Wonderful SriNagar, Kashmir

If you had been following my blog for sometime, you must have noticed that #TourDeNorthIndia2015 post was taken till Sri Nagar, and we found the hotel. Let me share the stories hereby.

Hotel with Wifi and Lunch!
We had been out of world for couple of days now. Our SIM cards were not working, as we had no special SIM cards for Jammu and Kashmir district. We then found hotel with WiFi. It was just infront of Dal lake. It took us 11 am to get inside our room. We charged our mobiles and cameras, and power banks and took rest. Since, I was unaware about what was going around for couple of days, I checked few online news portal and yeah, I also changed my profile picture in facebook from there itself. We finally got fresh and went out for lunch. We were so excited about having Kashmiri food, but despite walking for half and hour we could not get something that we had been searching for. Ah! we ended up having some vegeterian luch in some Vaisnavi hotel! Damn!

Driver Shouting - Islamabad Islamabad!!
On our way back, we heard conductor shouting Islamabad!! Islamabad! Initally we were sure that the jeep from there would take to Pakistan's capital. But, then we imagined how far would Islamabad be from there geographically! We then inquired about people, and then came to know that there's small village within Kashmir named after Islamabad. Honestly, the entire place was like Pakistan that one would have in their mind. Girls in burkas, and everyone in their kurta. Maybe we were the only one in shorts and tees.

Boat Ride at Dal Lake
We were bargaining for the price. Earlier, we had met someone who'd give us boat ride at 300, but now when we came back to hotel, they told us that boat ride would not even cover 20% of lake. So, we were told the price of 1200. We were bargaining for 600, that would cost 100 for each of us, but he was sticking to 800. When our hotel owner came and said something in his language, he took us at 600. Later, we figured out that the hotel owner was his brother. Fine, we started the ride knowing that other six months, that lake would all be snow. It was something like Phewa lake, not so clean, dirty to large extent. I was expecting something like Nainitaal, but the scenes from here we beautiful. We were surprised when another boat came near us, with all those stuffs to sell, gradually turn by turn lot of boats came towards us, from ice cream vendor to kabab thing. There was market, Meena market, where one had to go via those boats to make purchases. We were informed that items sold there are duplicate, and we did not buy anything from there though.

Gulmohor vs Sonammarg
Where to go? We had just a day there at Srinagar, and there were lot of places to go. From oldest mosque to different places. We however decided to go Gulmohor, but in the midway planned to go Sonammarg, the hillstation nearby, where Bajrangi Bhaijaan had it's shooting done. Since it was off season, there was not so much of crowd there.

Horse Ride
That was instead khacchad ride. We had the confidence that we could walk till up since we had that experience in Solang Valley as well. But a lady who was returning back told us, that it was impossible for us to get that up. The price of horse was told Rs 800. We hesitated, and we decided to walk, and after walking for 15 mins, they came up with lowest price 300. We never had that experience, so we decided to take it. Since, these owners had to stay idle till late evening, as their shift was already over, 300 would be fine for them anyway. There probably used to be lot of snow in cold, we could realize that.

Sakeel Bhai
On our way, we then got to know about our hotel owner - Sakeel Bhai! He was the only one who'd keep foreigners in Kashmir and treat them with great respect. He was kind of 'don' of Kashmir and everyone knew him.

He would do anything for his customer satisfaction, be that fight or quarrel. No one ever dared to cross question him. We therefore felt that we saw foreigners in the hotel we stayed, and due to his good treatment towards them, foreigners never hesitated to stay for month itself there. We had doubt, but once our driver told we got the clear picture. If we would not have doubt, we probably would steal the book at the drawer of our room. There was some kind of novel.

Kashmiri Food
This is something that really must be admired. Kashmiri food! Ahh, we were so much fond of it, and eager to taste. But we did not find it that easily, as our location was situated within some vegeterian place.We had to take auto to get to those place where there were great chicken items. And once we were there, we reached the place. We ordered Tandoori and Kabab, they were great! Tandoori was juicy enough, and kabab was something like sausage but again different.And expensive than our budget, however we took taste of it and they were super awesome! The chatni was also so great! Early next morning we also got to taste Kahwah, the Kashmiri Tea, and that was different taste. They told it was al composition of medical herbs, and there were almonds at top. We were okay, just that we got cheated with the price.

Kashmiri Kahwah

Kashmiri Kabab

Pakistan Influence
We finally got our doubt clear when the driver clarified, how they support Pakistan instead of India. He told me, how they supported Pakistan cricket team as well. On trying to know reason, he told us that Indian Government had discriminated them a lot, his grandmother was raped by Indian Police back then, he told me how Kashmir is being treated with huge discrimination as well.