Srinagar - The Land of Tourism Past

Srinagar has failed to have any updates in fashion or interior design since the late 70's. The city used to be a hot spot for travelers, but tourism dropped off due to the intensified conflict with neighboring Pakistan. There is a huge military presence. Every building of somewhat importance is fortified with outside bunkers, sandbags and lots of men with machine guns. The few tourists, mainly Indians from other parts of India, who now venture to this land find themselves overwhelmed with attention.

6, July, Wednesday. We stepped off our bus and into the throngs of men, "Madame, I have nice house boat for you." We had to weed out the river boat owners, negotiate a ride to see the house boat of the least scary man and tried to make sure we were being taken to the correct lake. We arrived at Palace Heights on Nageen lake (we had planned on staying at Dal lake) and were treated as honored guests. Habib, the main owner in a large Muslim family that operated three house boats took us on a tour of the once marvelous floating abodes. The inside of the first boat was the most impressive, however it reminded me of a cabin straight out of the seventies. The motif was Kashimiri embroidery, faux hard wood floors (linoleum not tacked down at the edges and discolored from water damage and age) and old school knickknacks. Each boat we saw after the first was more decrepit and rundown, yet livable on a short term basis. We were happy that they had hot showers. They were classified as Deluxe, Class A and Class B. Supposedly the family ran six boats, not three, but the other three boats were barely staying afloat and no one offered to give us a tour...

After some hard core negotiating and secret code words between Jeni and I, did I mention we have our own language for dealing with Indians?, we agreed on a fair price that included all meals. It was not disclosed, but also included were the rights to peddle us to all the self-called hawkers selling everything you can imagine from their small boats. Many lies floated about during out first couple of hours, some we figured out right right away and others were discovered later. For example, at the bus station, Habib claimed that there were two girls from LA, two girls from London and two girls from Taiwan staying at Palace Heights. There was in fact only one Indian family staying on the Deluxe boat. When we would ask about the other guests, we never got a straight answer. "I think they are visiting a village, they may return tomorrow." I went into the other boats, there were no other AWOL guests.

We went to bed our first night with full bellys and a feeling that we had landed in paradise.

7, July, Thursday. We woke and ordered breakfast alone on the Class A boat. Before I had taken my last bite of omelet, the hawkers were on us. The Boy, (In India, any guy who is serving you or helping you in any way is called The Boy), Habib's tiniest brother, was ushering in men with paper mache items. I peeked out the window and there were three more boats filled with different items. This was not supposed to happen in paradise. When the brother was helping the paper mache man into the living room at the front of the boat, Jeni and I gave secret looks to each other across the dinning room table that said, "run to the back of the boat and bolt the door." We did and they were not pleased. We spent the rest of our time on the house boat playing cat and mouse. We would refuse hawkers, but sometimes they would be waiting for us and we would have to retreat to our room which was easier than pleading with them to leave. We did buy a few items, but the same guys would return each day. If we refused to see someone a demand was made for a time they should return. It was mind boggling, their determination and persistence. The deal is this: The Boy gets a commission on anything we buy, so he tries to set up every opportunity for shopping as possible...No exceptions.

We reluctantly agreed to take a Shakara (boat) on the lake and connecting canals to see a couple of sites. We soon discovered the ride was worth every penny. We started out from our boat reclining back side by side with a bright colorful canopy above us and nothing but the front of the small skinny boat and a spectacular view ahead of us. Our guide paddle us along from the rear. Our first stop was floating gardens where we saw squash, cucumbers, tomatoes and beautiful lotus. Next we were paddled to the banks of part of the city where we exited and visited the Hazratbal Masjid, also known as the White Mosque. Considering my studies in college, it is ironic that my first real visit to a mosque was in Srinagar, an international war zone between Muslims and Hindus.

