A proposal and exit stage left.

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Kate's guide to India

Kashmir

A place in northern india. You shouldn't go to unless you like bombs, soldiers, aggressive sales tactics and being ripped off.
Beautiful place, somewhat spolit by civil war and Kashmiri people (see below)

Kashmiri people

Don't trust them......ever. Enjoy their charming company, marvel at their generousity of spirit, wonder at their emotional intensity However, even when their heart is in the right place....they will tell you lies. They can't not tell lies, their is no moral code against it.

Nor will they will not take no for an answer. The only way to get them off your back is to be rude and/or walk away. In extreme situations you can also try leaving Kashmir to get away from buying one of their overpriced pashmina's. Although unfortunately Kashmiri's have spread throughout India with two aims, to sell their handicraft's and to persuade unwitting tourists to visit their country. So you will only ever be able to dillute the Kasmiri effect.

Shouting works well with them.

If I was recruiting for a sales boiler room I would employ Kasmiri's.
Unscrupulous and tenacious in business they are as happy scewing each other as I am sure they would enjoy selling their own grandmothers.

So here I am in Leh, where I had intended to be all along AND finally a functioning internet connection. This diary entry finds India still crazy (pagel!) and me wiser.
Well, my Kashmir experience got more interesting. I survived my house boat experience. Towards the end of the five days on the boat they managed to ease off a little on the sales side of things - I think they finally realised I wasn't going to actually buy anything. And I had been looking forward to my trek.

So I head of to stay with my young Indian's guide family before heading off on our 'trek' with him and his uncle's family. They lived in a village in the middle of Kashmir, so I got a 'real' Indian experience. It turned out to be a lot more than I bargained for. Now this family are middle class, but you will not be able to belive their house. Their were flies everywhere and the bathroom was disgustingly dirty. If I had been anywhere near a shop that actually sold cleaning products I would have been down there like a shot! And thats me with a good tolerance for mess.

His family were loud and no one really spoke any English. He disappeared off somewhere with his Uncle to leave me to be stared and shouted at in Kashmiri. Much like many english people abroad, Rafi's mother belived that if she just shouted the same word louder and louder I would eventually understand. I was hauled off to another room where all the various female relatives pulled off my western clothes and had me in traditional Kashmiri garb before you coud say Salwar Kamise. This whole somewhat undignifed experience for me was accompanied by much laughter, chattering and pointing for them. I was now a proper 'kashmiri girl' After a few hours his mother (and Rafi himseld) had decided that I should marry Rafi and kept shouting shadi at me (this means marriage)
Great

We finally set off on our trek to Gulmarg (India's premier tourist riddled ski resort) My concerns about my young guide's understanding of what trekking met were increasing, but having gone down with mild heat exhaustion and my second bout of diarhea in ten days I quickly gave up arguing. When we finally reached our destination my fears proved right. The tent that his Uncle had procured at huge expense to me (I could have bought two tents in England for the price it cost me to hire the tent - sensibly paid up in advance - DOH) Tent would have been an appropriate word for it 40 years ago when it was new. It was the worst tent I had ever see in my life, it didn't even have tent pegs. It had wooden sticks for poles. It had a rug for a ground sheet. It was heavy, there was no way it was going top be treked anywhere and I certainly wasn't even going to spend the night in it! His Uncle agreed and put us up in a hotel. I still wasn't going to get my money back though. Rafi reassured me that I would get the next few days for free. We had an enjoyable time at Gulmarg hanging out with his Uncle's family. I was pretty much saved by their daughter - Asfara. An adorable ten year old girl who went to public school in Delhi and spoke perfect English.

We set off back to Rafi's family's house in the village for a night before supposedly going to another even nicer place. I just about managed to put up with the flies, the filth and the constant requests to be given my stuff. "Yeah right I am going to give you my 750 pound camera"
One day turns into two somehow and then I am being told that the next five days are oing to cost me even more money! I blew my stack at this and insisted on buying my bus ticket out of there. Good decision as it turns out. There was had been a bomb in Srinagar the day before and the whole place is going a bit crazy now apparently.

