My heart belongs to you, Dear Kashmir.

I'm overwhelmed, ecstatic, thrilled, euphoric, greatly content and I'm chilling on cloud nine..refusing to come back to the ground.
My five day long vacation to Kashmir with family was way more than fantastic. I visited some really picturesque places and also learnt a great deal about this wonderful city and its even more wonderful people.

Kashmir doesn't need any introduction. A lot has been said and written about its unprecedented and breathtaking beauty and I am seriously short of words to describe it in a different manner. The moment I laid my eyes on the magnificent snow clad Himalayas from the plane, I knew I was going to have the time of my life. The whole city was dressed in white layer of pristine snow. For a girl like me, who had been to a snowy place just once in all her life and that too around nine years back, that single moment was beyond all human expressions.

I literally skipped a beat!

The surprising fact is that Kashmir in March is never like this. It is that time of the year when snow starts to melt, sky gets clearer, flowers bloom, gardens turn green and everything wears the shroud of warm sunshine. But after so many years the city witnessed heavy snowfall this month, just three days before we landed there. So throughout our stay we got an excellent glimpse of winters of Kashmir.

At the airport, we were welcomed by a man named Ghulam Rasood. An extremely knowledgeable and humble person who became a great company in the guise of a driver. We had some wonderful conversations with him, snippets of which I'll share with you at the end of this post. The weather was cold and cloudy and it drizzled continuously for two-three days.

Our first night was in a house boat on Dal lake. Oh wait, I have to strike this wish off my wishlist....eeeeeeeeee!!!

This is the houseboat. Its name is Mumtaz Mahal. And it did feel like a royal mansion from inside.

We reached here around 4:30 in the evening so we had just 30 min to freshen up and get ready for the Shikara ride (A small narrow wooden boat is referred to as shikara there) which is usually an hour and a half long and we did not want to miss its charm in the daylight. 

That yellow thing is a shikara.

This is the Dal Lake. I had read about it in my social studies classes in school but I did not know that the lake is exceptionally majestic.

There is a floating market on the Dal Lake and to our surprise people carry food snacks to sell on their shikara which they use like cars. One such man served us delicious chicken kabab and super tasty tea. The shikara ride is extremely calming, a lot like some natural therapy.

The next day we shifted to Hotel Pinegrove located very near to the Dal Lake. Its a budget hotel with well maintained, spacious rooms and a friendly staff. The food here was exceptionally good. The first of the three attractions according to our itinerary was Pahalgam which we visited the second day. On our way to Pahalgam, my mother bought me a navy blue firan which is the local dress of Kashmir. It was soooo pretty that I immediately changed into it.

Pahalgam Valley

My brother trying to spoil my picture..which of course, he successfully did.
Oh by the way..that's a firan which I'm wearing.

In Pahalgam there's a famous Betaab valley named after the movie Betaab (duh!) but it was closed due to bad weather. Instead we did horse riding amidst a gorgeous path covered in snow. The horse on which I rode, his name was 'Aashiq Awaara'. xD
Pahalgam is also en route the annual Amarnath Yatra. Also, while returning from Pahalgam, we visited the ruins of Avantipur temple which was excavated years ago and was actually built circa 855 – 883 AD.

That's my cool dad leading us through the woods.
This is what I wanted to happen but it didn't. He's waiting for the ghode wale bhaiya. :P

The next day we visited Gulmarg, for which I was particularly very excited.. don't have a good reason though. Gulmarg is around 2hrs away from Srinagar.. the closest of all the three places. It has been tagged as the “heartland of winter sports in India” by CNN which is undoubtedly true.

In winters, this place is famous majorly for sledging and skiing. I and my brother did the latter. But the easy and fun part was just for a couple of minutes. Rest was pure torture as we had to struggle hard with those extremely heavy boots to go to the top, during which I shamelessly fell twice and laughed my ass off. I thought I had taken a five day break from workout but I was so wrong!

This is Gulmarg. Vast landscape covered in thick snow.
Honestly, this place is a little more than heaven to me.

That's me! In case you can't recognize.

Throughout our stay in Kashmir, the one thing which I desperately kept praying for was to witness snowfall as it was my childhood dream... like seriously! Many people said that it might snow in a couple of days as the weather was not showing any warm side so I diligently did my job..which was to pray to all the gods up there.

And it worked! Yes, it so worked! I witnessed the first ever snowfall in GULMARG! It couldn't have been better. Gulmarg is probably the most heavenly place to witness snowfall. I screamed, I jumped, I ran, I laughed! That moment when I saw white thermocol like thing on my coat, oh it was breathlessly amazing. Wait wait wait! I have to strike off this wish too from my wishlist... eeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

That's me again. Teeheee!!!

The last destination was Sonmarg which is usually the favorite picnic spot for the local people there, as per Ghulam ji. The route to Sonmarg is the most picturesque of all the three places. It is nearly impossible to move your eyes away from the window. The snow clad mountains surrounding a valley of gorgeous little huts in the middle of which Indus river gracefully carves its way is like an unimaginable scenery, impeccable in every shade possible.

