This morning, early, we were back at the airport and on a Hummingbird Airlines flight (sweet name, hey?) to Srinigar in Kashmir.
As we approached the town I looked out the window and saw the Himalayas spooling below. Did you get that THE HIMLAYAS! They were enormous. I leaned over to the guy across the isle and pointed: ‘The Himalayas.’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘ the foothills. That’s the Zabewar range.’
Srinegar was cooler by about 10 degrees and therefore still hot. We drove through lunatic traffic. The rules seem to consist entirely of daring and a belief that someone will eventually apply brakes and avoid impact. Our destination was Dal Lake and a houseboat.
We offloaded at a quay cluttered with shikaras – sort of elaborate, cushioned, curtained rikshas on water with a chap at the back poling gondola-style. There were hundreds of houseboats. Ours was really a house palace – 30 metres long by seven wide and carved almost entirely out of cedar wood. Fans, Kashmir carpets, a stoop surrounded bi filigree carvings and a private chef.
The story of the boats is that the British used to come up here to survive the summers but weren’t allowed to own land, so they built boats as summer houses. And they didn’t do luxury by halves. When they left the country, they gave the boats to their houseboat wallahs (servants) who have become owners and keep the traditions alive.
After lunch we took off in some shikaras to explore the lake. From a quick survey of one afternoon I concluded that Kashmiris must be the most beautiful people on earth. Women with angelic faces, their gold-rimmed saris flowing in the breeze, poled past us. Swarthy men with Bollywood features sat in deep conversation at the water’s edge and Ghandi-looking old men flipped water up onto their marrows and cucumbers with what looked like giant spoons. Children with long black eyelashes watches shyly as we drifted past.
We visited waterside wood carvers, paper mache painters and carpet makers weaving intricate traditional designs. Women make the silk carpets – 1600 knots a square inch – and they make maybe three or four in their lifetime. It evidently takes time to make a carpet like that.
Over dinner Harald, being German and proper about such things, made a speech about how splendid the day had been. Afterwards, on the stoep, the bartering began – jewellery and pashmina merchants. When I turned in the haggling was still going on.
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