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

A Bus to Paradise?

So Jeeni's last entry pretty much described our 24-hour hellish experience getting back to civilization (if you can call monsoonish Delhi "civilization") from Kashmir, but we should tell you a little more about Kashmir itself (now that we are in a safe, clean, happy place)...

Yep, the two-day bus ride from Ladakh (Buddhist Kashmir) to Srinagar (Muslim Kashmir) was pretty rough. Other than a smallish band of Israelis, we were the only Westerners and practically the only women on the 30-year-old bus. As we left the picturesque high desert plains of what was formerly Tibet and made our way along the Indus River and towards the border with Pakistan, we were, at once, taken by the lush green valleys with shepards herding their pashmina goats. We were also annoyed like crazy by the young guys in front of us who kept lighting up their cigarettes (YES. INSIDE THE BUS.) and reclining their seats all the way back into our laps as we meandered along the bumpy cliffs.

We stayed the night in a town called "Drass" (more like a village) -- which owns the rights to being the "second coldest place on earth." Not to mention being the closest town to the line of control. After settling into our overpriced lodging (particularly overpriced because we arrived at 6pm and our bus would be leaving again at 3am), we hung out in the dining room and chatted it up with the cook and his Urdu-speaking buddies. We talked about 9/11, the conflict over Kashmir, Israel... I don't think either of us got more than a couple hours of sleep before loading back onto the damn bus and plowing into the dark, icy, fortified night on our rickety bus.

As soon as light came, we could see the majesty of Kashmir. Words cannot describe the beauty of that place -- but I'll try. We saw the highest green cliffs, waterfalls that would put Yosemite to shame, tiny tent villages dotting the valley below. We also saw more and more signs of a lifelong war -- reinforced bunkers in the hills (looked a lot like the old German hideouts I saw at Omaha Beach in Normandy a few years back), messages painted on rocks embedded in the hillsides that read "Be careful. You are under enemy surveillance." And everywhere (EVERYWHERE), there were soldiers with semi-automatics. We just tried to keep our heads down -- scarves wrapped tightly around our chins.

Our arrival into Srinagar -- the summer capital of Kashmir -- was rather uneventful. It is a beautiful place with very special people who have had to put up with a lot of life's grimmer realities for a very long time. We were both spooked by the sounds of bombs blasting and soldiers shelling something in the distance. When we heard about what happened in London, we decided to get out of dodge as soon as we could -- with fears that Blair or Bush would do something to make the locals less than happy with us.

I was sad to leave Kashmir and very much hope to come back someday when the conflict is over. It's particularly sad because we could see the grandeur that it once was and it's really that perspective that makes the whole situation so depressing. We couldn't go for a cup of coffee without having to cross sidewalks covered with barbed wire and about 15 young trigger-happy Indian soldiers on lookout.

This afternoon, we're off to Agra -- to see the Taj Mahal. Hopefully, we'll find a better internet connection there so that we can upload some of our 400 photos for you all to see!

lots of love,Jeni

What You Missed, What We Miss and What We DON"T

As many of you already know, we didn’t have reliable access to the Internet in Leh and didn’t have any access in Srinagar. The last week has been surreal. Even more surreal than usual! I will start with today and yesterday and go backwards. I figure that suits the way things work in India. Backwards.

