heart shaped oars.
the water ways were extraordinarily peaceful. the slight splash of the oar, the gentle wind made it ever so easy to fall into the loveliest daydream. we would slide through the water and in the distance we would see another shikara arrive. the dude in the shikara: o so friendly, making pleasant conversation, genuinely interested in our well being... all this prior to flashing open his wares; either flowers or jewellery or papier marche or perfumes or even groceries to our houseboats. they would hard_sell the life out of their wares, i guess the were really desperate but really it was quite irritating. just like telemarketers, these men had their never-give-up attitude, their fake accents, their constant barraging. mr wonderful [the flower guy] had cool sayings painted on his boat but even he was just like the rest. hmmph.
we decided to go for the sunrise lake market that has local farmers bartering vegetables and fruit with each other in the middle of the lake. we had to get up at 5 [in the bloody cold] and ride in the our shikara towards the spot. as the sun rose you could see the mountians surrounding the lake and it was really pretty.
the actual market was so-so; it was not quite as special as we expected to be. there were just as many sleepy tourists in their own shikharas and our telemarketers [vultures] as there were locals doing their veggie barters. the market even continueses in winter when the lake freezes up and the temperature is -25 degrees, crazy!
our shikhara rower proved to be quite the rockstar of shikhara rowers as he made kashmiri kahwa [yummy chai!] right there and then. we were the envy of all the tourists. later he the proceeded to rip a few extra hundreds from the initial decided amount, so that left a bad taste.
water walking
we had left leh one week earlier and slowly come through to final leg of our journey in srinagar. after a long day of riding from sonamarg, we were tired and grimy and sulky. and just as the sun was doing its setting we walked into nagin lake and onto our beautiful beautiful house boat, it was truly magical.
it was a huge thing our houseboat meant for four but it was off_season so we had the whole thing for ourselves! it had two huge ornately done up bedrooms, sweet smelling bathrooms with bathtubs!, a nice dining cum living space and a lovely porch overlooking the water. all were lovingly lit up with the light hitting the lake and all the various coloured plants and flowers oveflowing on the banks and sweet sounding with the geese in the lake. houseboats were initially conceptualised by the british and their crazy detailed embellishments were still carried forward even into houseboats being constructed today! unlike the average kerala houseboat, these houseboats are usually anchored to the edges of the lake. and they are much much more regal, we totally and completely spoilt...
for the next 3 days, we ruled over the water. the food aboard was super, our host played the harmonium [harmoniously] as we slurped. he was the quite the rock_star with lots and lots of stories about srinagar, all we had to do was buy the beer. unbelievably good it was!
our shikara dude, a bit gloomy sometimes about his poverty/future prospects but overall nice and helpful took us for many shikara rides. through the old city [which was pretty but stinky/dirty], via dal lake [which was crowded and awful], and through the various tourist points like carpet makers, honey makers [which were a bit of a rip off, i thought]. all in all it made us feel super lucky to be staying in nagin lake which was the prettiest, quietest part of the city.
houseboat sweet houseboat.
g for glacier
we're on our way to srinagar from kargil. after the mildly scary zoji la pass we see the prettiest town right there at the bottom. its breathtakingly gorgeous sonmarg, we stop for the night. we reach at sunset and already the duas in the two mosques are overlapping. its crazy_nice.
sonmarg is small but is quite popular with the indian tourist. most use srinagar as their base and come for short 1 or 2 days trips. so there's plenty of pav bhaji and loads of ponies.
we learn that aside from her crazy beauty, sonmarg is famous for the thajiwas glacier which is just 4km away. hence the ponies, hence the hundred offers to sit on a pony. we say our hundred friendly no-thanks's and we try to imagine being in the middle of miles and miles of nothing but ice. we are for the first time going to see a glacier!!!
the trail through the valley is beautiful and totally worth it, we picturize a lovely picnic and head on further. at the end of the trail however there is nothing but a few small restaurants and a lone security guard. g is for glacier only na?
the security guy sighs at the beauty of the invisible glacier, he then proceeds to point to a 10x10m area of ice on a nearby mountain. "sheesh" we say. we realise we've been had. o well, atleast it was really really pretty.
as we head back, tourists just coming in now, excitedly ask us about the glacier.
we can do nothing but sigh.
fear not! we're in kargil!
With all the war history and a name like Kargil, we expected a huge daunting walled dome-shaped city with a huge daunting crazily-guarded dome-like citygate. The last thing we expected was a small quirky town on a single main street.
The only thing that exceeds our expectations is its 'muslim-ish', extremely extremely devout and as we reach amidst Ramzan, its twice as staunch. With 25 odd mosques in such a close proximity; the sunset skies are continously filled with the sweetest sounding prayers.
This town had some crazy_nice signage all owing to the loveliest handdrawn graphics and typography.
sweaty gym!
Our favourite was this 'english cow' paint_job for this restaurant. Later we found out that the guys running it [and almost all of Kargil] have the nightingale voices, due to all the dusk-dua-chanting.
Food here consisted of the same leh items: moq moq, thukpa etc but each with a meaty twist. Getting anything that didn't have a hoof or tongue seemed quite a task.
The only place [with the upside down eyelashes] that serves vegetarian food [and only vegetarian food] was this punjabi place with a typically proud and paternal sardarji. He told us stories of bullets flying past his heads and bombs exploding around his kids during the kargil war. Amazed we were that it all just happened in that same street, outside that very window.
Most tourists just stop for a chai break before heading on to srinagar or zanskar. So it wasn't surprising that we seemed to be quite the sight for the locals.The people in Kargil look exactly as they should they should, considering their geographical position. Halfway between the ladakh mongoloidism and the fair islamic prettiness. Halfway between the mountains and the lakes...
In the river passing by the city, we caught this dude constantly [constantly] staring at a girlie, and she giving out coy smirks at regular intervals as she washed clothes. In an otherwise rather orthodox town, this suddenly seemed like an absurdly loud hurrah of love...
