Monsoon Honeymoon Part XIII: A 14 Hour Mountain Car Ride to Militarized "Heaven on Earth"

Sunday, June 29

Paradise on Earth:
That's why India and Pakistan both want it.

Kashmir is a storied, mythical, and misunderstood corner of the world.  For many uninitiated Westerners, it's the name of a Led Zeppelin song from "Physical Graffiti."  For shopping aficionados, it is the home of Kashmiri wools, rugs, and world-famous pashmina scarves.  For connoisseurs of history and followers of international affairs, it is well known as the contentious border region claimed by two nuclear powers- India and Pakistan- who have been feuding since both countries claimed their independence from the British raj in the 1947 partition of the subcontinent.  For travelers, it is a legendary land, "the Switzerland of Asia," boasting soaring mountains, crisp and clean air, lucid lakes, and lush landscapes.  

Not far from the poppy growing region of Afghanistan, and still home to wild crops of marijuana, Kashmir has also appealed since the 1960's to hippie travelers looking for places to drop out for a while.

The Kashmiri people are generally stockier, paler-skinned, and more forceful than their Dravidian brothers to the south. Many of them boast glowing blue-eyes, angular jaws, and a mountain ferocity about them. It's a thinly populated region, with just one million people inhabiting the capital of Srinigar, but it punches far above its weight in its regional and global relevance.

Leigh and I had been fed many opinions about travel to Kashmir, which is often discouraged by conservative government advisory messages.  A semblance of peace has reigned in the region in recent years, so Leigh and I decided we wouldn't miss the chance to experience Kashmir.

We would have to earn it though, on a journey that Hakeem, our Dharamsala hotel manager, claimed would take 12 hours.

Our driver picked us up at 6:30.  Leigh and I were both reasonably fresh, and we settled in to the back seat for our longest overland journey during our trip. We began in Himachal Pradesh, switchbacking back down the mountains. We crossed briefly back into the corner of the Punjab, before crossing a river and entering the province of Jammu and Kashmir.  Signs on the road abounded in celebration of a Hindu pilgrimage to Kashmir, which would attract upwards of two million pilgrims over a six week period.  

There's at least three inches:
Squeeze on through!

We stopped mid-day at a rest stop that served us meager chapati with no side dishes   We took advantage of the bathroom- a hole in the ground surrounded by a shed- perched in the middle of of a wild-growing marijuana field. 

The hard miles soon began as we rose into an endless switchbacking ascent on the cliffside edge of the Himalayas.  Homes, farms, and villages clung impossibly to steeply graded hillsides, with no visible roads for auto access. Islands in the streams, recessed gorge hovels, and hidden valley structures dotted the gigantic landscapes.

And the road went on forever. We climbed one mountain pass above 15,000 ft., dropped into the next valley, and then ascended the next pass.  Hours blended together as Leigh and I slept, read, chatted, and watched the world go by.

In the late afternoon armed soldiers began to appear all over the road.  We were stopped at one point, where we had to enter a small hovel, show our passports, and describe our purpose in Kashmir.  Leigh and I nervously anticipated a bribe, but our driver took care of a small fee.  As we crested the final pass and descended into the Kashmir Valley we noted military presence at every twist and turn, hundreds and thousands of Indian soldiers in fatigues with loaded weapons at the ready.  Later we would learn that Indian forces had shot and killed two Kashmiri boys just hours previous, and the Kashmiris were furious.

At long last, after ten hours, we hit flat land, just an hour before sunset. The vistas were transcendental, as luminous green rice-paddies provided the foreground to majestic mountain ranges. It wasn't all roses, though.  Thick, dense, overcrowded towns teemed with people and animals. Half-naked children scampered around the fields, and refugee style camps popped up in rice fields and on the edges of towns.  Military presence continued to be ubiquitous.

The road went on forever.  We thought we were there, and hours more passed. Finally, after 14 hours, we picked up our guide, who carried us the final miles into Srinigar. We thanked our heroic driver, jumped out of the taxi, dropped into a shikara (water taxi), and our final leg of this journey was a short paddle out into Dal Lake.

Dal Lake is the second biggest lake in Asia, and it is the soul of Srinigar.  Hundreds of years ago the local leaders prohibited the British from building on land, so the ingenious Brits constructed intricate Victorian houseboats and lived on the lake, which was surrounded by the town. In modern times these boats have been converted into tourist lodgings.  We pulled into a watery, secluded cul-de-sac, and disembarked from the shikara at Houseboat (H.B.) New Life.  The boat owner and our host was named Rafiq.  His wife had prepared for us a typical Indian dinner, which we devoured on the open-air bow.  We had hardly moved our bodies on this day, but this was the longest car ride of my life, and the softly swaying boat and the gentle patter of rain splashing into the lake lulled me to sleep.