Hi Friends.
I am back after the well deserved break. Enjoyed my holiday in the pristine state of Kashmir. Today I share my experience of rejuvenation and the famous drink that is served there.
I read an interesting line “I am in Kashmir, Heaven can wait”. True to these words the place is beautiful and the immaculate beauty is surely welcoming. One can just sit and watch the place for hours together without getting bored, the serenity makes you believe that one is in paradise.
Our journey started with some hiccups as our aircraft had a problem so were grounded in Jammu for a day, so utilized that and visited the famous Raghunath Mandir and stayed there overnight. The next day we were off to Srinagar, the summer capital of J&K. We enjoyed the view of snow capped mountains during our 35min fly from Jammu-Srinagar. The International airport is beautiful and is under high security. Once you enter the city one can see the army people posted at regular intervals, that’s a common scene through out the state.
The first two days we stayed in a house boat in Dal lake and enjoyed the new experience, felt like living in Venice. The houseboat is made with the deodar tree and the interiors done with walnut tree. There are about 1290 houseboats in Dal lake. The Boulevard road which runs along the lake has a huge number of shops and restaurants. One can do a Shikara ride in the lake and enjoy the floating market, garden as well as water sports.
One can stay in Srinagar and travel to Sonmarg and Gulmarg. Gulmarg has the highest Gandola ride in the world and is called the meadow of flowers. There are two levels of the Gandola, Section I is from Gulmarg to Kongdori and then section II from Kongdori to Apherwat which is about 13,780 ft high. The first section carries about 1500 people/hour and the second section 600 people/hour.
Sonmarg did not have much snow this time and one can trek for about 6kms to reach the glacier.
