Breakfast was 5 Rupees. That's what the note says. A little more interesting might have been a note of exactly what breakfast might have been, but there is no mention of it.
The cold I had picked up had gone to my chest and I was coughing. The cold had actually made me partially deaf in both ears. My note says "cough medicine" and I assume that I bought some at a pharmacy. Again, no mention of the the brand. It was probably a brand that seemed familiar. There were a good number of very familiar (if a little old fashioned) brand names everywhere.
We then explored the fort and at one entrance came across Sri Hari Bawhani and his peculiar instrument. A few posts earlier than this one there is a slideshow video accompanied by Hari's "very nice Rajasthani music". The recording was not made on this first encounter.
My notes say "look round fort" "see tailors" and "8th July". I always seemed to be seeing tailors. I was looking into the making up some shirts again. The rolls of fabric/material that shirts are made of is called "shirting'. Somehow or other the word seems peculiar and amusing. It shouldn't because words such as "sheeting" as in plastic sheeting or "skirting" as in skirting board are quite familiar English terms. The word "shirting" just tickles me and it always puts me in mind of the word "trousering" used to describe someone getting some financial windfall/advantage and keeping it. Then again the word "pocketing" could also be used for the same action. I doubt that the fabric trousers are made of is called "trousering" but I stand to be corrected. If pockets are made of a special material, is it called "pocketing"? Probably not.
The reference to "8th July" is a reference to a restaurant/café called "The 8th of July'. As I recall it was very small but today it is probably much bigger and smarter, perhaps it is even a WiFi hotspot or something. Then it was small place with a good write-up in the Lonely Planet Guide as being somewhere that some home comforts could be obtained. It is strange what people crave when they have been away from home for some time. The 8th of July was a place that Australians could get Vegemite on toast if they wanted. It had Marmite too. I didn't have either. My notes on this visit don't say what I had.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Alighting at Jaisalmer
Everywhere you go on the touristic trail in India you have to be careful about aggressive touts and rickshaw drivers. In Delhi the competition for trade was cut throat. There is always someone willing to act as your guide or take you somewhere that you should really visit. There was (I'm afraid) never an occasion when I received any information or guidance without there being a financial incentive for the giver either from me directly or by way of a commission from whoever's shop I ended up in. You learn to put up with the hassle, to shrug it off.
Arriving in Jaisalmer was different. The train's arrival meant a whole new crop of tourists would all be arriving at the same time. As you step out of the station the sight before you is amazing. I know that I am not the only person who has experienced this. Other people have related the same story since. I think Robin and Donna (my brother and sister-in-law) experienced the same when they visited a couple of years later.
As you exit the station there in front of you is an enormous crowd of hotel touts, rickshaw and auto-rickshaw drivers all yelling and screaming to get your attention. Every one of them desperately wants your fare and the desire is physical. The intensity of the competition for your trade is so great that there would be a real risk that you might get torn apart by competitors. The risk is nullified because the baying mob is held back by Policemen wielding that peculiarly Indian tool of crowd control - the lath, a stave about 6 feet long and perhaps an inch or slightly more in thickness. A fearsome weapon.
Somehow or other we all got a ride together and ended up in a hotel called The Pushkar Palace. Our "room' was a structure erected on the flat roof of the hotel and was basically 4 single beds in one long room. It was cool (in both senses) and it was cheap.
Arriving in Jaisalmer was different. The train's arrival meant a whole new crop of tourists would all be arriving at the same time. As you step out of the station the sight before you is amazing. I know that I am not the only person who has experienced this. Other people have related the same story since. I think Robin and Donna (my brother and sister-in-law) experienced the same when they visited a couple of years later.
As you exit the station there in front of you is an enormous crowd of hotel touts, rickshaw and auto-rickshaw drivers all yelling and screaming to get your attention. Every one of them desperately wants your fare and the desire is physical. The intensity of the competition for your trade is so great that there would be a real risk that you might get torn apart by competitors. The risk is nullified because the baying mob is held back by Policemen wielding that peculiarly Indian tool of crowd control - the lath, a stave about 6 feet long and perhaps an inch or slightly more in thickness. A fearsome weapon.
Somehow or other we all got a ride together and ended up in a hotel called The Pushkar Palace. Our "room' was a structure erected on the flat roof of the hotel and was basically 4 single beds in one long room. It was cool (in both senses) and it was cheap.
Jaisalmer
The above video is an experiment. It's an iPhoto slideshow exported to Quicktime and then uploaded. If it works then I may have to go back and make some more. The music was recorded live on the recording walkman that I took with me. It is being played by Hari Bawhani on that strange looking instrument. To add atmosphere you can hear some tourist or other saying "excuse me, please!" and on more than one occasion the sound of a motor scooter going past with the rider sounding his "horn'. Right at the end of his performance the bells fall off the bow and Hari brings it to a conclusion with his own assessment: "Very nice Rajasthani music!". It was very good and I'm glad to be able to present it to the world now.
Transit in Jodhpur
The train pulled in to Jodhpur about 3.00pm the next day and the connecting train to Jaisdalmer was only a few hours later. I decided there wasn't a great deal of point in trying to see anything of Jodhpur in that time and spent the afternoon in the Refreshment Room drinking Chai and reading. While there I met three girls traveling together called Mandy, Imogen and Grace. They were headed to Jaisalmer too. They were all good fun and the time passed quickly before we all boarded the overnighter to Jaisalmer.
Monday, December 22, 2008
To Jaisalmer, Rajasthan via Jodhpur
The notes I took in my filofax thing are really very bad. They weren't written with this kind of thing in mind. Why I wrote them at all when they are so woefully inadequate is questionable. For instance, the whole of the next day, Wednesday 7 November 1990, is blank except for a note towards the bottom of the page, sometime after 6.00pm, which says "Out to Jodhpur". This doesn't jog my memory about the day very much. I must have done something but what it was is now consigned to the deeper recesses of my mind perhaps never to re-emerge or perhaps only to resurface when most of what I do from minute to minute is hard to hold in my memory.
The train was a sleeper. Most of the journeys I took were overnighter's. I must have said that it saves on a hotel room and you achieve something, namely onward progress,even as you sleep. To a certain extent taking overnight trains is unavoidable. They don't set off on journeys such as Delhi to Jodhpur in the morning. It would mean traveling through the heat of the day which would be uncomfortably hot for most passengers and a waste of a day's light.
Did I mention the unique signs that you find on the platforms of Indian railway stations? It is honestly something that has stuck with me ever since. They have the most sensible station information sign you might ever encounter. The sign says "This train will not leave before..." and a time is inserted. It was certainly comforting to know that there was never a need to worry about the train leaving before the appointed time of departure. What the signs don't say is exactly when the train will leave. On this occasion because of derailment somewhere up the line the train was 5 hours late in departing! Never mind I had probably fortified myself with a souvenir from Kashmir and the blue bench seats in the very spacious First Class compartments were comfortable enough. There were reading lights and if I wasn't writing a letter or postcards I was probably reading. One of the things that I might have done earlier in the day was visit a book shop in Connaught Circus. I've reviewed (and edited slightly) the foregoing posts and can't see a mention of buying books but I certainly did get a handful of paperbacks. I seem to recall that they weren't very cheap. They were a collection of Oscar Wilde's stories, A Passage to India by E M Forster and a book of Kafka short stories. Perhaps they sound a bit worthy or dated. Perhaps I should have been reading Midnight's Children. I am sure I tried once and found it too stodgy to digest.
The train was a sleeper. Most of the journeys I took were overnighter's. I must have said that it saves on a hotel room and you achieve something, namely onward progress,even as you sleep. To a certain extent taking overnight trains is unavoidable. They don't set off on journeys such as Delhi to Jodhpur in the morning. It would mean traveling through the heat of the day which would be uncomfortably hot for most passengers and a waste of a day's light.
Did I mention the unique signs that you find on the platforms of Indian railway stations? It is honestly something that has stuck with me ever since. They have the most sensible station information sign you might ever encounter. The sign says "This train will not leave before..." and a time is inserted. It was certainly comforting to know that there was never a need to worry about the train leaving before the appointed time of departure. What the signs don't say is exactly when the train will leave. On this occasion because of derailment somewhere up the line the train was 5 hours late in departing! Never mind I had probably fortified myself with a souvenir from Kashmir and the blue bench seats in the very spacious First Class compartments were comfortable enough. There were reading lights and if I wasn't writing a letter or postcards I was probably reading. One of the things that I might have done earlier in the day was visit a book shop in Connaught Circus. I've reviewed (and edited slightly) the foregoing posts and can't see a mention of buying books but I certainly did get a handful of paperbacks. I seem to recall that they weren't very cheap. They were a collection of Oscar Wilde's stories, A Passage to India by E M Forster and a book of Kafka short stories. Perhaps they sound a bit worthy or dated. Perhaps I should have been reading Midnight's Children. I am sure I tried once and found it too stodgy to digest.