So the next day I am boarding the 'super deluxe' bus for Leh in ladakh....during a torrential rain storm. Proper proper rain. Great inches deep pools of dirty muddy water. Everywhere. There were quite a few other travellers on the bus and I was most relived that everyone of us had tales of being ripped off in Kashmir! We all settled in for our 36 hour epic on our knackered looking old bus along perilous roads over the Himalayas. Well we settled in for a couple of hours before we stop because of land slides. No one knew how long we had to stop for, some believed we would be spending the night right there on the bus. Finally we head off again without 4 western lads who had stupidly gone for a walk. Bus drivers show no mercy in India, if you are not on the bus when they are ready to go they will go. We stop after an hour and reunite with the boys. Again, no one seems to know how long we will be there, the road is closed again due to yet more landslides. Again we set off and start a precarious and dizzying ascent of the pass over the Himalayas. I don't have a head for heights and had had the good fortune to be rewarded with the best seat in the house. A seat right next to the window nearest the edge of the road, or should I say vertical drop.

As I think there is no possibility of feeling anymore fear we stop again. In the middle of the pass, 3500m high (at least ) perched precariously on the road that had become a dirt track the mountain sides dropped vertically down. More land slides. This time I take a walk along a road that is narrow and pot holed beyond belief. How was the bus going to make it along here?

Finally we set off again and this time someone on the other side of the bus has noted my abject terror and lets me swap with them. At least now I can't see the road. This only helps slightly. The bus bounces and sways along the road for a further 45 minutes. It feels like the worst kind of turbulence you have ever experienced. Several times I hear gasps from terrifed passengers on the window side as they notice there is nothing when they look down, no side of road, just a sheer drop. On a couple of occasions the bus feels like it is going to tip and lost its balance. Because of all the delays, we are late and night is drawing in.
I am scared witless, what am I doing here? Why did no one tell me this is one of the most dangerous roads in India

Finally we come over the pass and there are huge sighs of relief all round. We enter army camp on the pass for last checking. We are all asked to say how old we are (its a security measure don't you know) The nice man who can't pronouce my name says I look 16 not 32, I feel a bit happier. We continue on our way. Another 4 or 5 hours we are all alive, firm friends and finally in Kargil our rest point for the evening. We set off to find a hotel at 1am. No chance so its a night on the floor of the bus for me.

I get up the next morning pleased to be alive. We are recommended the best omlette shop for breakfast and set off again at 9am for another 10 hours of bone shaking and terrifying roads. Kasmir side of the death defying pass is green and lush. This side is brown, rocky and barren. Not much to report apart from the I have seen my worst toilet so far in India. A fly filled hut with a hole in the ground, several feet from a pit of filth. Excrememt surrounds the hole, presumably due to the blind or uncaring previous clientele....I jumped a wall and squatted there.....nice.

We arrived in Leh and found a room for the night. It had a proper bed, european toilet and hot shower and everything! I'm sharing with a nice Irish chap. We went out for some lovely tibetan food last night. Momos - cheese and potato filled dumpling heaven. This morning we got up early and found another room in a quieter part of town. We are paying 3 pounds each a night, still have a hot shower and a european toilet AND the most amazing view of the mountains. We have bumped into all the rest of our group from the bus apart from Jan who has gone for ten days harcore meditation (nothing like bumping along in the face of death to turn strangers into friends!)
I'm now busy trying to organise the rest of my stay in Ladakh!

Hope you are all well and there will be piccies soon.

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Comments

[Philip Mellor]

Hi Kate Have just read your blogs and I must say am very impressed. I hope you are having the time of your life and I am sure when you eventually decide to head west, you will appreciate a clean toilet when you see one!!! Be strong and be proud Philip