Lies. Lies, Tell Me Sweet Little Lies

July 11, Sunday. Shortly after crawling out of our cozy twin beds on the houseboat we had all to ourselves for our entire stay, we decided to brave swimming in the lake. I had spoken to several sources and was assured that sewage was not dumped in the lake. Proof was provided when I noticed that locals ate the fish, swam in the lake and grew vegetable gardens right on the water. They even had water skiing for a small charge. We ordered a yummy breakfast of omelet, porridge, Kashmiri bread and milk tea, the same as the day before. Like every meal in India, you never get the same thing twice, even when the order hasn’t changed. The omelet was half the size of the day before, the porridge was substantially better, the bread came buttered, not plain and the milk tea was strangely unsweetened. After our quick gutsy swim, I knew we were in for some trouble, bargaining our final bill. Although the price per day including meals had been set ahead of time, we quickly learned that Lonely Planet: India, was not exaggerating when it claimed Kashmiri’s would squeeze every rupee possible. Sure enough, our room rate had a undisclosed "luxury tax" of 10%, the Shakara boat ride we had arranged was overcharged by 200 rps, some bagged Kashmiri tea that we were practically forced into taking was added for the sum of 220 rps and the taxi we had requested in order to take us the airport was a whopping 450 rps. We were overcharged by nearly 900 rps ($25). I told Jeni to put on her poker face and I prepared to dance.

We got out of there without paying the fictitious "luxury" tax, paid the original Shakara rate, we gave back the tea and solemnly agreed to pay the outrageous "taxi" fee (they drove us in their family car). There was no way we were walking through a slew of muddy ally-ways with our backpacks in order to bargain with another man who knew we HAD to get to the airport one way or another. The houseboat owner was angry and made lucid comments about Americans, but his brother, who drove us to the airport did damage control talking about how money is no issue, singing Tina Turner songs to us and asking us to refer business to their houseboat as often and as soon as possible. The entire stay they played this game of Good Cop, Bad Cop to try to get more money and then be our best friend.

"We Should Have Rode the Bus" – Comment by Jeni at the Srinagar Airport

Considering there was a landslide and the road to civilization was blocked, we were fortunate to have pre-booked plane tickets out of Srinagar. We even met an American-Indian who was panicking about how to get back to Delhi to catch his flight home to the sweet USA. The airport was a smelly zoo. We had to lug our own luggage around to several different x-ray machines, take the batteries out of our cameras, open and eat crackers we had packed, watch as women read the packages of every little thing (hand sanitizer, chap-stick, contact fluid, urrrr), fight to take our small bags on the plane with our personal belongings and we were felt up, I mean searched in these women only boxes a gazillion times (before going into the airport, when we checked in with our ticket, when we registered with the foreign registry, when we went to our terminal, when we left our terminal and finally out on the runway before climbing to our plane).

I thought I had reached my twilight zone point when they took my teddy bear from my carry on, bagged it, gave me a claim ticket and offered only the explanation of "security risk." They took my stuffed polar bear that I use as the perfect neck pillow on planes, but let me carry on the sharp metal pipes to the Abli Gobli (Hooka) I bought in Kashmir??? However, just after we had yet again identified our luggage, I was standing in line to exit the terminal to the bus that would take us to our plane. I was bumped from behind, which happens all the time in India. I quickly looked to make sure it wasn’t a pervert and caught a well-dressed upper class Indian woman with her hand halfway down inside the side pocket of my bag. I almost broke her wrist. The only thing that stopped me was the military man 7 feet behind her with the machine gun. I held on to her for an extended time, gritted my teeth and let go. Fortunate for her, she wasn’t on the same plane.

Smelly Delhi

We were happy and sad to be back in civilization. Sad to say goodbye to the vistas, interesting people and the cool weather, happy to have luxuries like the Internet, phones, near-by hospitals, no overt military presence, no noises that sound just like shelling and gun fire (but that our houseboat owner dismissed and pretended he didn’t hear) and to be on our way to our next destination…. The Taj Mahal!

We choose a budget hotel in a good location, right next to a Barista (Indian Starbucks) and a Baskin Robbins. Upon arrival, we hauled our luggage up the four flights of stairs, careful not to touch the wet paint the entire way up. For the first time on our trip we were forced to pay in advance for our room. We asked to see the room first and it wasn’t nice, but it wasn’t bad either. Or so we thought. We were blinded by the promise of air conditioning and HBO. The TV worked, but the static and snow made watching it impossible. The circuit breaker kept popping and turning off our ac. I complained 3-4 times in the first hour. We took off to get some coffee, beer and grub, in that order. When we got back, I tried in vain to get them to change the cable wire to the TV. As I was wiggling the messed up wire so we could maybe watch Lord of the Rings, our first taste of TV in three weeks, I was forced to used my pink flip flop to kill a very scary black bug. Within a few minutes I had killed 5 more! I could never be a Buddhist.