Friday, October 17, 2008
An Exclusive Audience with a Guru
So I went with the young man to a little place on the Main Bazaar Road. There are literally hundreds of tiny shops lining each side of the road. I was led inside and introduced to a fairly elderly man. I can't describe him now. It's not that I don't have time, I just don't remember. All I can remember is the way it all went. The first thing I was shown was a old black and white photograph of a group of men in white loincloths and I was asked to simply point to one. I have no idea why I was asked to do this. It had some bearing on the outcome of it all but I never quite understood what.
This was the first of two memorably enjoyable occasions when I was knowingly conned into parting with money that I had sworn I would not part with. The Guru asked all kinds of questions and I provided him with the correct answers. The questions were personal but not intrusive and the answers I gave were not secrets. All of this was a kind of softening up exercise to get my confidence and perhaps get me to give away some information of use later. I don't think I told him anything that made me particularly vulnerable.
It was obvious the performance was not going to be for free. It was a private audience with a supposedly wise old man. It also soon became clear that I wasn't going to learn anything about the two women in England who were supposedly thinking about me. I began not to co-operate very much.
The best bit about it was when the old man told me to think of the name of a colour but not to tell him what I was thinking. I thought hard about a colour. He then took a small piece of paper and wrote something on it and folded it up tightly and asked me to hold it in my right fist. I did as he said. He then proceeded to ask me a great deal more questions leading nowhere in particular and then came back to what colour I had been thinking of. I told him the colour I had thought of was the colour puce.
The old man looked genuinely surprised. He asked me what colour puce was. I think I was half right when I told him it was a very dark red that bordered on green. In fact it is a dark red that borders of greyish purple or browny red that borders on brownish purple. Whatever it is, it is a genuine colour and I felt pretty confident that I had foxed the old man. He even asked me to spell it.
He then asked me to open my hand and open up the piece of paper. I did. I swear that there was no way he could have interfered in the process. If he did distract me while I was opening my hand and unfolding the paper I don't know how. Written on the piece of paper was "PUCE". I often think about this trick and wonder how he did it. Surely he needed me to spell out the colour's name so that he, or perhaps his young apprentice, could write it down on another piece of paper and replace what I was holding but my fist was closed tight until he asked me to open it and reveal what was written on the paper I had been holding. I was impressed.
Shortly after that I was asked to choose between three numbers. I think they were 50, 100 and 150. After I had chosen he told me that number was going to be the number of rupees I was going to give him. I was less impressed. I had to disappoint the Guru. I assured him I was going to give him something because I had enjoyed the experience very much indeed; the sleight of hand involved in the piece of paper and colour trick had been completely and amazingly unnoticeable. I think I decided to give him 20 rupees. I think I actually did give him 20 rupees. To be honest I can't remember exactly what I did give him but whatever it was it was exceptionally good value for the entertainment I had had. However, I don't think I turned out to be as good a prospect as the young man, the Guru's disciple, had thought.
This was the first of two memorably enjoyable occasions when I was knowingly conned into parting with money that I had sworn I would not part with. The Guru asked all kinds of questions and I provided him with the correct answers. The questions were personal but not intrusive and the answers I gave were not secrets. All of this was a kind of softening up exercise to get my confidence and perhaps get me to give away some information of use later. I don't think I told him anything that made me particularly vulnerable.
It was obvious the performance was not going to be for free. It was a private audience with a supposedly wise old man. It also soon became clear that I wasn't going to learn anything about the two women in England who were supposedly thinking about me. I began not to co-operate very much.
The best bit about it was when the old man told me to think of the name of a colour but not to tell him what I was thinking. I thought hard about a colour. He then took a small piece of paper and wrote something on it and folded it up tightly and asked me to hold it in my right fist. I did as he said. He then proceeded to ask me a great deal more questions leading nowhere in particular and then came back to what colour I had been thinking of. I told him the colour I had thought of was the colour puce.
The old man looked genuinely surprised. He asked me what colour puce was. I think I was half right when I told him it was a very dark red that bordered on green. In fact it is a dark red that borders of greyish purple or browny red that borders on brownish purple. Whatever it is, it is a genuine colour and I felt pretty confident that I had foxed the old man. He even asked me to spell it.
He then asked me to open my hand and open up the piece of paper. I did. I swear that there was no way he could have interfered in the process. If he did distract me while I was opening my hand and unfolding the paper I don't know how. Written on the piece of paper was "PUCE". I often think about this trick and wonder how he did it. Surely he needed me to spell out the colour's name so that he, or perhaps his young apprentice, could write it down on another piece of paper and replace what I was holding but my fist was closed tight until he asked me to open it and reveal what was written on the paper I had been holding. I was impressed.
Shortly after that I was asked to choose between three numbers. I think they were 50, 100 and 150. After I had chosen he told me that number was going to be the number of rupees I was going to give him. I was less impressed. I had to disappoint the Guru. I assured him I was going to give him something because I had enjoyed the experience very much indeed; the sleight of hand involved in the piece of paper and colour trick had been completely and amazingly unnoticeable. I think I decided to give him 20 rupees. I think I actually did give him 20 rupees. To be honest I can't remember exactly what I did give him but whatever it was it was exceptionally good value for the entertainment I had had. However, I don't think I turned out to be as good a prospect as the young man, the Guru's disciple, had thought.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Posting My Parcel
When I got to the Post Office with my wicker basket stitched up in white muslin and sealed with sealing wax I presented it at the counter for weighing and the calculation of postal cost. A large friendly Sikh man did the honours and declared that the parcel would cost 625 Rupees to send to the UK. At official rates this was about £18. At least the contents were worth more. The stamps were purchased and affixed. The Post Office official then told me in a matter of fact way that the parcel was over sized and wobbled his head. I said I did not know that there was a regulation size. He assured me there was one and he told me that the maximum size for a parcel was the equivalent of two cases of Mr Pik drinking water and he wobbled his head again. I told him again that I had not known that. He assured me that it was the case and again I noticed the head wobble slightly. All the time the man had a very pleasant smile on his face. I told him that I was sure it wasn't very much larger than the regulation size and that it wouldn't be a problem. The Postal worker had the air of a man who had been trying to make a very subtle point and with a resigned sort of look he franked all the stamps and removed the parcel to a shelf for parcels that were to be posted. I left the Post Office and made my way back to Paharganj. As I walked it began to dawn on me that the official had been hinting that my parcel would miraculously become of regulation size if I were to give him a little incentive. His approach had been just a little too subtle. The head wobble was supposed to be the unspoken sign. I worried for a little while that my parcel might not actually be posted, but what could I do?
As I reached the junction where I had been accosted some while earlier there was the young man who had done the accosting waiting for me. He greeted me joyfully reminding me of the appointment I had made. There was no avoiding him and I really didn't have very much else to do so I agreed to go with him to see his Guru.
As I reached the junction where I had been accosted some while earlier there was the young man who had done the accosting waiting for me. He greeted me joyfully reminding me of the appointment I had made. There was no avoiding him and I really didn't have very much else to do so I agreed to go with him to see his Guru.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Delhi Again
I didn't take any pictures on my second visit to Delhi. Delhi was my hub. I got up in the Metropolis Tourist Home and after breakfast I headed off to Connaught Place and went back to the travel Agency where I had originally booked my houseboat in Srinagar. Amazingly I was able to get myself a 50% refund on the cost of the houseboat I never stayed in. I told them that they really ought to have mentioned the fact that I never had a chance to actually find the houseboat I had booked. I remonstrated with them that the fact that there was a curfew meant I couldn't possibly have arrived in time to locate it. I couldn't believe that I did actually get some of my money back.
Flushed with that success I went a bank to exchange a 500 rupee note which had a tear in it. The fact is that any Indian bank note with a rip in it was unlikely to accepted as legal tender so the advice was never to accept one and if you got one to change it at a bank. So I did.
My next tasks were to visit both New Delhi and Old Delhi post offices for any mail that might have been waiting for me. There wasn't any.
I returned to Paharganj and gathered everything I wanted to post home and put it into the wicker basket I had bought in Srinagar. Before being able to post a parcel it had to be sewn up in white cloth and sealed with sealing wax. It was advised that one should affix a seal that could not be replicated easily to prevent anyone being tempted to open it up to steal anything valuable and then resealing it.
