I had to look up timestamps of photos to remember what we were up to on the 6th day of the proverbial ‘hanging on a edge’ tour because simply put, we didn’t do much. There, I made it sound like a U2 concert tour. We had no idea what’s in store for us despite the perfectly laid plans apart from being always on frazzling level of concern that R’s mother would magically swoop down upon us at any moment. R was more worried about getting busted. She had a perfect foil. Apparently, the Kashmiri shawl-wallah, member of the migratory birds who raid urban Bengal for four months a year every winter with overpriced Kashmiri carpets (more likely Made in Punjab) and winter apparel (Made in Haryana), who has been delegated to her family for years goes to business school in Srinagar. I had a harrowing time salving her nerves that the chap lives in some north-eastern town in Baramulla or Sopore far away from Srinagar. He actually did live in somesuch hinterland and it’s not likely he was be loitering about in the touristy areas of Srinagar, which is pretty much Boulevard Road, the royal Mughal gardens and the main bazaar. Besides, it’s not as if Srinagar is a puny city. I also had my mother’s Kashmiri shawl-wallah, Sultan bhai, but I wasn’t too worried knowing he lives far near Pahalgam.
I had a far more pressing matter poking my temporal lobe. Money. Thanks to the missed flight, non-cooperation by Continental and the extra flight ticket on Air India, I had been almost bled dry. I hardly had half of the money I stashed for the actual traveling part of the trip besides expenditures for trains, hotels and whatnot. I had just the enough emergency dough for any unseen tripping. Since I have already provided for all the long-distance journey and half the accommodation part of the trip, the arrangement was such that R would arrange the rest. But now that my pockets have been reduced by over INR 20K, the trip which was supposed to be an exercise in summer leisure laziness now turned into a full scale backpacking trip. Looking back, we both were not prepared for a backpacking trip though at the very beginning of all the scheming and planning for our escapade, a backpacking mode was what we both had in mind. But then I got carried away by my newfound dollar-assisted snobbery. I got paid accordingly.
Even if it were to be a backpacking trip, the finances in both our coffers were more than enough to make it happen comfortably. However, lesson no. 7 boys and girls: when you’re traveling to a remote, far-flung location always have enough buffer money for unexpected turn of events. We were bursting at the seams and had far less sandbagging than what was needed for just-in-case situations, the first that burst down upon us like Srinagar monsoon later that afternoon.
Upon making a trip to book bus tickets for next day at Leh at the Srinagar Tourist Reception Center, the hub of all touristy transportation and hotel touts in Srinagar, we were told the road to Leh, the Srinagar-Leh National Highway 1B is indefinitely closed from today. I think I heard a hydrogen balloon audibly burst inside me. The disappointment on R’s face made me deflate into a shrunken penis after coitus. The situation was such. It had been raining for three days at Srinagar valley and if it’s raining in the valley it’s sure as hell snowing up in the mountain passes, chiefly, the imposing Zoji-La. Usually, it takes two days to a week for the Indian Army staffed BRO to make the pass passable for vehicles. Luckily, the rains were already drawing down in the valley, in fact it didn’t rain at all that day and the fellow at the ticketing window advised us to be hopeful of good news by next day, inshallah. Although ticketing was closed, the road might open tomorrow, the cannon-ball run cabs would possibly ply towards Leh even if the bus doesn’t run and getting stuck in Srinagar would not be in our fate. We kept our fingers crossed.
With our hearts deflated like an empty balloon we proceeded to cure our souls through our stomach and sure enough we found our savior. What our savior did not offer was non-vegetarian affairs. Small surprise since the place was teeming with God fearing throngs of Gujarati, Haryanvi and Bengali families who would not touch cooked animals even if they were marooned in a cast way island. Little did we know that our guardian angel was only a hundred meters away from the current establishment but we will get to that later.
The day was as lazy we could’ve expected out of it. We were prepared for a lazy trip, as lazy as one can get on a 15 day Ladakh expedition, which on Ladakhi proportions is nothing other than a hurricane tour. Fifteen days is the least one can expect to spend when traveling to Ladakh through ground transportation. The most eventful affair was on R’s face, however. Expressive as always, thanks to her classical dancing days, she already had taken a measure of pride in the fact she has been able to travel to Srinagar by the age of 23, earlier than her mother who went honeymoon-ing there when she was older. It is said that you would come to know hidden crevices of people you weren’t aware of living with them for a few years when you travel with them for a few weeks. When all said and done, the old adage suited both R and me like a charm.
