High on the Himalayas

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November 14th 2009

Published: November 17th 2009

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Our Houseboat

Roller Coaster - one minute I am enjoying myself and the next the whole thing feels a disaster! In spite of telling the bank our plans our debit card failed to work on our last morning in Delhi. Panic! Many hours and a flight later having spoken to our contact in Kashmir who tells us he will see that we can get to a phone to call the bank tomorrow we feel a little better. Then we worry that we are going way over budget. Then we calm ourselves down. Well - we wanted to get out of our comfort zone and we certainly have!

We flew to the Himalayas. The last 20 minutes of the flight was over the mountains. I have now seen K2. I do not want to climb it. Landing at Srinagar we were instantly aware that this we are in a restricted region. Military everywhere and armed to the hilt. We were handed a foreign registration form each and a health form. It took us ages to fill them in and this caused some amusement - I Think it was the sight of Tim sitting on the floor in his shorts filling them in that

Soaring above our heads is a mountain

delighted the onlookers. Then our driver met us and in a style of aggression that out did anything seen in Delhi he whisked us through the small city to our Houseboat. I do not believe the hooting we experienced was a complex communication system - at all!!

We stepped on board the house boat with some trepidation but it’s old style elegance delighted us both.

The issue is that we never really know whether to trust or like anyone or not too - it is all so unfamiliar and we have had so many warnings to be careful that we are constantly on our mettle and yet it is so easy to like the people that we are interacting with. Up and down like yo-yo’s all the time.

We fell asleep briefly in the afternoon - emotional exhaustion I think. When we went through to our lounge we found the cook assistant, Shaleem and Mohamed fast asleep on our floor. We didn’t know what to do and looked at each other as they snored loudly. We tried to play a game of scrabble but amidst the cacophony of their snores and my giggles we could not concentrate

Tim and Shaleem

Standing on the roof of our houseboat

and so in the end went and sat outside in the autumn cool afternoon and watched the lake. Far too British polite to wake them up and ask them to leave and reclaim the space we had paid for.

The evening meal was out of the world delicious - Kashmir Chicken freshly killed and cooked in Kashmir - who would have dreamed we would be sitting here now experiencing this. What a privilege - what heaven - and up we whoosh again on the roller coaster!

Rain - woke up to the sound of heavy rain on the roof and on the lake. Heard that sound all day. Plus extremely chilly. We came to India not really planning to visit the cold North and our man in Deli told us that the temperature here would be 20 degrees Celsius. That’s fine - the single thin fleece jacket we each had would be fine. Ha. Mohamed took us to the internet and phone shop so we could phone the bank and access the internet. As we drove I noticed that the men walking along wore calf length warm over jackets - no buttons or zips just pulled over their

Old Style Comfort

The lounge in our houseboat - what glorious comfort

heads. As we went into the internet shop I asked Mohamed if there was any chance I could get one.

“No problem” he said “I will see.”

He left us to get on with things for half an hour. The internet wasn’t working so after calling the bank and sorting things out, we sat chatting to the owner of the shop.

“The server” he explained “It is in Bangalore. That is where it is breaking down - not here in Kashmir.”
He paused then said “In Kashmir we have had many troubles but it is not as bad now. It is the best it has been since 1989.” He gazed out at the mountains.

“For how long has it been like this?” I asked

He looked a little embarrassed and paused. He looked at me with wry brown eyes. “Since the British, since the British left. “

I nodded and smiled at him. Nothing to say, I understood.

He looked at the computers. “Ah Bangalore has woken up - we have internet. Please use.”

We left after an hour happy that we had been able to send quick e-mail to family to

Me and Horse

Sitting not riding

let them know we were still in existence; happy that we had got hold of the bank and sorted things out; and I in particular was happy as Mohamed brought me one of those long overcoats, a ferron (sp) filthy and warm, which I put on without a pause. I grinned at Tim who was incredibly impressed that I had asked to borrow one. I felt I kind of looked a little as if I fitted in even though I had only seen men wearing them. In fact later that day I was told by two men that I looked a proper Kashmiri woman and our guide told us that I was causing a lot of interest.

"No change there," muttered Tim happily patting me on the head.

Next stop - the ATM machine. Would the bank be true to its word. I was second in the queue as we were going to use my card because of the difficulties with Tim’s. For some reason I had the shakes and the machine was not helpful. I could not insert my card. I looked up in minor panic to find Tim and myself surrounded by grinning men wearing

Very high mountain indeed

Don't climb if you suffer from vertigo

the same sort of overcoat I had on. Mohammed peering anxiously over their shoulders, but waving me to continue.

“It won’t take my card” I told them.

“No no it must. You try again.” At that point the card belonging to the man ahead of me, who had since left ,popped out. I took it.

“What shall I do?”

“We will take it and give to him. Now you go”

In I popped the card.