There were places where parcels could be made up and I sorted it out and headed off for the post office again. As I walked down Main Bazaar Road I noticed a man who was standing on something to raise himself above the throng. He was wearing a turban and was leaning out holding on to something to keep his balance. He looked right at me and said "Two women are thinking about you in England". That got my attention which was his aim. He asked me whether I would like to go with him to meet his Guru where everything would be explained. I thanked him for the invitation but, as he could plainly see, I was carrying a large parcel which I was taking the post office. The young man was most insistent and asked how long it would take me. I couldn't say having never posted a parcel in India before. He suggested that we have an appointment at say, 4.00pm? I said I couldn't really promise so he should just look out for me on my return.
So I went off to the Post Office with my enormous parcel.
Flushed with that success I went a bank to exchange a 500 rupee note which had a tear in it. The fact is that any Indian bank note with a rip in it was unlikely to accepted as legal tender so the advice was never to accept one and if you got one to change it at a bank. So I did.
My next tasks were to visit both New Delhi and Old Delhi post offices for any mail that might have been waiting for me. There wasn't any.
I returned to Paharganj and gathered everything I wanted to post home and put it into the wicker basket I had bought in Srinagar. Before being able to post a parcel it had to be sewn up in white cloth and sealed with sealing wax. It was advised that one should affix a seal that could not be replicated easily to prevent anyone being tempted to open it up to steal anything valuable and then resealing it.
There were places where parcels could be made up and I sorted it out and headed off for the post office again. As I walked down Main Bazaar Road I noticed a man who was standing on something to raise himself above the throng. He was wearing a turban and was leaning out holding on to something to keep his balance. He looked right at me and said "Two women are thinking about you in England". That got my attention which was his aim. He asked me whether I would like to go with him to meet his Guru where everything would be explained. I thanked him for the invitation but, as he could plainly see, I was carrying a large parcel which I was taking the post office. The young man was most insistent and asked how long it would take me. I couldn't say having never posted a parcel in India before. He suggested that we have an appointment at say, 4.00pm? I said I couldn't really promise so he should just look out for me on my return.
So I went off to the Post Office with my enormous parcel.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Jammu to Delhi again
I woke up in the First Class Waiting Room dormitory and made my way down to the station to make my reservation back to Delhi. One of the great features of the Indrail pass back then (it may be the case now too) was that possession of the Pass meant that there was no need to make a reservation in advance. The Pass guaranteed a seat on any train. There were always a handful of seats kept ready for holders who might turn up on the day. So it was no problem getting a ticket.
I was feeling a little better than I had been on the bus coming down from Srinagar. Obviously being on my way back to Delhi nobody was interested in hijacking me. I had my backpack and a large wicker basket full of stuff. It was very much warmer down in Jammu and one other item I didn't need was the pullover I had borrowed from Bashir. I got talking to some guy at the station and he seemed to be familiar with Srinagar and I asked him if he knew Bashir. He said he did so I asked him if he would return the pullover to him. A lot later on I got a postcard from Bashir asking for the pullover. It just goes to show you can't trust anyone! I suppose what goes around comes around. It's karma. That's what I think. I was still feeling a little bit ripped off.
I boarded the Super Fast train and as it trundled back to Delhi I wrote my series of postcards home read, dozed and relaxed. My notes say that I had lunch, chai and dinner on the train and the food was excellent. First of all I should say that "Super Fast" may have been something of a misnomer. When you think of super fast trains today you might think about the TGV in France or the Bullet Train in Japan both of which achieve speeds of over 125mph. I doubt the super fast train I was on went faster that 40mph. Second, the system for ordering food was terrific. The orders were taken shortly after you boarded, probably (but I can't remember) before the train pulled off. The order was communicated to another station up the line where it was prepared and when the train pulled into that station the meal was loaded on and served. The dishes were collected later and they were taken off the train at its next stop.
I don't recall what time I arrived in Delhi but it was in the evening. I had plenty to carry and a "coolie" stepped in to help. The note says "rip off coolie". I think he demanded something silly for helping me get my backpack and basket of goodies onto a rickshaw. His justification was that he was a "First Class coolie".
I booked back into the Metropolis Tourist Home and this time booked a room of my own.
I was feeling a little better than I had been on the bus coming down from Srinagar. Obviously being on my way back to Delhi nobody was interested in hijacking me. I had my backpack and a large wicker basket full of stuff. It was very much warmer down in Jammu and one other item I didn't need was the pullover I had borrowed from Bashir. I got talking to some guy at the station and he seemed to be familiar with Srinagar and I asked him if he knew Bashir. He said he did so I asked him if he would return the pullover to him. A lot later on I got a postcard from Bashir asking for the pullover. It just goes to show you can't trust anyone! I suppose what goes around comes around. It's karma. That's what I think. I was still feeling a little bit ripped off.
I boarded the Super Fast train and as it trundled back to Delhi I wrote my series of postcards home read, dozed and relaxed. My notes say that I had lunch, chai and dinner on the train and the food was excellent. First of all I should say that "Super Fast" may have been something of a misnomer. When you think of super fast trains today you might think about the TGV in France or the Bullet Train in Japan both of which achieve speeds of over 125mph. I doubt the super fast train I was on went faster that 40mph. Second, the system for ordering food was terrific. The orders were taken shortly after you boarded, probably (but I can't remember) before the train pulled off. The order was communicated to another station up the line where it was prepared and when the train pulled into that station the meal was loaded on and served. The dishes were collected later and they were taken off the train at its next stop.
I don't recall what time I arrived in Delhi but it was in the evening. I had plenty to carry and a "coolie" stepped in to help. The note says "rip off coolie". I think he demanded something silly for helping me get my backpack and basket of goodies onto a rickshaw. His justification was that he was a "First Class coolie".
I booked back into the Metropolis Tourist Home and this time booked a room of my own.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Not Shalimar Bagh, Nishat Bagh
Saturday 3 November 1990 was my last complete day in Kashmir and I went to have a look at the Mughal Gardens. As usual I couldn't be sure that I was being taken to where I wanted to go. I am pretty sure that the place I visited was Nishat Bagh. A very beautiful place it was too. The autumnal shades of the maple trees were spectacular. Sadly (this being the closed season the watercourse seemed to have been drained. Research done in the course of writing this tells me that the gardens were built by Asif Khan in 1633 AD.
Below is one of the postcards i sent home. I've included it only because of the autumnal theme.
The picture below is a view of Dal lake from the gardens. Until I scanned it the other night I had overlooked this slide. The more I look at it the more I like it. Look across the lake and you can see the Hazratbal Mosque. I love this picture.
Finally I am including one of the postcards again. This time because it is of a similar subject but closer up.
The remainder of my last day in Srinagar was spent doing some shopping. I went to a tailor's shop where I had had a couple of shirts made up. I had a look round and then retired to the houseboat to pack my backpack and the goodies that I had accumulated.
Rudiger in Turkey had been right. I was accumulating stuff at a pretty amazing rate. I had a largish wicker basket full of stuff including my rug, wooden boxes and papier maché napkin rings.
My last meal aboard the Arizona was (according to the note in my filofax) an excellent vegetable curry.
The next day I was on the bus at 7.00am heading back down to Jammu. I really wasn't well. I was wearing Bashir's pullover because without it I'm sure I would have frozen to death. It was very very cold at that time of the morning. The journey back down was excruciatingly painful. The bus had a puncture at some point and I remember that I nearly fainted while the wheel was being changed. The bus arrived in Jammu very late and I checked into the First Class Railway Waiting Room dormitory for 12 rupees.
Chillin' Shoppin' 'n' Boatin'
The next day was November 1st 1990 and it seems to come and gone without me achieving very much at all. I had breakfast as usual and got a ride to the shore shared with this guy smoking a water pipe. I got the exposure wrong. I ought to have over exposed it even more because the light was from behind. It would have better to get the whole pipe in to the frame too. Oh well.
The best times while I was in Srinagar were when I was on the Shikara. It was very peaceful and calm. The scenery around Srinagar is so beautiful that if it wasn't for the gunfire and distant thunder of bomb blasts during the night it was quite easy to forget that there was an insurgency going on and major repression in response.
I spent a couple of hours window shopping on my own. I don't think I bought anything. It is hard to buy stuff because of the rules. You can't look remotely interested in anything because if you do the shopkeeper is going to be all over you and whether you like it or not you'll end up with something you never knew you wanted. The golden rule is never to ask the price of anything. That is somehow more than what lawyers here call "an invitation to treat". Here simply enquiring as to the cost of an item creates no binding contractual relationship between customer and shopkeeper. There asking how much something costs means "I am really interested in this item and I am certainly going to buy it when we have agreed a price". You simply cannot ask the price because it concludes the contract and all that is left is to haggle about how much money you eventually part with. It's a bit off putting because you have to shop out of the corner of your eye and appear completely uninterested in, or even disgusted by, what you are looking at.