Indus river narrowed down due to heavy snow.

On the day of Sonmarg, we were just 20 kms behind when landslide blocked the way. The officials told us that the route would be closed for the day because of bad weather. With high disappointment, we thought it would be wise to wait for sometime till we are hundred percent sure that Sonmarg is not gonna happen. Along with many other tourists, we passed time by having tea and maggie in one of the local shops and wandered around a small village.

Because we were stranded for more than an hour, my parents and Ghulam ji kept insisting to return and visit some other place instead but I refused blatantly because I religiously believed that we would visit Sonmarg. And yes, we did! We were sitting in the car with no hope and all of a sudden, we saw other tourists running towards their own vehicles with smiling faces and yelling that the route is cleared.. Sigh! My heart did a somersault in ecstasy.

Sonmarg has a couple of tourist attractions in winter such as a bridge which was exploded by Pakistani soldiers during the Kargil war. It has been rebuilt, of course.. but the very thought that it faced grave bloodshed gave me chills down the spine. There are two more small points to visit which are famous for the scenic view which one could see at almost every nook and cranny of the Sonmarg valley. While my parents enjoyed maggie (again!), me and my brother played around with little kids of a nearby village who also helped me make a small petite snowman.

Unfazed landscape.. on Thajiwas glacier.

The last point was Thajiwas glacier. Here again, skiing and sledging are the two main activities. We did none. We just chilled and absorbed the beauty around, as much as we could.. like one deep breath of oxygen before diving away in the ocean of mundane life. At one point, I felt so dwarfed and irrelevant by the splendidly huge mountains around me, I almost had tears of awe. Nothing could be compared to the naturally profound Himalayan range!

I'm not done with Kashmir yet. It is so beautiful that I have to visit this place again. But according to Ghulam ji, Kashmir subtly indicates 'Cash More'. So I must earn real hard in order to organize a summer trip to Kashmir in future.

_______

Things I learnt about Kashmir from Ghulam ji:

- People here are really kind and hospitable. I saw harmony among them too. They are not cold to outsiders which I somehow had the impression. On my last day there, I was gifted a small Kangri as a souvenir by a localite.

- They do not like to vote. They are hardly interested in elections because no matter what, they would never get what they really desire for and that is freedom from the clutches of India, Pakistan and China.

- Almost 99 percent of people have their own permanent residence in Kashmir. In this regards, it is a very prosperous and self-sufficient state.

- The people of Kashmir in India have a wrong impression about people of Kashmir in Pakistan and vice versa. Both the respective localites believe that the other part is less developed and that the people living there are no better than tribals. However, it is wrong for both the sides. Both are almost equally developed.

- Though it is a very sensitive area because of the frequent militant attacks, the city is unusually calm and composed in its daily mannerisms. One can see excessive police force in various parts of the city  throughout the year and the localites seem unaffected, which I believe is a good thing.

_______

Lansdowne

It's been a while since I last updated anything apart from poetry. There are many things which I had on my mind. One of them was about my short visit to Lansdowne, this year in end September.

Lansdowne is a small, cantonment hill station located in Uttarakhand. The fact that it is a cantonment area makes this place even more clean, fresh and peaceful, unlike other hill stations. It is covered with unending alpine forests and picturesque view of majestic mountains.

As mentioned above, I visited this place in late September and the weather was nearly perfect. We (which refers to me and my cousins) chose our personal car as the mode of travelling. Started in the early hours, we managed to touch the town around 2 in the afternoon with the help of reliable GPS and kind people all over India.

en route... just a few kms before the destination.
And that's my brother's hand.

The hotel where we stayed was 'Fairydale', situated near the main market. Like many other residences of military colonels, it is a huge bungalow converted to a hotel which kept the homely ambiance intact. The food was good, the staff was courteous, oh, and they had an adorable Labrador who, unlike Frodo, spent his time meditating nonchalantly and basking in the sunlight instead of drooling over everyone's lunch table. Clearly, he was on another level.

What I loved the most about Fairydale were its rooms. We had one master bed on ground floor and the other one went upstairs and ended in an extremely cozy haven like compound. I remember how I was left with the widest smile that day, the moment I climbed upstairs and snuggled deep inside the thick blanket.
After all, this is what one craves for, after a looong hectic travelling.

And so the holiday began.

You see her? The girl in  pink track pants? Yes, that's my little cousin Mishti.

cozy cocoon.

Poser!

The mornings we witnessed were wrapped in dense fog and absolute silence. Perhaps this is the reason why Lansdowne to me is a perfect harborage of quietude.

Earlier I had thought that taking our car wouldn't be a good idea because of the exhaustion it would cause. But honestly, it was the best decision. We had independence and privacy in a new city where one is usually dependent on the cab or bus driver. I thoroughly enjoyed our long walks in dense morning fog, through the alpine forests and then chilling for a while in the middle of nowhere while we knew we had no reason to rush. It was fun. Not the usual kind, but I did enjoy those happy moments.