“Now you do your pin. But make sure we do not see.”

As they were now crowded around me it was difficult but I did it!

What type of withdrawal did I want - Fast Cash or Withdrawal? What the hell? I wanted to withdraw cash and I wanted it fast. How could I choose?

“I don’t know what to do?” I said to them.

“Try Fast Cash”

I pressed the button. The machine then asked me what type of account did I have?

“What type of an account do you have?” They asked me.

I told them.

"Then press that one."

I did.

The machine then gave me

House clinging to side of mountain

options up to R2000 which I pressed. Blessings and Thanks - it gave me money and I thanked the smiling faces around me and left. Then I realised it was R20000 I wanted.

“I need R20000” I told Mohamed who told me to go back to join the queue. “She needs R20000” He called out to my helpers.

The man who had just inserted his card cancelled his transaction and insisted I go ahead of him.
And the whole thing started again with all the men chanting out instructions, except this time I pressed Withdrawal not Fast Cash

That evening while reading in the lounge little old Shaleem the cook assistant who took care of us in the house boat said to me

”It is very bad with the cell phones now. Til last week we could buy prepaid but now we are told we have to get a monthly bill. No prepaid allowed in Kashmir. For security. But for the poor man for people like me it is very hard. We cannot afford to wait to find what we have spent. If we have spent too much how can we pay. So soon I will have no phone. No way to call my family. What can a poor man do. ”

Shaleem was silent for a while then he spoke very sadly”With the fighting too many boys have died. Boys have gone away to fighting to Pakistan and too many of our boys have gone. Have died. Now there are many women, but not enough men.”

Shaleem says only God knows everything. I sat quietly with him listening to the rain outside thinking about what he had told me.

“Will the sun shine tomorrow?” I asked him

“Only God knows everything.”

Morning and the sun is shining as God would have known.

It becomes hard to describe all that one sees and there are huge gaps already. We sat in a gondola or rather we reclined with a very warm blanket over our legs and pulled up to our chests. Somewhere in the boat was our lunch and Shaleem sent us out for 4 hours. Our boatman looked about eighty years old.

“What if he dies while we are in the middle of the lake?” I asked Tim

“I can row,” he said

We jumped as another boat pulled up next to us - “Your boatman, he is very old” a voice murmured along side of me. “Yes, he is very old.” And with a chuckle he paddle away nodding wisely “Very, very old!” echoed back across the lake.

Our boatman spat some phlegm into the water. “Over there is an island with tea houses that the British used when they were here.” He pointed at it. “I will take you there. I remember the British well. They were in my time before I went to fight in the European war.”

The island was lovely with the ruins of the bandstand at one end and the tea house shelters on the other three sides. One day if Kashmir becomes a real attraction this will be revamped, but I am glad to have seen it like this.

Muslim calls to worship and prayer suddenly reverberate around the huge lake echoing against the mountains. Eagles swoop by meters from our heads and a black and white kingfisher hovers for directly in front of us before diving into the lake and swooping upwards. I cannot see if he has a fish. Lotus leaves for miles float some of them with the huge pods of the lotus flowers connected still to the stems. The sun light hits the snow and it gleams back at the sky. Fishermen pole by hunkered down at the tip of the front of their boats paddling with the single oar, the Kashmir coats - just like mine cover small braziers that keep them warm. In the distance more boats form silhouettes. A fat grumpy kingfisher lands briefly on a bank of grass near us and peers suspiciously at our boat. We float in silence listening and watching. Trying to take it all in. Our boatman hawks up some more phlegm and spits it over the side. For a few hours this is our entire world.

When we get back to the houseboat Shaleem invites us to sit on the roof and have afternoon tea. I declare war on a rather handsome crow that wants our biscuits. He is not having them.
Then is is time to go to the gardens. I cannot remember the name of the first one. It is 650 years old and was built as a gift by a man for his wife. But the mogul gardens where we went next simply took my breath away. As we stepped into them I heard Tim breathe “Wow! Oh whow!”

Although autumn and by no means I was told as beautiful as they are in summer they are the most breath taking gardens I have ever seen, in a setting that cannot be surpassed. That settles it - we have to come back here again in the summer. Mohamed told us that evening that the orginal plan had been to build the Taj Mahal in Kashmir but truly it doesn’t need it.

Riding in the Himalaya on our last day there....

Sore bum, sore thighs, sore knees, sore legs. Cold hands, cold toes, cold legs, cold nose. Totally blown out of our minds by the sheer beauty of the Himalayas on horse back. I would like to say the splendour obscured the pain of sitting on a horse for 4.5 hours having never ridden before, warmed the freezing cold away from my bones and removed the fear of sitting on that horse in the first place - but it didn’t. I had to endure all of that in order to experience simply one of the most beautiful of places on this earth that I have ever seen - and through gritted teeth and held back tears by God I would do it again.