I'm sure I must have been going down with something because my notes on 1st November and 2nd November include the short phrases "Bloody Factory" and "Bloody Shawl salesman". I was getting grumpy. I think somehow or other someone had persuaded me to go to a handicraft showroom. I just don't like those places. The products are well presented but the prices are inflated. You can't get a proper discount starting from a marked price that is already geared towards holiday makers on larger budgets. I just didn't like the shawls at all and I wished that I didn't have to look at them - full stop. There was no escape from the salesmen. The houseboat was blockaded by a flotilla of shikaras laden with souvenirs most days and late in the afternoon of Friday 2nd November we were actually boarded. That's the reference to them "barging" into my living room was about in my postcards home. On the other hand the tactic paid off because that was when I relented and bought the napkin rings just to get the pirates off the houseboat.
Earlier that day I had been into Srinagar and had bought some wooden boxes in Polo View. and spent the whole afternoon with Rashid aboard the shikara taking a trip through the canals.
It was a bit tricky trying to snap photos while the shikara was in motion. I don't think the light was particularly great and taking a picture at 125th of a second shutter speed of a moving object is likely to result in blurred images especially if using a telephoto lens. The shot above of the waterside shop is an example of the less than satisfactory result. I put it in for what it is worth. Likewise the picture below of the women doing their washing. The pictures do have some some atmosphere at least.
Somehow or other being with Rashid and probably being disguised by the poncho-thing let me take pictures that otherwise I might not have been able to. These young children standing on the bank didn't mind being photographed and the looks on their faces are open and friendly. The little girl looks a little unkempt. I wonder what has become of them all. The boys ought to be approaching their thirties now if they survived the hardships of the last 18 years and if they haven't been involved in any fighting.
There was certainly plenty of life on the water. The above shot of a gentleman navigating his cargo of reeds is one of my favourites. I supposed the reeds were to be used for thatching rooves and it seems that I was probably right. I have just been to a website called OPF (Overseas Pakistani Foundation) where in describing the dwellings in Kashmir it says: "A reed called tshai is used for roofing. Roofs of this description may be noticed on the houses in Srinagar, Sopur, and the adjacent villages, because they are near to the Dal, Vilullar, and Anchar lakes, where the reed grows abundantly." So there you go.
There was indeed an abundance of the reeds. They are also used for mat making and fodder for cattle. In my surfing I came across a learned article on the fact that the wetlands of Kashmir are under threat. See http://www.greaterkashmir.com/full_story.asp?Date=2_2_2008&ItemID=9&cat=12.
I wasn't entirely sure where Rashid was taking me but I was enjoying the trip. It was great to see ordinary life going on. This society seemed to as much at home on the water as on the land. Everywhere you looked there was someone paddling a shikara somewhere and at times there was quite a bit of traffic to contend with.
Some of it was quite large too. Check out the shikaras with whole shed like structures on them. They've got tiled rooves and the rooves can be propped open for ventilation.
Wherever it was were were going it was a popular destination and as we got nearer there were more people about. The bridge over the canal pictured below has plenty of people crossing it.
Eventually we neared a major port. It's a shame the picture is blurred because the scene was something to behold. Mountains in the background, the autumnal colours of the trees in the middle distance, the activity on the quayside and the sky filled with large birds of prey.
We disembarked and it soon became clear where we had been headed. we had arrived in the village of Hazratbal. Rashid was on his way to Friday prayers.
Hazratbal's special significance is derived from the fact that it houses a hair of the prophet Mohammed - The Moi-e-Muqqadas (the sacred hair). Wikipedia says that "according to legend" but it seems to be historic fact that the relic of the Prophet was brought to India in 1635 by a decendant of Mohammed called Syed Abdullah. His son inherited it but was unable to care for it and sold it to a wealthy Kashmiri businessman called Khwaja Nur-ud-Din Ishbari. The Mughal Emperor Araungzeb found out about it and seized the relic throwing Khwaja Nur-ud-Din Ishbari in jail for possessing it. Later, too late because the businessman had died in prison, he changed his mind and decided to restore it to its owner. The relic and the body of Khwaja Nur-ud-Din Ishbari were taken to Kashmir in 1700 and Khwaja Nur-ud-Din Ishbari's daughter, Inayat Begum established the shrine. Her family members have been the custodians of the relic ever since and are known as known as Nishaandehs (literally: givers of the sign).
In the early seventeenth century the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan's Subedar, Sadiq Khan, had laid out a garden here and constructed a palatial building, Ishrat Mahal or pleasure house in 1623. However, the Emperor, during his visit in 1634, ordered the building to be converted into a prayer house with some additions and alterations.
During the time of Aurangzeb, when the Moi-e-Muqqadas arrived in Kashmir in 1699, it was first kept in the shrine of Naqshband Sahib in the heart of the city. Since the place was found to be insufficient in view of the unprecedented rush of people who thronged the place to see the relic, it was decided that it would be shifted to Hazratbal, then known as Sadiqabad. The Hazratbal Mosque of Kashmir is a beautiful structure of immaculate white marble. The Muslim Auqaf Trust headed by Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah started the construction work on this marble structure in 1968. The construction took about eleven years and the mosque was completed in 1979.It is a blend of Mughal and Kashmiri architectural styles, with a three-tiered roof topping walls and porticos of brick masonry on a base of dressed stone
The relic is displayed to the public on religious occasions, usually accompanied by fairs. Apart from these occasions, Friday prayers are offered at Hazratbal (also known as Assar-e-Sharief, Madinat-us-Sani, or simply Dargah Sharif) and attended by throngs of people. Hazratbal is remarkable for being the only domed mosque in Srinagar; the others having distinct pagoda like roofs. The shrine – mosque complex is situated on the western shore of the Dal Lake opposite Nishat Bagh and commands a grand view of the lake and the mountain beyond. See the next posting for a distant view of Hazratbal Mosque from the other side of the lake.
www.spirituality.indiatimes.com concludes its piece with the words:
"The Hazratbal mosque, standing like a glowing dream with its pristine grace reflected in the waters, is an abiding symbol of the potential for warmth and amity among different people."
I think I can confirm that. Rashid had quietly paddled me in his shikara to a great place. A place where I can verify that everyone I encountered was full of the warmth of human kindness.
Having googled Hazratbal to pad out the scant information I had about the Mosque I came across Nasir Jeelani's blogspot. He says (and I apologise for having corrected a couple of typographical errors):
"It was on December 27 , 1963 when a mass upsurge empted (sic) in Srinagar following the disclosure, a day earlier, that The Moe-i-Muqaddas - The Hair of Prophet Mohammad (S.A.W)- had been stolen from the Hazratbal shrine. The Moe-i-Muqaddas, kept in a tube of glass and ritually exhibited few times a year, remaining locked in 2 wooden cupboard otherwise. Its theft resulted in a public outcry in Srinagar.
It was restored on January 3,1964 as mysteriously as it was stolen a week before. But during the intervening period, wailing throngs of about a lakh of people swirled through the snow-clad roads of Srinagar.
Throughout January, tension continued to mount in Srinagar as the mere announcement of the return of the Moe-i- Muqaddas failed to pacify the sentiments of the populace. Calm was restored only after a special verification ceremony was held to establish that what had been recovered was really the hair of the Prophet and not a substitute."
I wonder how it was verified as being the real thing? Surely they didn't do DNA analysis then did they? It would surely be sacrilege to do that.
It's a faith thing, I suppose. In the first place you have to believe that when Syed Abdullah left Medina what he had really was a hair that belonged to his forbear. There's no reason to suppose it wasn't. Its location between then and the day in 1964 that it was stolen was always accounted for, so it is a shame that there should have been a break in the evidence chain when it was stolen and everyone simply has to trust in the fact that the true relic was restored.
While Rashid attended prayers I had a walk around and took a couple of photos of shops in the neighbourhood. I couldn't find a candlestick maker's but I did find the butcher and the baker.
I think my picture of the bakery is a little more cheerful than the one in the series of postcards I sent home.
I suppose that with so many people thronging to Prayers the guy in the fast food stall had a good chance to sell some of the mountains of snacks he was preparing.
On our way home to the houseboat we went through what was left of the floating vegetable market (most traders having gone to Prayers or home by then) and some provisions were collected for the evening's dinner which got a special mention in my notes as "Gd Fish Curry v.hot". The last picture below is one of the postcards I sent home. The floating market when that was taken was obviously a bit busier. It was probably taken in the morning.
