in were well known as rip off artists he referred to them as ' sister fuckers'. After this was achieved we took a leisurely trip around Dal lake on Shakar (boat) displaying the sheer extent of the lake and its importance to the people of Srinagar.

The next day we took a private car to the town of Gulmarg which is situated in the mountains near the boarder of Afghanistan. The name means meadow path and is an oasis in a bowl at between mountains and boasts 'the worlds highest gondola. The route to Gulmarg was long and chaotic as has been most of my experiences on the roads in India. The meadow was filled with local pony owners who were desperate for business as most people take the gondola up the mountain. We spent the afternoon there and made it half way up the mountain above the mountain meadow. Taking the gondola up the mountain we passed over the huts that the locals live in as well as a lot of new accommodation development that was not visible from the meadow proper. The accommodation is owned by outside investors and takes another aspect of business that the locals are not able to tap into. The day trip was pleasant and the trip back was as chaotic as the outbound journey but we got back to Srinagar and found some cheap accommodation. And went out on a fruitless trip around Srinagar to find some food and beer. The food we found at a friendly curry house that specialised in biriyani but beer it turned out is essentially contraband in Kashmir & Jammu due to the heavy religious influence in the province. So off to Leh...