But I digress. The Dal Lake, the single biggest grandiose attraction of Srinagar had been languishing for a longtime. When I last came to Srinagar, in autumn 2007 for an academic conference, revival work of the lake had just been started after decades of negligence. The restoration work had been sincere and the lake was in its former majestic glory, deserving all the praise it gets in the wider world. I figure the increased revenue from booming tourism in Kashmir is behind some of the turnaround. R had never seen something so beautiful and she made it vocally clear so many times that I even offered her a mic and trumpet so she can make the citizens of Boulevard Road privy to her opinion. She went on to thank me a gazillion times for making it happen. the sincerity in her voice made me feel like a man who has everything he could wish for. It’s an ego massage for a young fellow, I admit, but in a rather awesome way that makes hummingbirds sing bubblegum pop in your head.
The truth of the matter was that it was R who made everything happen. I would’ve come to Ladakh anyway even without her. But weren’t it for R’s courage, quite substantial since she has never traveled anywhere outside of Calcutta city limits and I can’t help but harp on it like a crazed carpenter on steroids, her devious scheming apart from being non-bitchy and awesome even in times of discouraging turn of events the expedition would’ve been a disaster. In fact it would’ve been a non-starter at the first place.
Apart from lazy strolls along Boulevard Road lakefront, most of the day was spent in the hotel suite. Although the hotel was supposed to be a 3-Star affair it looked more like a two-and-a-half establishment. The room service was hardly adequate. The hotel staff were more interested in pushing boarders to Boulevard Road restaurants. Again, percentages. The cherry on the cake was the unrestricted wi-fi which appeared to be stolen from the neighboring hotel which came handy for making calls to the parents through Skype. But I was content. I had never been in a certified 3-star hotel and I had a tingling sense of pride of being able to afford a double bed suite in the most expensive touristy area of Srinagar. Man’s primitive sense of providing (well) for his significant other is strong indeed.
Part of the reason for the day being such a flyaway was we were dead tired. R had traveled without a break for 3 days and most of it in summertime North Indian plains heat. I missed my flight, then went through a harrowing night trying to re-book, re-plan everything, hopping airports without sleep for 4 days not to mention the 14 hour flight time. Besides, our Day 6 was designed to be a ‘day off”, looking around Srinagar and energizing our travel batteries.
Perhaps the most eventful thing which were expecting was already a non-event. As is the case in most of India, I expected the hotel staff to give suspicious glances, at very least, to a girl and a boy with different surnames living in the same suit. R was even afraid they would deny us the suite I booked online. In fact, the travel website’s stipulation for denial of service said as much. Funnily enough, me and R went through scenarios where we would both appear as married couples. She even brought along a tiny pack of vermillion with her if I’m not mistaken, just in case, you never know. In the end, we were surprised, pleasantly if I may add, the hotel staff at the check-in counter did not as much bother to look at us. All the attention were showered from a chubby Bengali family who were checking out. I still maintain if it were a run down establishment, things would have been otherwise. Furtive glances and uncomfortable situations were one of the reasons I went for a more expensive upscale hotel where the staff are less concerned about relationship status of their boarders but more about the money they are being paid. As a matter of fact, we were fortunate not to be bothered about conservative invasive staff at hotel check-in counters throughout the whole trip. India is indeed progressing. Lesson no. 15 intrepid love-struck travelers: if you can afford it, always go for upscale accommodation. If you’re low on budget, try Couchsurfing.
Although me and R took the day off, the entire night was a different matter altogether at the suite, we weren’t exactly prepared for more disappointments that came crushing down on the next day, and the day after. As the saying goes, man proposes, Nature disposes. Still, the rainy, sometimes-cloudy dreamy beauty of Srinagar and Dal Lake is something to behold and the cocoon of awe R was weaving with every passing minute in the vicinity of Dal Lake was another sight to witness. If I had a dime for every time R uttered the words “this is the most beautiful place I have ever seen” and its permutations and combinations, I’d have been a millionaire. I must confess even this non-eventful day turned out to be the most satisfying yet, only for her. For when all said and done, it was all about her.
Driftwood Life 