The best times while I was in Srinagar were when I was on the Shikara. It was very peaceful and calm. The scenery around Srinagar is so beautiful that if it wasn't for the gunfire and distant thunder of bomb blasts during the night it was quite easy to forget that there was an insurgency going on and major repression in response.
I spent a couple of hours window shopping on my own. I don't think I bought anything. It is hard to buy stuff because of the rules. You can't look remotely interested in anything because if you do the shopkeeper is going to be all over you and whether you like it or not you'll end up with something you never knew you wanted. The golden rule is never to ask the price of anything. That is somehow more than what lawyers here call "an invitation to treat". Here simply enquiring as to the cost of an item creates no binding contractual relationship between customer and shopkeeper. There asking how much something costs means "I am really interested in this item and I am certainly going to buy it when we have agreed a price". You simply cannot ask the price because it concludes the contract and all that is left is to haggle about how much money you eventually part with. It's a bit off putting because you have to shop out of the corner of your eye and appear completely uninterested in, or even disgusted by, what you are looking at.
I'm sure I must have been going down with something because my notes on 1st November and 2nd November include the short phrases "Bloody Factory" and "Bloody Shawl salesman". I was getting grumpy. I think somehow or other someone had persuaded me to go to a handicraft showroom. I just don't like those places. The products are well presented but the prices are inflated. You can't get a proper discount starting from a marked price that is already geared towards holiday makers on larger budgets. I just didn't like the shawls at all and I wished that I didn't have to look at them - full stop. There was no escape from the salesmen. The houseboat was blockaded by a flotilla of shikaras laden with souvenirs most days and late in the afternoon of Friday 2nd November we were actually boarded. That's the reference to them "barging" into my living room was about in my postcards home. On the other hand the tactic paid off because that was when I relented and bought the napkin rings just to get the pirates off the houseboat.
Earlier that day I had been into Srinagar and had bought some wooden boxes in Polo View. and spent the whole afternoon with Rashid aboard the shikara taking a trip through the canals.
It was a bit tricky trying to snap photos while the shikara was in motion. I don't think the light was particularly great and taking a picture at 125th of a second shutter speed of a moving object is likely to result in blurred images especially if using a telephoto lens. The shot above of the waterside shop is an example of the less than satisfactory result. I put it in for what it is worth. Likewise the picture below of the women doing their washing. The pictures do have some some atmosphere at least.
Somehow or other being with Rashid and probably being disguised by the poncho-thing let me take pictures that otherwise I might not have been able to. These young children standing on the bank didn't mind being photographed and the looks on their faces are open and friendly. The little girl looks a little unkempt. I wonder what has become of them all. The boys ought to be approaching their thirties now if they survived the hardships of the last 18 years and if they haven't been involved in any fighting.
There was certainly plenty of life on the water. The above shot of a gentleman navigating his cargo of reeds is one of my favourites. I supposed the reeds were to be used for thatching rooves and it seems that I was probably right. I have just been to a website called OPF (Overseas Pakistani Foundation) where in describing the dwellings in Kashmir it says: "A reed called tshai is used for roofing. Roofs of this description may be noticed on the houses in Srinagar, Sopur, and the adjacent villages, because they are near to the Dal, Vilullar, and Anchar lakes, where the reed grows abundantly." So there you go.
There was indeed an abundance of the reeds. They are also used for mat making and fodder for cattle. In my surfing I came across a learned article on the fact that the wetlands of Kashmir are under threat. See http://www.greaterkashmir.com/full_story.asp?Date=2_2_2008&ItemID=9&cat=12.
I wasn't entirely sure where Rashid was taking me but I was enjoying the trip. It was great to see ordinary life going on. This society seemed to as much at home on the water as on the land. Everywhere you looked there was someone paddling a shikara somewhere and at times there was quite a bit of traffic to contend with.
Some of it was quite large too. Check out the shikaras with whole shed like structures on them. They've got tiled rooves and the rooves can be propped open for ventilation.
Wherever it was were were going it was a popular destination and as we got nearer there were more people about. The bridge over the canal pictured below has plenty of people crossing it.
Eventually we neared a major port. It's a shame the picture is blurred because the scene was something to behold. Mountains in the background, the autumnal colours of the trees in the middle distance, the activity on the quayside and the sky filled with large birds of prey.
We disembarked and it soon became clear where we had been headed. we had arrived in the village of Hazratbal. Rashid was on his way to Friday prayers.
Hazratbal's special significance is derived from the fact that it houses a hair of the prophet Mohammed - The Moi-e-Muqqadas (the sacred hair). Wikipedia says that "according to legend" but it seems to be historic fact that the relic of the Prophet was brought to India in 1635 by a decendant of Mohammed called Syed Abdullah. His son inherited it but was unable to care for it and sold it to a wealthy Kashmiri businessman called Khwaja Nur-ud-Din Ishbari. The Mughal Emperor Araungzeb found out about it and seized the relic throwing Khwaja Nur-ud-Din Ishbari in jail for possessing it. Later, too late because the businessman had died in prison, he changed his mind and decided to restore it to its owner. The relic and the body of Khwaja Nur-ud-Din Ishbari were taken to Kashmir in 1700 and Khwaja Nur-ud-Din Ishbari's daughter, Inayat Begum established the shrine. Her family members have been the custodians of the relic ever since and are known as known as Nishaandehs (literally: givers of the sign).
In the early seventeenth century the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan's Subedar, Sadiq Khan, had laid out a garden here and constructed a palatial building, Ishrat Mahal or pleasure house in 1623. However, the Emperor, during his visit in 1634, ordered the building to be converted into a prayer house with some additions and alterations.
During the time of Aurangzeb, when the Moi-e-Muqqadas arrived in Kashmir in 1699, it was first kept in the shrine of Naqshband Sahib in the heart of the city. Since the place was found to be insufficient in view of the unprecedented rush of people who thronged the place to see the relic, it was decided that it would be shifted to Hazratbal, then known as Sadiqabad. The Hazratbal Mosque of Kashmir is a beautiful structure of immaculate white marble. The Muslim Auqaf Trust headed by Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah started the construction work on this marble structure in 1968. The construction took about eleven years and the mosque was completed in 1979.It is a blend of Mughal and Kashmiri architectural styles, with a three-tiered roof topping walls and porticos of brick masonry on a base of dressed stone
The relic is displayed to the public on religious occasions, usually accompanied by fairs. Apart from these occasions, Friday prayers are offered at Hazratbal (also known as Assar-e-Sharief, Madinat-us-Sani, or simply Dargah Sharif) and attended by throngs of people. Hazratbal is remarkable for being the only domed mosque in Srinagar; the others having distinct pagoda like roofs. The shrine – mosque complex is situated on the western shore of the Dal Lake opposite Nishat Bagh and commands a grand view of the lake and the mountain beyond. See the next posting for a distant view of Hazratbal Mosque from the other side of the lake.
www.spirituality.indiatimes.com concludes its piece with the words:
"The Hazratbal mosque, standing like a glowing dream with its pristine grace reflected in the waters, is an abiding symbol of the potential for warmth and amity among different people."
I think I can confirm that. Rashid had quietly paddled me in his shikara to a great place. A place where I can verify that everyone I encountered was full of the warmth of human kindness.
Having googled Hazratbal to pad out the scant information I had about the Mosque I came across Nasir Jeelani's blogspot. He says (and I apologise for having corrected a couple of typographical errors):
"It was on December 27 , 1963 when a mass upsurge empted (sic) in Srinagar following the disclosure, a day earlier, that The Moe-i-Muqaddas - The Hair of Prophet Mohammad (S.A.W)- had been stolen from the Hazratbal shrine. The Moe-i-Muqaddas, kept in a tube of glass and ritually exhibited few times a year, remaining locked in 2 wooden cupboard otherwise. Its theft resulted in a public outcry in Srinagar.
It was restored on January 3,1964 as mysteriously as it was stolen a week before. But during the intervening period, wailing throngs of about a lakh of people swirled through the snow-clad roads of Srinagar.
Throughout January, tension continued to mount in Srinagar as the mere announcement of the return of the Moe-i- Muqaddas failed to pacify the sentiments of the populace. Calm was restored only after a special verification ceremony was held to establish that what had been recovered was really the hair of the Prophet and not a substitute."
I wonder how it was verified as being the real thing? Surely they didn't do DNA analysis then did they? It would surely be sacrilege to do that.
