MIssion Possible?

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Well here it is at last - after six and a half weeks of manana mentality prevailing we've finally made it to travelblog! We've had untold obstacles to overcome in getting to print - one being the intense heat here in Kashmir since we arrived from Leeds via Paris and Delhi - another one being the copious amounts of Godfather and various other dodgy and very strong local brews that we've had to consume to stay cool. It's going to be tricky getting the last six weeks into readable format but I'll try.
Our mission is to escape the UK (visa renewals excepted) for as long as possible with forever not being out of the question.

The first leg was an overnight stay in Paris where the objective was simple - to get into and out of Paris without spending an arm and a leg.
Our hopes were dashed immediately by the taxi driver who charged us 40 euros to deposit us on the Champs Elysees on a very chilly Thursday afternoon. After doing a bit of touristy type aimless wandering and getting fleeced in a well average Italian eatery we headed back to the airport hotel (via much cheaper but still rip off metro) to get a couple of beers and crash out ahead of the flight to India the next morning.

The trip was pretty uneventful but was puctuated by a very amusing couple of hours in the bar at Bahrain airport in the company of Darren the party animal from Luton - Hi Darren! - who was off to Thailand for three weeks with a ridicilously huge amount of disposable cash and Abdul the bodybuilder from Vancouver (see pic - huge!) who gave me some advice on getting big - Whatever!
Paula pretty well slept her way to Delhi and I just fidgeted a lot. After much hanging around Delhi internal airport and another one hour flight we made it to Srinagar at luchtime on Saturday where we had to fill in some ridiculously complicated forms for foreign nationals entering Kashmir - I wanted to take some pictures but the soldiers at the airport weren't having it.
Paula's friend Bashir met us at the gate (they don't allow non travellers into the airport) and after a mad half hour in a taxi and a very gentle 15 minute shikara (boat) ride we finally made it to Bashir's houseboat in a very quiet corner of Dal lake.

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