Tuesday, June 7th: Morning Markets and Jon arrives!

David and I got up at 4:15 am to be ready for our next exciting adventure – and exciting it was. Nizar picked us up in the Dastan Deluxe and off we went in the silent night.

As the sky began to lighten we began to see canoes and skiffs joining us in the bay area. There were only a few shirakers, carrying tourists like us. All of the other boats were filled with men, with boats filled with vegetables – garlic, sag (spinach or some other leafy green vegetable), carrots, radishes, squash, turnips.

Here's a video that tries to capture some of the feeling that morning: hundreds of boats, passing each other in the early morning light, people calling out (in Kashmiri) their wares:



What was really amazing to Dave--the environmental anthropologist in the group--was how given the limited arable land, the local people had grown these vegetables in aqueous gardens they had built up by combining algae/sea-weed from the lake with what must have been in places naturally marshy land. Here's a video showing these floating gardens:




And a few more photos of the not-so-floating gardens (remember they're not all floating or all not floating; land, space, and place here are on a continuum...oh here we go with academic navel gazing)

The boatsmen were bargaining with a couple of buyers regarding how much they were to be paid for their wares. Most of the boats had a scale with weights, in which to measure the vegetables.

Nizar did a little interpretation for us. At one time, we were approached by a boatsman selling chocolate candy stored in a chest. When he opened it up, he had fudge, truffles, and other chocolate items. Since Jo says that finding real chocolate in India means it is imported, this was very unusual. We did not buy any, but were approached by a number of vendors in their boats:

Such as flower boats...

vegetable sellers....

Dave was amazed at how many people were also wearing "his" Kasmiri hat...

... and a spice man.

We called him back and he proceeded to show us his wares. I did buy some saffron (after receiving an in-depth lesson re how the six pistils (3 yellow/3 red) were harvested by hand, sorted, and used for different purposes. The red pistils are used to make the red dye used for bindis, the red marks worn by Indian women in the middle of their foreheads to indicate that they are married. I also bought a mixture of spices that go into Kashmiri tea –we will try it and see if it reproduces the lovely flavor – cardamom, cinnamon, honey, saffron, and a few leaves of tea. It was great to do this, and I loved meeting the man who grew these crocuses for the purpose of harvesting the pistils for making the saffron.


We watched the entire spectacle for some time, and then began the return to our houseboat at about 6 am. The sun was just coming up over the mountains; the sunrise was beautiful.

Off we went for our last shikara ride, and bid a fond farewell to Nazir Ahmad Sheikh who had made our trip so special.

Getting onto the plane was quite an experience. This is the state with the largest potential for conflict since the area is hotly contested by both India and Pakistan, and the people do not want to belong to either but be independent. After another harrowing ride to the airport, the car was stopped. We all had to get out of the car, get our bags, and have everything xrayed before we could continue. Then we were stuck in some alternate merge between three lanes of traffic – and we sat and sat. Then onto the airport proper. The bottom line is that Jo and I were frisked (behind special curtained areas reserved for women) five times, our carry-on luggage was xrayed five times, and our baggage went through a security check several times. Finally onto the plane and then back to Delhi.

We now noticed some things about Delhi traffic that we had not noticed before because we had had no experience with driving in India. There were divided roads and people did not drive the wrong-way (for the most part) down a street. There were traffic lights and the drivers actually stopped on red, and went on green. Amazing. Much less cutting in and out (less is the operative word). The roads were still crowded with autorickshaws and motorcycles.

We got back to the apartment and got settled in, and then David and Jim turned around and went back to the airport to get Jonathan. Quite exciting when he arrived! Great for us all to be together although it would have been much better if Gita could have been with us too.

To bed for all, although Jonathan had a hard time shifting his bedtime around.

Monday, June 6: Gulmarg

We had a leisurely breakfast and headed to the taxi stand for a 9:30 departure to Gulmarg, a town about 40+ km away from Srinigar, which has one of the best ski resorts in this area of India.

Another horrific ride in India, caught in snarls of traffic, incessant honking, roads filled with potholes as we got closer and closer to the town of Gulmarg and the real Himalayas.

Along the way, we saw multiple groups of nomads, with usually two or three adults with horses or sheep. On Sunday we saw a horse herd being led by a man in a cloak, and a woman bringing up the rear. They live in hutched roof buildings some of which we saw as we took the cable car ride up the mountain and also at the top when we walked in the meadow.

We passed through several small congested towns, and then began to rise up through a fragrant forest of pine and other trees, very green and shady. Ultimately (about 3 hours later with more than an hour to get through the chaotic traffic of Srinigar) we got to Gulmarg. There were two portions to the gondola ride. Initially Jo and I were going to do the first portion and let Jim and David go up to the very top of the mountain. However the second portion had closed down the day before so the ride was only open to the first station. Jo decided not to go, but I finally did after a fair amount of hemming and hawing. Each car held up to six people, and I, as usual, kept my eyes either closed or on the side as we climbed up for the 8 minute ride. Going both up and back the ride stopped for about a minute, and I practiced by yoga deep breathing! We got to the top and had some coffee and then headed off to the green meadow.

It was beautiful and it was hard not to envision it as the site for Julie Andrews singing “The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music”, so we decided to do a Meek family rendition of that song. David set a self timer and we all held hands and ran towards the camera.

Then we walked off to the edge of the meadow to see the valley below. I heard a sheep and a lamb calling each other, and then saw a shepherd coming up the hill to round them up. We were amazed to look down into the valley, and be greeted with a scene straight from New Zealand. There were so many sheep, walking between the rocks down below, all baah-ing to each other.

There were two shepherds and a small nomad’s hut, probably used by the shepherds. The sheep were herded up the valley wall and into the meadow and many walked right next to us. They were marked with a variety of colors on their backs, presumably so they could be identified. There were a few black sheep but most were white. There were also a number of horses grazing in the meadow but they did not seem particularly interested in us.

We had a picnic of hard-boiled eggs, some chipatis, and some energy bars. The repast may not have been the fanciest one we have ever eaten, but it was hard to match the scenery with the spectacular peaks of the Himalayas towering overhead, still covered with snow in areas. Blue skies, white clouds, green meadows. Truly breathtaking.

A brief shiraker ride back to New Fountain Garden, and David and Jo headed out for their romantic evening ride with Nizar.

Although it started to rain shortly after they left, they had a fabulous time. Nizar tucked them in with a tarp, and they continued in the back bay area.

It stopped raining and they loved exploring the markets and the site of all of the shirakers going through the canals.

They were out for about an hour-and-a-half and said it was the most memorable part of their trip to Srinikar – which is saying something.

The back bays are very interesting. We explored them the night before, and saw women working amongst the lotus blossoms and pulling what turned out to be water chestnuts, since they didn’t belong there. We saw some floating vegetable gardens where people plant cucumbers, pumpkins, squash, and tomatoes. We were surprised at the number of homes that were behind the row of houseboats that we are part of. There are homes ranging from shacks, to very elaborate two story brick buildings where six related families live. Many of the homes had built up the backyards so they have vegetable gardens there.

AND they said that Nizar told them about a vegetable market in the canals that started early in the morning. Jo thought she would pass on it, as did Jim, but David wanted to go and asked me to go with him. Naturally I agreed. Since we were to be picked up by Nizar at 4:30 am the following morning, we had dinner and went to bed early without any Hearts. We noted that Jonathan was finally on his way and we would be seeing him in .about 24 hours!