It's a faith thing, I suppose. In the first place you have to believe that when Syed Abdullah left Medina what he had really was a hair that belonged to his forbear. There's no reason to suppose it wasn't. Its location between then and the day in 1964 that it was stolen was always accounted for, so it is a shame that there should have been a break in the evidence chain when it was stolen and everyone simply has to trust in the fact that the true relic was restored.
While Rashid attended prayers I had a walk around and took a couple of photos of shops in the neighbourhood. I couldn't find a candlestick maker's but I did find the butcher and the baker.
I think my picture of the bakery is a little more cheerful than the one in the series of postcards I sent home.
I suppose that with so many people thronging to Prayers the guy in the fast food stall had a good chance to sell some of the mountains of snacks he was preparing.
On our way home to the houseboat we went through what was left of the floating vegetable market (most traders having gone to Prayers or home by then) and some provisions were collected for the evening's dinner which got a special mention in my notes as "Gd Fish Curry v.hot". The last picture below is one of the postcards I sent home. The floating market when that was taken was obviously a bit busier. It was probably taken in the morning.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Freewheelin' Descent
I woke up the next morning in the hovel. I can't remember but I think that the "facilities" were almost non existent. If I recall it correctly there was a latrine affair a short walk away from the hovel which involved going up some wooden steps into an elevated wooden cubicle with a hole in the floor through which you did your business. This simply fell the few feet you had climbed and must have been in a heap underneath the platform. I don't mind roughing it, I don't, honest. I do mind paying 850 rupees to rough it. I am not a masochist.
There was no sign of the driver. I don't recall having much by way of breakfast and I decided to set off down towards Pahalgam on foot. It was quite a pleasant walk along the road despite the light rain and the fact it was quite chilly. When I got to Pahalgam it was pretty much closed. The jktourism.org website says that it is Kashmir's premier resort but, like I said, everything seemed to be closed. Perhaps there was another strike or perhaps at this end of the "season" there was no point in being open.
Somehow or other the driver found me and I hopped back into the car and we headed back to Srinagar. I noticed the car had only a quarter of a tank of petrol. Not much of it was used as the driver coasted and freewheeled most of the way down. I don't know what time I got back to the houseboat but it must have been quite close to curfew. Shortly after my arrival Bashir turned up with two Australian's that he had somehow managed to capture. I was no longer the sole occupant of the houseboat.
That trip up to Aru and back was pointless and expensive (in relative terms). It didn't do much to help me warm to my host and I was going down with a cold too.
There was no sign of the driver. I don't recall having much by way of breakfast and I decided to set off down towards Pahalgam on foot. It was quite a pleasant walk along the road despite the light rain and the fact it was quite chilly. When I got to Pahalgam it was pretty much closed. The jktourism.org website says that it is Kashmir's premier resort but, like I said, everything seemed to be closed. Perhaps there was another strike or perhaps at this end of the "season" there was no point in being open.
Somehow or other the driver found me and I hopped back into the car and we headed back to Srinagar. I noticed the car had only a quarter of a tank of petrol. Not much of it was used as the driver coasted and freewheeled most of the way down. I don't know what time I got back to the houseboat but it must have been quite close to curfew. Shortly after my arrival Bashir turned up with two Australian's that he had somehow managed to capture. I was no longer the sole occupant of the houseboat.
That trip up to Aru and back was pointless and expensive (in relative terms). It didn't do much to help me warm to my host and I was going down with a cold too.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Ambassadorial Tour Up Country
The day before the ever helpful Bashir had talked me into taking a trip up to Aru at what I thought was a very modest 850 rupees. I would have my personal driver and all food and lodging included. It sounded OK. At the very least I would not have to hide in the houseboat to avoid the shawl and papier maché souvenir salesmen.
I never bought a shawl but did eventually relent and buy some papier maché napkin rings. I thought they'd come in handy one day. To tell the truth they haven't but they still might. They say that the handicraft of making papier maché articles was introduced in the 15th Century by a Kashmiri prince who had spent years in prison in Samarkand in Central Asia. The manufacturing and decorating of the artifacts involves many different processes and given that I couldn't have paid more than a couple of quid for half a dozen (I can't remember how much I paid it could have been much less) it's hard think about how much everyone involved could get from each item
Say I paid 30p for each napkin ring. OK, the base product is waste paper paper which is cheap. It is soaked for a few days until it disintegrates. The excess water is drained off and mixed with cloth, rice straw and copper sulphate to form a pulp. The mixture is then placed in a mould and left to dry for two to three more days. When it is dry the shape is cut away from the mould in two halves and then glued together again. The surface is coated with the layer of glue and gypsum, rubbed smooth with a stone or baked piece of clay and pasted with layers of tissue paper. A base color is painted on and a design is added free hand. The colours for painting designs on the surface are obtained by grinding and soaking various vegetable mineral dyes in pigment or stone form. The object is then sandpapered or burnished and is finally painted with several coats of lacquer. All that for 30p per napkin ring! They are pretty tough too.
In the end the only way to make sure that these salespeople leave you alone is to buy something. But I digress..
After the usual excellent breakfast Rashid took me to the shore where an Hindustan Ambassador was waiting for me. This was my personal taxi. What a terrific car! Fifties style and roomy. Hindustan Motors own website says:
Hindustan Motors was the first Indian Car Company to start production in India in 1942. As old as the Pyramids, the Ambassador is essentially a 60 year old design manufactured by Morris of England as the Oxford [the car is, in fact, selling in the UK for its nostalgic value!] and it still sells in India despite its ancestry. What's glaring about this car is its antiquated design. The body is obsolete, but the engine is reasonably modern which is the Isuzu based four-cylinder 1800cc unit. And though the engine has satisfactory power, it is noisy and can be a strain over long periods. The gearbox is agrarian, the brakes not very good either. HM, thankfully, after all these years has finally managed to get the handbrake to work. The car is quite a handful at speeds -- it rolls excessively when cornered hard and the old-fashioned suspension does not inspire much confidence in the car's dynamics. Build quality is below par and fitments and fixtures are generally tacky. The body shell is also notorious for catching rust.
The one I was riding in was not as old as the pyramids and was not new enough to have the Isuzu engine that is mentioned. When that engine was dropped under the bonnet the Ambassador became the fastest car produced in India. Can you believe it? That was introduced in 1990 and my taxi was not a new car. The picture above is provided with the kind permission of Keith Adams and the original can be found on the Austin Rover Online site www.aronline.co.uk. Check it out!
Frankly I don't know where the taxi driver took me. I have done some research on the web to see if I can match my slides to pictures on the net. I think that we first traveled along the vale of Kashmir and passed a field full of crocus flowers, the source of saffron.
So here's my picture of the field and one of the seven postcards I sent home as a letter home.
My notes say the driver wasn't very good and didn't seem to know the way. I think the next place we visited was a Hindu temple where there was also a Mosque. I have no idea where this was and the taxi driver didn't speak enough English to tell me anything that I could understand. I suspect that it might be Awantipur. If anyone recognises the pictures they could add a comment.
We then started to drive up towards Aru. I got the driver to stop a couple of times so that I could take photographs. What was annoying was that although I had paid 850 rupees for the taxi (to Bashir) the driver kept stopping to pick up fares as he was going along. He actually took money off the passengers, even though so far as I was concerned, he had already got a paying fare.
One of the passengers was the chap with the impressive beard pictured above. The driver also seemed to be doing everything he could to conserve fuel and would put the car into neutral and simply freewheeled whenever he could. As usual there was plenty of horn used to warn of our approach as we coasted into roadside settlements scattering chickens in our wake. Given what Hindustan Motors says about the way its own car handles, the way this guy "drove" the car was positively reckless. He knew what he was doing, I suppose, because we didn't have an accident.
From what I have been able to find out on the web about the geography we were heading towards the high meadowlands of Aru. The route took us through Pahalgam called the Valley of the Shepherds according to the jktourism.org "Kashmir Paradise on Earth" site. It says that Pahalgam is situated at the confluence of streams from Sheshnag lake and the Lidder River so I suppose the pictures below are of the aforesaid river.
The point of the trip was to get to Aru which is a starting point for treks to the Kolahor Glacier. As I mentioned before I think that the time of year was wrong for visiting Kashmir and as we got up towards Aru the weather started to close in. When we arrived it was getting quite gloomy. I went for a short walk but it started to rain.
So I headed back to my accommodation which was no more than a hovel. Dinner was cold . It had been brought up in tiffin boxes by the driver. I wasn't altogether impressed with what Bashir had arranged for me. One of the lowlights was a cup of less than refreshing Kashmiri Chai. It was honestly revolting. I have looked up recipes for it since and it looks like it ought to be delicious. I suppose if I had known that the floury sediment at the bottom of the drink was powdered almonds my taste buds might have reacted differently. I'm the white guy with a borrowed poncho-thing on. Note the lad on the left has a basket inside his poncho-thing. This is what I was talking about before. In the basket is a metal container with glowing charcoal embers in it. Hand held central heating. The others have got them too. In fact the only person who hasn't is me. The lad also sports the national shoe of India - the blue and white rubber flip flop.