This moment, right there, it was scary and calm at the same time.

A very famous church and utterly gorgeous too.

Let me share a little secret. I had never ever been to a church before. No wait. I did, once, in Goa. But the problem was that it wasn't structured in a traditional manner. It was hemispherical in design while I always wanted to visit the one where there is a narrow aisle and two paralleled seating arrangement on both the sides, the usual movies wala church. So my silly desire was finally fulfilled in Lansdowne.

Eeeeep.

After the church visit, we went up to the highest point, referred to as Tip-in-Top. It was drizzling and we were cold so we could't stay out in the open for long. But we did enjoy tea, pakoras and played carom.

Tip-in-Top point.

Aren't we adorable?!!!

Tea and pakora time. And yes, it was elaichi wali chaai. ^.^

By the way, most of these pictures are clicked by Mishti.

Not me!

Don't judge by his concentration. I won the queen. Wuhooo!

By the time it was evening, we retired to our beds and started the best part of the journey..a never ending game...Monopoly!!! To say that it was the charm of our trip, is and would always be an understatement. Period.

The next day was lazy. We started off late. It was just too hard to leave that beguilingly warm bed, okay! And also because there isn't much to visit in Lansdowne. Apart from a couple of churches and tip-in-top point, there is a picnic spot, highlights of which are boating in an artificial lake and a small children's park. Lansdowne is ideal for those who want a weekend getaway from Delhi or some nearby area. You don't need more than two to three days to devour the beauty of this place.

A family of definitely more than 10 people hopped onto this poor bridge 'together', while we were crossing it. Gosh!

  

And the entire trip, in a nutshell.

________

P.S: Did I ever mention how dearly I wish to be a travel blogger? And that I've had dreams of travelling to far off lands and breath-taking places, with a small pretty diary in hand and a camera hanging around my neck? Like literally.

It's normal, right?

A Much Needed Vacation

Untouched roads, mystic river, hidden waterfall, chilling on a hammock, witnessing a shooting star, chasing a glow worm, pleasant weather, majestic mountains all around and a private home stay on the river bed. Sigh!

There couldn't have been a better vacation than this.

At Tirthan Valley, I had the most amazing time of my life. The place was simply beyond my expectations. I feel so blessed to have visited it with friends and experienced nth number of blissful and breath taking moments. Really, who would have thought that I would visit a place which is almost similar to what I used to draw in school - splendidly green mountains, sun peeking from behind, a river and an excluded  river side home.

=)

Tirthan Valley is an off-beat place in Kullu district. It is somewhat like a village lowly populated with warm and friendly localites. For someone coming from Delhi, it is a sheer surprise to receive so much respect and honor from others. We stayed at a home stay as no hotels are permitted. The owner, Khem Bharti did everything to make our trip a success. His main place was almost full so we were accommodated at another place owned by him. The idea of us staying, in a private home which was nearer to the river was scary at first, as we had no idea how it would be from the 'safety point of view'. But to our surprise, it turned out to be the best thing possible.

We slept to the sound of gushing white water and woke up to the heavenly view of the Tirthan river.

Here are some picture of my small beatific vacation.

Chilling on a hammock

Spellbound

The hidden waterfall

Picturesque, isn't it!

My friend caught me off guard.

View from terrace

Tea and pakora time

Double rainbow

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P.S : I chilled on a hammock and now I'll strike it off my wish list. Bliss!

Dear 1st March'12, You Have Been Formally Placed in My Memory Box. Congratulations!

What if I say that I do believe in days full of enchantment and that some random impossible things do happen? Would you make a mockery of my childish belief or would you jump into the free cab that will take us on a beautiful ride?

Well, you better believe me darling!

I have always adorned a dream with wide open myopic eyes, to go on a trip with my friends and no person falling in the category of the boring or strict or irksome elders. My simple mind and its simpler dream received an unexpected warm welcome by 1st March 2012 in a very hatke (different) style. The day which is now nearing its end, was intact and dressed with little boxes of surprise which were impeccably placed on different hours.

And the best thing is that every single strand of me is glowing with the element of satisfaction and happiness and with a sense of achievement. (Achievement because the following was almost impossible for me to happen.)

*Gleaming eyes*

To cut the not-so-long story short, I went on a half-day road trip with my friends to a mind-blowing heritage hotel called Neemrana in Alwar district, Rajasthan. 

And before moving further let me share a very interesting fact- Being a resident of Greater Noida, I traveled four states to make the trip successful namely Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana and of course Rajasthan. (Ignoring the fact that these four are consecutively joined, it sounds so cool na!)

And following is a glimpse of the day:-

(Every nook and cranny of this place astounded me)

(It is like a maze. And we explored it like we have been Spirited Away.)

(Who cannot fall in love with this place?)

The day started with a group session of yawning and rubbing eyes and sleep-deprived brain working at four in the morning and yawning some more and ended with a heart full of moments which shall be cherished for life.

C'mon, it was my first trip with friends, after all. And you know what, I can now proudly strike off the second entry on my wish list.

*Collars up* =]