We respectfully removed our shoes, made a donation to the donation box and proceeded to the interior of the mosque. We were immediately greeted by two friendly young Muslim girls who were eager to know where we were from and what our purposes were at their place of worship. We hung out for a short while, watching from afar as the men prayed in the men-only heart of the mosque, checked out the Qurans written in Arabic and then meandered back to our Shakara.

Back in the boat we spent two hours crossing the lake to go to the Mogul Gardens. During this amazingly relaxing trip we snacked on chocolate chip cookies, read, wrote in our journals and saw so many different types of birds that I wish we had a video camera. The Mogul Gardens were OK. There wasn't anything particularly beautiful there in terms of plant life. The best part was seeing all the Indian tourists and their colorful outfits scurrying about taking pictures and stepping into the various fountains. We only saw one other tourist that looked western. Another two hours on the Shakara and we were nearing our house boat. Our guide had stopped and picked us lovely lotus flowers, working on his tip no doubt. As we approached the cluster of house boats, the hawkers were on us. They were relentless and excessive polite up until they realized that we had no intentions of buying their goods.

8, July, Friday. Me and Jeni were having some serious caffeine withdrawls and were desperate to have some peace from the buzzards at our house boat. We went on an adventure into the heart of the city. We took a barely running, mass polluting bus for 4 rps, miraculously getting on the correct one even though the bus information was in Arabic and Jeni somehow spotted the coffee shop we were looking for from the bus. We jumped off with java in our eyes. At the coffee shop we enjoyed delicious mochas, espressos and lattes, along with pizza and chocolate cake. We ended up talking to an Indian American traveling with his Indian nephew. They were desperate to get out of Srinagar, but were stuck until at least the next day. They volunteered to be our chaperons and walked us to several banks and ATM's. We had trouble finding machines that worked. We had agreed to go to dinner with our new friends, but as it started to get dark and we saw the Tourist Information stand that had been blow up a month earlier, Jeni and I quickly decided we did not feel comfortable out in the city after dark, chaperons or not. We hopped in a rick-shaw after slashing the price from 150 rps to 65 (I had read the government posting on rickshaw fares and was not going to be taken advantage for the umteenth time). The ride home was emotionally exhausting. The city was overwhelming in an indescribable way. We zipped and zoomed around corners, round abouts, other vehicles, people, cows, puddles, pot holes, etc. When we finally got back to the house boat, the owners were visibly relieved to see us...7-7 had just happened in London and they were as nervous as we were. As we listened to Friday prayers being belted over loud speakers across the city, we agreed to take it easy the next day...

9, July, Saturday. We hung out and dodged hawkers who were making desperate last attempts because they knew we were departing the following day. "You remember me, I have come back. Madam, I left you alone like you asked, now you buy Pashmina please!" We escaped for a short bit and visited the second largest university in Inida. Modesto Junior College would put it to shame in size and beauty.

I did have a few things I wanted to buy before leaving Kashmir, so we worked it out with the boy and ended up in a car, no charge, on our way to a Kashmiri carpet factors that possibly sold paper mache Abli Goblis (Hookas). They really believed that we would fork out the 2 grand and buy a carpet. "You don't need a carpet, you need an aaeerrriiiaal rrruuugggg." We graciously declined after they spent 45 minutes showing us how the carpets were made by hand, feeding us tea and cookies and making us walk barefoot on the softest rugs I have ever felt. They were let down when I piped up, "so I hear you may have Abli Gobli?" But, they did and I bought a miniature one and some other gifts I can't list because I don't want to spoil the surprises. Bubba, you're invited to be the first to try it out with me! We got back to our lake hide-away after dark, but felt much safer than the night before. We had one of the teenage boys named Asif from the family with us who had misplaced hopes of becoming a Bollywood star. He latched on to us and became our best friend as soon as I told him I had been in a movie filmed on Mudd Island in Mumbai. We went to sleep that night feeling glad and sad to be leaving... We both want to return to Srinagar in the future.

Missing the Modesto Summer Fun, Jeeni