I never bought a shawl but did eventually relent and buy some papier maché napkin rings. I thought they'd come in handy one day. To tell the truth they haven't but they still might. They say that the handicraft of making papier maché articles was introduced in the 15th Century by a Kashmiri prince who had spent years in prison in Samarkand in Central Asia. The manufacturing and decorating of the artifacts involves many different processes and given that I couldn't have paid more than a couple of quid for half a dozen (I can't remember how much I paid it could have been much less) it's hard think about how much everyone involved could get from each item
Say I paid 30p for each napkin ring. OK, the base product is waste paper paper which is cheap. It is soaked for a few days until it disintegrates. The excess water is drained off and mixed with cloth, rice straw and copper sulphate to form a pulp. The mixture is then placed in a mould and left to dry for two to three more days. When it is dry the shape is cut away from the mould in two halves and then glued together again. The surface is coated with the layer of glue and gypsum, rubbed smooth with a stone or baked piece of clay and pasted with layers of tissue paper. A base color is painted on and a design is added free hand. The colours for painting designs on the surface are obtained by grinding and soaking various vegetable mineral dyes in pigment or stone form. The object is then sandpapered or burnished and is finally painted with several coats of lacquer. All that for 30p per napkin ring! They are pretty tough too.
In the end the only way to make sure that these salespeople leave you alone is to buy something. But I digress..
After the usual excellent breakfast Rashid took me to the shore where an Hindustan Ambassador was waiting for me. This was my personal taxi. What a terrific car! Fifties style and roomy. Hindustan Motors own website says:
Hindustan Motors was the first Indian Car Company to start production in India in 1942. As old as the Pyramids, the Ambassador is essentially a 60 year old design manufactured by Morris of England as the Oxford [the car is, in fact, selling in the UK for its nostalgic value!] and it still sells in India despite its ancestry. What's glaring about this car is its antiquated design. The body is obsolete, but the engine is reasonably modern which is the Isuzu based four-cylinder 1800cc unit. And though the engine has satisfactory power, it is noisy and can be a strain over long periods. The gearbox is agrarian, the brakes not very good either. HM, thankfully, after all these years has finally managed to get the handbrake to work. The car is quite a handful at speeds -- it rolls excessively when cornered hard and the old-fashioned suspension does not inspire much confidence in the car's dynamics. Build quality is below par and fitments and fixtures are generally tacky. The body shell is also notorious for catching rust.
The one I was riding in was not as old as the pyramids and was not new enough to have the Isuzu engine that is mentioned. When that engine was dropped under the bonnet the Ambassador became the fastest car produced in India. Can you believe it? That was introduced in 1990 and my taxi was not a new car. The picture above is provided with the kind permission of Keith Adams and the original can be found on the Austin Rover Online site www.aronline.co.uk. Check it out!Frankly I don't know where the taxi driver took me. I have done some research on the web to see if I can match my slides to pictures on the net. I think that we first traveled along the vale of Kashmir and passed a field full of crocus flowers, the source of saffron.
So here's my picture of the field and one of the seven postcards I sent home as a letter home.
My notes say the driver wasn't very good and didn't seem to know the way. I think the next place we visited was a Hindu temple where there was also a Mosque. I have no idea where this was and the taxi driver didn't speak enough English to tell me anything that I could understand. I suspect that it might be Awantipur. If anyone recognises the pictures they could add a comment.
We then started to drive up towards Aru. I got the driver to stop a couple of times so that I could take photographs. What was annoying was that although I had paid 850 rupees for the taxi (to Bashir) the driver kept stopping to pick up fares as he was going along. He actually took money off the passengers, even though so far as I was concerned, he had already got a paying fare.
One of the passengers was the chap with the impressive beard pictured above. The driver also seemed to be doing everything he could to conserve fuel and would put the car into neutral and simply freewheeled whenever he could. As usual there was plenty of horn used to warn of our approach as we coasted into roadside settlements scattering chickens in our wake. Given what Hindustan Motors says about the way its own car handles, the way this guy "drove" the car was positively reckless. He knew what he was doing, I suppose, because we didn't have an accident.
From what I have been able to find out on the web about the geography we were heading towards the high meadowlands of Aru. The route took us through Pahalgam called the Valley of the Shepherds according to the jktourism.org "Kashmir Paradise on Earth" site. It says that Pahalgam is situated at the confluence of streams from Sheshnag lake and the Lidder River so I suppose the pictures below are of the aforesaid river.
The point of the trip was to get to Aru which is a starting point for treks to the Kolahor Glacier. As I mentioned before I think that the time of year was wrong for visiting Kashmir and as we got up towards Aru the weather started to close in. When we arrived it was getting quite gloomy. I went for a short walk but it started to rain.
So I headed back to my accommodation which was no more than a hovel. Dinner was cold . It had been brought up in tiffin boxes by the driver. I wasn't altogether impressed with what Bashir had arranged for me. One of the lowlights was a cup of less than refreshing Kashmiri Chai. It was honestly revolting. I have looked up recipes for it since and it looks like it ought to be delicious. I suppose if I had known that the floury sediment at the bottom of the drink was powdered almonds my taste buds might have reacted differently. I'm the white guy with a borrowed poncho-thing on. Note the lad on the left has a basket inside his poncho-thing. This is what I was talking about before. In the basket is a metal container with glowing charcoal embers in it. Hand held central heating. The others have got them too. In fact the only person who hasn't is me. The lad also sports the national shoe of India - the blue and white rubber flip flop.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Ashore
I had the houseboat to myself and slept well. Bashir also had me to himself and was very keen that after breakfast I should go with him to visit his "uncle' who had a carpet showroom. Why not? I have already said that I like looking at carpets and I felt sure that I was unlikely to be persuaded to buy anything too extravagantly expensive.
I think that the timing of my visit to Kashmir was a little wrong (leaving aside the "troubles"). The fact of the matter was that every morning dawned with a very cold mist shrouding the houseboat and it was very chilly indeed. The locals all wore long poncho-style over garments and carried a bucket of charcoal embers inside them to keep warm. I'm sure that it worked but I was always (and remain) confused by the fact that they could be so wrapped up and warm inside their poncho-things but have nothing to keep their feet warm. They nearly all wore the ubiquitous blue and white rubber flip-flops.
The livingroom of the houseboat had a charcoal stove which was very much required in the early morning and at night. Breakfast every morning was very good. There was always a Kashmiri style omelette, boiled eggs, Kashmiri bread warmed on the stove, jam, marmalade and honey. To drink there was a choice of chai and black or green tea. A leisurely breakfast was no problem given how cold it was until the sun had burned off the mist.
Rashid's service was once more called upon to transport us across the lake to the showroom of Shaw & Sons (not nephews). I have to say the collection of carpets and rugs was absolutely splendid and I was indeed persuaded to buy a small carpet (4'x 2'6") made of wool and silk. It did set me back about £85 on a credit card and I've still got it. It is by the side of my bed and its texture is still very good indeed. The quality was assured and the quality was really excellent. I love it. It was a dreadful shame that I wasn't a good deal richer because some of the carpets were absolutely fantastic and really excellent value. I decided then that one day I will go back and spend some serious money on a couple of carpets.
Doubtless Bashir had his commission from the sale of the small carpet to me. It probably wasn't as large a commission as he would have liked but it was better than nothing and after we left the showroom I was able to get ashore to have a wander around and post my letter.
In India the advice about posting letters and postcards was clear. You had to make sure that you took your items to a post office and once you had bought your stamps you had to make sure that the stamps were franked in front of you. The reason for this was that the cost of three stamps for postcards to the UK was about the same as one day's pay for some people in India (quite a lot of people in fact).
So I found my way to the Post Office. There I found another sign of the troubles. the entrance to the Post Office was fortified by a sand bag machine gun post and everyone going in had to be frisked. This was a little bit unnerving. I suppose government institutions like post offices were very likely targets for bombers. The post office was not attacked while I posted my letter.
Srinagar has not left any lasting impression on me. I can't remember very much about the place at all except that the post office was almost hidden by sand bags and soldiers were pointing guns at everyone approaching. I walked around and did some window shopping.
