Footsteps - Jotaro's Travels: Intoxicating India 2013

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Footsteps - Jotaro's Travels

Intoxicating India : 9th to 16th February 2013

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DAY 3 - 11TH FEBRUARY 2013

A. UP THE MOUNTAINS

Dawn brought a pinkish glow from the Himalayas, promising us an interesting day ahead. Today we will be visiting a Hindu temple, another lovely park, a paper machie factory, tour Lake Dal on a Shikara and more...

A disappointment though, we were suppose to visit Gulmarg and ride on a gondola in a mountain lake surrounded by snowy mountains. But an ongoing curfew spoilt our plans.
In lieu, we will be visiting a Hindu Temple (the Shankacharya Temple), so we left our houseboats, went over to the mainland and took our vans on the trip up to the temple which is about 600 meters above the lake.

On the way up we got a great view of Lake Dal.

Another scenic view of Lake Dal.

And also of the Himalayas from a higher level, they seems more within reach now.

Another disappointment!
No cameras, mobile phones were allowed into the temple, we had to leave them in our vans.

They were very strict on this. We had to pass through this security point, subject ourselves to body check (even the ladies had to face this) before we were allowed in.

Haha! No photos allowed, so I took a view of the Shankacharya Temple from the lake.
It was an interesting temple, but Gulmarg would have been more captivating.

B. MUGHAL GARDEN NISHAT

We went downhill, down to the lake level again and visited another Mughal Garden - the Nishat Bagh (the Garden of Pleasure).

Signboard at the entrance of Garden Nishmat

The Kashmiri are very proud of their gardens; the are right to be, as these gardens are centuries old and a lot of work has been put in to make them beautiful.

Nishat Bagh has twelve terraces, starting from Lake Dal and stepping upwards towards the foothills of the Himalayas.

A great view of the lake from the garden, it gets even better at the higher terraces.

A line of fountains & pools, at the center of the garden, runs all the way down from the foothills to the lake level. It's the just the start of spring, so they are empty and not running now. It would have been a sight to see them spouting amid the colorful flowers.

With the morning part of our tour over, we went back to the houseboat for lunch.
Kashmiri food is subtly spicy, good but not fantastically delicious. After eating it a few times, it becomes quite bland. Perhaps, the kitchen could have offered more variety. Or perhaps because of the curfew, ingredients were limited and as such the menu.

C. LIFE ON A KASHMIRI LAKE

After lunch, we embarked on what I would consider the most interesting part of our stay in Kashmir - a boat tour around Lake Dal. It would be interesting to see how the locals live in the lake.

A boat selling fast food. Just park your Shikara and go on board to eat.
OR make your order, take-away and eat while being rowed around the lake.
Hmmm... a local version of a drive thru' (or more aptly row-thru') fast food joint!

As we wend around the lake, we were frequently approached by Kashmiri in their boats, selling all sorts of things to tourists - fruits, snacks, shawls, veils, knick-knacks, etc.
They are quite an enterprising lot, and do sometimes become rather insistent & persuasive in their sales pitch.

Some of the canals leading to the village houses are quite narrow.
Interestingly there are no loud motor-boats to pollute and spoil the quietness here, everybody gets around by row boats.

Like sending their children to school by boat.

Shopping by boat... the man seems in a serious mood - did the wife shop too much; Hah! seems this happens everywhere, Haha!

Delivering goods by boat.

Life on the lake seems self-sustaining; the locals just live off the it.

Vegetable farms within the lake.

There are even shops to serve the locals, like this lakeside tailor, ... there must be a barber shop somewhere.

... and a grocer. (... see more at Life On A Kashmiri Lake)

Life is simple;

Life is good;

The children are HAPPY!

C. SHOPPING AT THE KASHMIRI LAKE

As part of our lake tour, we visited a few shops by the lake. One of these is a paper machie factory/shop - The Persian Arts Shop.

Sofie, our Kashmiri tour guide, was a versatile fellow. He even demonstrated to us how the paper machie items were made, painted and lacquered. Perhaps he had worked here before.

Tools of the trade in making paper machie.

Paper machie items, before painting and lacquering.

A painted platter, nice & colorful - ready to receive the glossy lacquer.

The finished product - a beautiful, shiny platter.

In the shop above, there were all sorts of paper machie products like these elephants - all were colorful and beautiful; real works of art.

Vases, bowls, boxes, etc.

Camels!

And even cloths hangers (... see more at Kashmir Paper Mache Shop).

The next stop was a clothing shop - The Asian Crafts House.

The girls were most excited here - this is their territory.

A nice, pink floral shirt.

Pillow cases... I found this one a bit loud.

A satisfied customer with a newly bought nice poncho.

The third shop we visited was this walnut wood furniture shop. Mr. Chaku was there personally to greet us.

He had a good range of warm, dark-brown walnut furniture and carvings.
Their furniture looked good - though big items, their pricing includes delivery to right your home.

But furniture was not my cup of tea for the moment, so I went to look at the smaller items like this interesting chess set with carved ancient Indian soldiers figurines.

And this carving of a small Kashmiri houseboat.

Finally we went to this place dealing in fruits & nuts.
Fruits & nuts? I can assure you this is not a mental institute.

They deal in quality products - dried fruits and good nuts.

And also honey, Kashmiri spices & saffron.

Although it has been a long and interesting day, we were glad to be back at our houseboats to have dinner and call it a night.
But of course the nightly vendors came to visit us again, this time selling paper mache pieces - they seem to know the itinerary of the tourists well. That's just good business sense.

शुभरात्रि - Subharatri! Goodnight!

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