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Published: September 18th 2007
After a bit of a tearful goodbye to Chan we finally set off cycling from Leh on the road to Srinagar. We were heading off into the desert and three prgressively smaller passes later we would enter the coveted kingdom of Kashmir. That first day however the going was tough, we were not cycle fit after 3 weeks in the city and of course our old friend the wind was keen to make his presence known, always trying to keep us in Leh of course! The hills were deceptively long and we never seemed to make much progress. From time to time we would pass little oases of villages with their resident palace or gompa perched percariously high above them, here the trees were laden with apricots and tiny apples and little children ran happily along beside us encouraging us to buy fruit from them. The villagers were all busy in the fields harvesting and threshing the cereals in preparation for the long winter to come.
In between the villages however the place was quite desolate; there is no water and only the most hardcore of plants manages to cling to the odd rock to break up the sandy and
boulder strewn landscape. Our way slowly rose and fell as it followed the Indus downstream. We noted the change in the character of the river as the silt laden Zanskar added its flow to our blue ribbon, turning the Indus inot more of the angry grey monster we knew from Pakistan. A few happy tourists rushed by way below us in their inflatable rafts. We had to stop to let a massive convoy of military trucks past; Ladakh and all of Jammu Kashmir (JK) is heavily militarised, and this convoy threw up a choking cloud of fine dust that made it impossible to cycle. So it was very tired, dirty and smelly that we eventually and thankfully spotted a perfect grey sandy beach on the other side of the Indus and back tracked a bit to cross over for a really well needed peaceful camp under the full moon that night. This would be our last close encounter with the Indus for quite a few hundred km so we both enjoyed very REFRESHING and cold quick dips into the fast flowing waters.
The next day found us slogging up the unending switchbacks climbing higher and higher towards the large
and important Lamayuru monastary which sits high up near to the Fotu La pass, the highest point on the Leh-Srinagar road. The road was tough but Robin and I seem to do well on hairpins; at least you can mark your progress and it is defintely kinder to our mental states that unending slow straight hills on which the top never seems to come any nearer. Lamayuru sits magestically above the moonscape of moutains all around, it is surrounded by a small village and fed by small streams from higher up. These streams also support a few sparse grazings in summer; just enough for hardy goats, sheep and the odd dzo (half yak, half cow) as long as the herd keeps moving higher and lower on this fragile habitat. Shepherd women follow close behind wandering the hills all day, carefully collecting the dung to dry and use as precious fuel later on.
We had hoped to get higher on over the pass but we were quite tired by the very steep climb to Lamayuru and also drawn to explore the monastary. Unfortunately when I was checking out the campsite I managed to sprain my ankle, this meant that we
never got to explore the Gompa as Robin eventually had to come looking for me and found me crying with my foot in the stream surrounded by wonderous children who gazed in confusion at the strange foreigner and followed me in giggling groups imitating my limping walk. Poor Robin then had to set up camp all by himself, as all I could manage was to gulp down a few painkillers and prop my foot up on top of one of the panniers.
The next day however with my foot strappped up we managed to cycle up and over the Fotu La, entering a different part of Ladakh where Shia mosques adorned the villages and the children seemed more crazy, throwing stones and water at us and running and pushing each other out of the way in a mad dash to chase us along the road. We zoomed through these villages untill another pass slowed us down. The downhill on the other side though was very rewarding and long, however we had to be careful since major road renovations were underway causing large sections of sand which required careful negotiation. The road just kept descending towards Ladakh's second city of
Kargil, darkness was getting closer now and we decided to camp by the river in amongst small willows.
Our brief stop to replenish supplies in Kargil showed us a busy and decidely Paskistani in style city. The bazaar was full of big-bearded men wearing Kashmiri caps and it reminded us a lot of Gilgit across the border. Prayers were being broadcast from the large mosque and we could almost feel our intended destination of Northern Pakistan just a few 10's of kms away behind the LOC in the hills around town. After town we hit our first checkpoint, this was to become a more and more common occurence, and passed the junction for the road that leads back to the Indus and onwards to Skardu, across the LOC, which at this point was only a few km away. This road has been closed since 1948 however, and so we are forced to turn south up the Dras river valley and climb back towards the Great Himalayan range. As we cycled up along the narrow valley, with the rushing glacial Dras River flowing below, roadside signs warned us "Caution - You are Under Enemy Observation !". The line of hills
across the river marks the Line of Control and this stretch of road has been subject to Pakistani shelling at various times. We cycled along smiling broadly and waving to the ridge line above us on the other side shouting "Hello Pakistan, We're coming!"
The road up to Dras dragged on and on, and Robin in particular was flagging, suffering from dodgy guts. Also the promised roadside cafes did not exist and so we had to stop in a rare patch of shade and cook some of our emergency food rations - instant mash potato which, judging from writing on the packet, we had been carrying since Poland! After a long slog up the increasingly beautiful valley we arrived in Dras, a tiny village which is apparenty the "2nd coldest permanently inhabitated place in the world" - with a record winter temperature of below -60 degrees C. Nearly everyone here was Shia Muslim; in the restaurant were pictures of not only Ayatollah's Khomeini and Khameini but even the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinijad. He may be more popular in Dras than many parts of Iran...! We found lodging in a small Ladakhi Buddhist place and ate our dinner while watching
Indus & Zanskar Rivers
The Blue Indus is drowned by the silt-laden Zanskarthe most ridiculously amusing Ladakhi music videos, although we couldnt work out if they were intended to be comedy or actually serious.
