Holidays in Kashmir

Why are you planning to go to Srinagar? It is unsafe like Kabul, said one Indian guy. Other colleague of my husband – a young guy from Pakistan - remarked that Srinagar is “occupied territory”. Well, I have never seen so many men with guns as in Kashmir – far more than in Afghanistan. And there were four security checks at a small building of Srinagar Airport before we boarded our plane to Delhi.
Most of foreigners working in Afghanistan have their short holidays in Dubai, because there are two flights a day and you can do those things what are almost impossible in Kabul: shopping, swimming, sunbathing, drinking. Personally I do not like Dubai, it seems to me like a weird Arab style Disneyland. So we decided to go to northern India. Srinagar is quite close to Kabul – same distance like Mazar-e Sharif. But we had to take two planes, because there is no possibility to travel directly.
We found some similarities, but lots of differences as well. First of all, there are lush green landscapes: lots of trees, lakes and rivers. We stayed on a boathouse on lake Dal. It is an extraordinary lake with islands, countless birds and more than thousand houseboats for every taste and price level as well. Boathouses have funny names like Aristoteles, Miss America, Hollywood etc. Our houseboat name was Chicago – it was hard to imagine a more unsuitable name for such a lovely carved piece of art.
I was surprised about local wooden architecture: it reminded me old houses in Europe. We took a rides on water taxis – shikaras – in order to see locals’ marketplace in the early morning in the middle of lake and to admire lotuses and floating gardens. And a fort built by an Afghan governor towered on the hill on the other side of lake.
There are marvellous gardens next to the lake. Indian Moslem lords – moguls – used to build terraced gardens with fountains, flowers, maple trees and garden pavilions. Gardens are opened to visitors. Ladies frolic around the fountains, such kind of behaviour is out of question in Kabul.
Although the Kashmir is mainly a Moslem region, ladies do not cover themselves with burkas. Instead there are colourful veils and dresses. The atmosphere in Srinagar is relaxed.
Our boathouse manager advised us to go for trekking in the mountains near Pahalgam Valley. I have done a lot of hiking during in my life, but never in in such a luxury. We had three horses, two horsemen and a guide who was also a cook. There were two tents and lots of food on horsebacks. Even two chickens were taken along with us. And water pipe was important for our guides, as we discovered soon.
The people look similar to Afghans, especially men. Women’s scarves are more colourful but otherwise they are quite reserved and do not like photographing. They have small huts up in the mountains where they pasture horses, cows (for milk) and sheep.
We had some sort of intellectual game to find familiar words in Kashmiri and Dari languages. Kashmiri language is influenced by 14 languages, so we heard often similar words: sardi (sard – cold in Dari), garmi (garm – warm is Dari), bacha (guy in Dari).
It was like a journey to paradise: we walked under high old pine forests. Trees were so tall and strait that reminds me of redwood trees in northern California. There were lots of wild flowers along Liddar River. And I stop worrying about possible mines around on the second day of our hike.
PS. More images can be found on website Kabuli päevik http://qnne.blogspot.com/ (August 2007)