We went to complain about the bugs and we were reassured with about seven different excuses. Rainy season, bla bla. I wanted and needed to believe any of the excuses in order to sleep that night. We ended up sharing our beers with some cool Scottish girls who were on a three-week holiday; we sat around talking on the patio for a couple of hours. When we finally got back to our room, I was floored. Those five bugs had brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, etc. They were all sizes and colors, flying, jumping, crawling their way mainly on our bed where we had neatly laid out our sheets which we had sprayed with 100% Deet (bug repellant). Our sheets were like Deet flavored candy to them. I discovered that the hideous tapestry hanging on the wall above our beds was AKA bug central. It was filled with nests of all stages, sizes and scariness. Within seconds I was bundled with my PJ pants pegged 80’s style, then tucked into my socks, I put on long sleeves even though it was in the upper 90’s and was more creeped out than I can ever remember. I am not that squeamish when it comes to bugs, unless they are earwigs or roaches. I have even raised THREE tarantulas (hey dad, how’s Terry doing?). This was unbearable, unacceptable and apparently unrefundable.

"Refund" – not in the Indian dictionary. India has never met Jeeni and Jeni!

For the next four to five hours we battled with the only staff on duty. A small, 19 year old, boy with no authority to give refunds and "managers" on the telephone. "It is not possible Madame." At first I was firm, but nice. Next I demanded to talk to the manager, even if by phone. She hung up on me. I called her back and talked to her boss. He threatened to call our Embassy, which I invited him to do. I assured him that they would love to see the pictures we took of his filthy room. Next we did "Good Cop, Bad Cop" like we learned in Srinagar. Jeni (Good Cop) broke the Manager’s Manager will a little when she started talking about rights and used legal jargon. Said it was against the law to lock us in (we discovered this after we went to our room and packed up) with a metal gate and pad lock, "fire hazard." Also, she warned him that we had paid for services that were not rendered, such as ac, TV and most importantly, safe sleep. Rounds and rounds we all went. Why we deserved a refund, how they lied, dodging their offers like spraying our room with insecticide. We told him we would rather have bugs than poison. The most ridiculous and popular claim they threw at us was that if we would just turn off the lights in our room, they would magically go away. The bugs were only there because of the light!

In the end, it was my empty threat to go over to the balcony and call out to a police officer on the street that got us our refund. At first it was a partial refund… two, three steps towards the balcony and suddenly it was a full refund, minus the "luxury" tax! Four, five steps, almost there, almost about to have my bluff called…Full Refund. In the mix, I also had to negotiate the release of my laundry I had turned in right when we got there. "It is not possible Madame." I climbed up to the roof and pulled down my damp clothes myself. Huh!

YMCA – Previously thought to be overpriced! Now thought to be Heaven on earth.

At 2:30am we made our way via rickshaw to the YMCA. We had stayed here on our first visit to India and were shocked at the prices, especially considering we didn’t have ac. In retrospect, our refund for the Roach Motel was about twenty bucks. By the time we did the math, we were way past monetary value and had dug our heals into Principle. We are now paying about five bucks more a night each and although it is not "really" in our budget, it’s worth it!

So for a reward for our self-professed heroism, making it through an international war zone (Srinagar and Drass) and spending weeks taking bucket baths, we treated ourselves to a day at the spa. I paid less than $16 for a pedicure, facial, neck and head massage, hair cut, wash, conditioning and blow dry. We needed to wash and massage away the nasty memories of all those creepy crawling critters.

I feel sorry for the Scottish girls…

More to follow, sending my love, Jeeni