After a day resting in Dras, walking along the river and through the fields ripe with barley, we again set off upwards towards the Zoji La. Gradually the trees and scrub faded away and the valley became a broad, flat bottomed marshy pasture walled in by high peaks, but noticeably greener than Ladakh. The road climbed slowly and there were many stops at military checkpoints and we passed many military camps including the "High Altitude Warfare School", although some of their rock-climbing training pitches really didnt look too challenging. A few hours later we topped out on the Zoji La; the gateway to Kashmir. The wide stoney dry landscape with high but small hanging glaciers was behind us now. Goodbye Ladakh, Hello Kashmir. Hello pine trees and lush green alpine meadows, hello Islamic world and bearded old guys, hello soldiers! Yes loads and loads of soldiers. They were everywhere; at the large miltary bases we passed and dotted around the hillsides around the road, peeking out at us from the shade of trees or big rocks. When
we spotted them we waved and they grinned back, but we definitely felt that we were in an occupied land.
We had cycled past the nasty hotels in the dump that is the 'border' village and ignored the Swiss chalet style expenisve looking hotels aimed at rich Deli-ites, now all around there was nothing only pine forest. As the road descended and the valley broadened the forest began to give way to villages of wooden chalet-style houses and fields of maize. In fact the only crop in the valley seemed to be maize.
The troubles in this region have massively thwarted tourism development and there were no little guest houses anywhere. It was a shame since the setting was idylllic and we were really hoping for a simple homestay style place but nothing presented itself. Camping didnt seem an option with so many soldiers hiding everywhere, so tiredely we asked for a guest house and were directed to the hydro-electric power station. We were not very certain, since we knew we were not supposed to stay in these government worker resthouses, but luckily the caretaker let us stay. We found ourselves in a lovely blooming garden with a nice
big room and for once totally reliable electricity and piping hot water.
Kashmir is famous for handicrafts and textiles, most of the pashminas, shawls and embroidery in the tourist markets of Delhi or Leh is full of Kashmiri goods and with all this trade comes equally imfamous Kashmiri traders. We had long been warned that the tourist tout/commission man scene in Srinagar was vicious and so we were not surprised when a full 15 km before the city we had picked up a guide who was showing us the way to his houseboat. This actually suited us fine since we were not really in the mood to brave lots of jostling salesmen and when we were shown to Nageen Lake, 10 km out from the city centre we decided this quiet and peaceful lake was everything we needed. The boat was attached to the land so we could park our bikes in the family's garden and we had a whole beautifully furnished and decorated boat all to ourselves with meals included for 600 rupees, which seemed a pretty fair price. In fact our boat owner made a big play that he was giving us a special price as he
was so happy to see tourists from somewhere other than Israel !
It is a shame that there are a lot of tourist scams and agressive touts in Srinagar and the atmosphere must have changed a lot since the sixties when it was a really popular and thriving tourist destination frequented by the Beatles amongst many others. But the troubles have put off a lot of visitors and tour groups hardly come any more. This has led to quite a lot of unemployment and the desparate struggling and money grabbing atmopsphere around Dall Lake, which is closer to the centre of town.
We spent a couple of really nice days cycling around Srinagar. We could easily have spent longer there, but knew that we had to press on to get to Pakistan and on up to China and Tibet before the full onset of winter. Anyway Srinagar was hot and humid again and it was quite a shock to our systems after the dry atmosphere of Ladakh. The weather lent itself to lazing around on the verandah of our houseboat leisurely reading a good book and enjoying watching birds, as all your needs were catered for by the
Big Buddha
Just when we thought we had left the Bhuddist world for the Islamic one, we find this huge rock carved figure of Maitreya, the Future Bhudda. floating shops and souvenir salesmen who paddle up to the boats many times in the day.
We set off to explore a bit and had a great ride around big Dall Lake visiting the fantastic Mogul gardens that were in full bloom and deservedly popular, full of Indian tourists all posing for photos or playing in the beautiful fountains. The cycle helped keep us a bit cooler from our own self made breeze too. However we made the mistake of entering the new city and found ourselves stuck in the horrible noisy, smelly and hectic Indian hell-hole that is true of most Indian cities and so quickly headed to the old town. Here we found something special.
Srinagar's old town is full of unique wooden and brick architecture and fabulous pagoda style wooden mosques are dotted around everywhere. You can really see the buddhist influence in the building styles even in the mosques. Some of the mosques had really beautiful papiermache decorations and we loved cycling around meeting really friendly people, and the atmosphere reminded us a lot of Pakistan. Everyone was really happy that we were visiting and enjoying their holy shrines and mosques. One particularly interesting
shrine we visited was that of Hazrat (Prophet) Yuz-Asaf, who elsewhere is known as Issa/Jesus. Kashmiris claim he survived the crucifixion and spent the remainder of his life living and preaching in Kashmir. There are also records of a young Jesus visiting and studying Buddhism at Gompas in Ladakh.
We were rested from the cycle and ready for a long journey down south into the even hotter Punjab. It was really hot enough in Srinagar so we were quite thankful of our decision to take the bus the next day to Amritsar and hopefully by doing this shorten our time in the sweltering plains.
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habib
non-member comment
nice
great pictures you have if u have enough time then wisit www.flickr.com/photos/kharfaqi/