I think that the timing of my visit to Kashmir was a little wrong (leaving aside the "troubles"). The fact of the matter was that every morning dawned with a very cold mist shrouding the houseboat and it was very chilly indeed. The locals all wore long poncho-style over garments and carried a bucket of charcoal embers inside them to keep warm. I'm sure that it worked but I was always (and remain) confused by the fact that they could be so wrapped up and warm inside their poncho-things but have nothing to keep their feet warm. They nearly all wore the ubiquitous blue and white rubber flip-flops.
The livingroom of the houseboat had a charcoal stove which was very much required in the early morning and at night. Breakfast every morning was very good. There was always a Kashmiri style omelette, boiled eggs, Kashmiri bread warmed on the stove, jam, marmalade and honey. To drink there was a choice of chai and black or green tea. A leisurely breakfast was no problem given how cold it was until the sun had burned off the mist.
Rashid's service was once more called upon to transport us across the lake to the showroom of Shaw & Sons (not nephews). I have to say the collection of carpets and rugs was absolutely splendid and I was indeed persuaded to buy a small carpet (4'x 2'6") made of wool and silk. It did set me back about £85 on a credit card and I've still got it. It is by the side of my bed and its texture is still very good indeed. The quality was assured and the quality was really excellent. I love it. It was a dreadful shame that I wasn't a good deal richer because some of the carpets were absolutely fantastic and really excellent value. I decided then that one day I will go back and spend some serious money on a couple of carpets.
Doubtless Bashir had his commission from the sale of the small carpet to me. It probably wasn't as large a commission as he would have liked but it was better than nothing and after we left the showroom I was able to get ashore to have a wander around and post my letter.
In India the advice about posting letters and postcards was clear. You had to make sure that you took your items to a post office and once you had bought your stamps you had to make sure that the stamps were franked in front of you. The reason for this was that the cost of three stamps for postcards to the UK was about the same as one day's pay for some people in India (quite a lot of people in fact).
So I found my way to the Post Office. There I found another sign of the troubles. the entrance to the Post Office was fortified by a sand bag machine gun post and everyone going in had to be frisked. This was a little bit unnerving. I suppose government institutions like post offices were very likely targets for bombers. The post office was not attacked while I posted my letter.
Srinagar has not left any lasting impression on me. I can't remember very much about the place at all except that the post office was almost hidden by sand bags and soldiers were pointing guns at everyone approaching. I walked around and did some window shopping.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Beauty Masking Ugliness
So it was Sunday 28 October 1990 and I woke up on Dal Lake. This had to be one of the most peaceful places on earth. Except that it wasn't, of course.
I have culled the following from a website called the Overseas Pakistani Foundation Encyclopedia of Pakistan. It is a potted history of Kashmir which seems to condense things concisely:
"The history of Kashmir can be briefly summarized. The pre-Muslim period extends to 1320. From that year to 1560 (except for an anarchic interlude between 1323 and 1338) stretches a long period of independence under Kashmiri sultanates. Their decline promoted the ascendancy of the Chaks, who were of northern ancestry, until 1586. Civil unrest under the Chaks invited Mughal intervention. Kashmir was the ornament of the Mughal empire from 1586 to 1752. Then came Afghan rule, which lasted until 1819. In the latter years of this period, Kashmir was annexed by the Sikhs of Punjab, who ravaged the land. In 1846 the British handed over Jammu and Kashmir to a Dogra freebooter through a sale deed miscalled a treaty; Dogra rule lasted till 1947. The current era has seen Kashmir as a disputed territory, a theatre of insurrection and war. Until its status decided by its own volition, the state is likely to remain a scene of strife and potential explosion."
Above is one of seven postcards I sent home from Kashmir. The houseboat second from the left called Arizona was the actual houseboat I was on. The postcards I sent described my thoughts at the time and this is what I wrote:
"I have just spent the last eight days or so in the houseboat pictured second from the left overleaf. The furnishings were sumptuous and the food was excellent. Dal lake and the surrounding Vale of Kashmir are very beautiful. The mountains are very impressive too. I wish I could say that I had really enjoyed my stay there but, all in all, I don't think I did.
Problem number one is the prevailing situation over the creation of an independent state of Kashmir. From what I could gather from chats with, inter alia, my tailor (!), the area was once "owned' by a bad Maharajah who was ousted by one Sheikh Abdullah. At the time of the partition of India and Pakistan the Kashmir question was left open but Nehru promised independence after the people proved they could live in peace and stand on their own feet.
Sheikh Abdullah raised this with Nehru and he appointed a rival (a Hindu) to govern the State who promptly had Sheikh Abdullah slammed in clink. Since then the majority Muslim population has been ruled from Delhi (effectively) in the form of various Hindu governors. The talking is over and the people have taken up arms to achieve their end.
Srinagar is occupied by troops (rumoured to be 450,000) and most nights there are exchanges of automatic weapon fire and the odd bomb blast. Only the night before last five people were killed [I was writing this on my way back to Delhi aboard the "super fast" train from Jammu].
Normally I would support this kind of thing but I am a bit ambivalent. The fact is that those pressing for independence are fundamental Muslim fanatics. Not only that but also there are (I'm told) 185 different organisations fighting the army. Most of the "freedom fighters" are aged between 14 and 18 with older men doing the recruiting and training. The night before last a woman was killed for un-Islamic behaviour and there has been a call for all women to adopt complete purdah. This practice is, in fact, more in evidence here than even in eastern Turkey. the "militants" have already managed to close all the cinemas and have made a prohibition on alcohol. They have even clamped down on the manufacture and use of Kashmiri hashish.
On the other hand, the army has been guilty of some very heavy handed reactions to "terrorist" attacks. This is guerrilla war and needless to say the army can never see their enemy. As a result they go on the rampage burning shops and houses and killing innocent people. This will only harden the militants resolve and make it easier to recruit new members.
On balance I think it is clear that Kashmiris are different from other Indians. Their lands are fertile and their tourist industry (until now) very lucrative indeed. I consider their claim made out but I wonder what sort of "freedom" they will inherit.
Problem number two was the aggressive sales techniques of the hawkers of local Kashmiri arts and crafts. The thing is you can't get away from them, they hover around your houseboat in their shikaras and then barge into your living room and ask the most ridiculous prices for their stuff (three to four times as much as prices in the shops). You begin to feel like a prisoner on your boat and your "servant" helpfully arranges trips for you etc. Only when you do manage to get off the boat on your own do you realise that you are being ripped off,. I was paying 175 rupees per night all inclusive (35 rupees = £1) which doesn't sound bad does it? The fact is I could have got a houseboat for as little as 25 rupees per night. It also transpired that when I had been told that all the banks were closed this was a bare faced lie. Those persons involved in Tourism and souvenirs in Kashmir are the lowest form of thieves around. If the muslim fanatics do win through I hope they get rid of these parasites.
Problem number three: it was very chilly indeed and despite borrowing a thick jumper and a Kashmiri "poncho' I have caught a stinking cold.
Apart from that it's OK. I did get persuaded to buy a rug - very nice it is too - wool and silk (or so I'm told) and a Moghul pattern. A snip at £85. On top of that I got two copies of my M&S shirt made which are very good indeed and only cost £3 each. I bought some wooden elephant bookends and a nice cigar box as well as a couple of pencil cases. Finally, I picked up a Kashmiri sweater. I've put the lot into a wicker basket and will post them home from Delhi.
From now on it's going to be much cheaper, my total expenditure including accommodation, two lunches, cigarettes, drinks, newspapaer, 300km on a bus and super fast First Class rail accommodation has been less than £3 over the last two days. So it's swings and roundabouts.
I'm also going to make a parcel up of all the clothes and other kit which i don't need, particularly the stupid water purifier which weighs over a kilo and takes 15 minutes to purify two mouthfuls of water. Mineral water is widely available here in India and, of course, tea is in plentiful supply.
So far, still no tummy upsets nor any other problem (save this cold). The food I eat is mostly vegetarian (but I had fresh meat in Kashmir) and has been very good. Still the same weight as when I left.
Now, don't worry about me. I know there are problems in India. the place is falling to pieces - the Government may fall this week and there is certain to be more trouble over the Babri Masjid/Ram Janmabhoomi temple affair. I am keeping on top of the news and reading the papers. I won't walk into trouble. You never hear of tourists being injured in these riots, do you? That's because they usual take place in down town areas away from the touristic areas (on the other hand a Canadian tourist traveling on her own was allegedly gang rapes by soldiers).
As usual I won't call unless I am in trouble. It costs a fortune to telephone just to say I'm OK. So - no news is good news.
On the other hand I probably will call you from Kathmandu to wish you a Happy Christmas"
So that was my assessment at the time. I never found out at the time how much of what I had been told was true. I done a bit of checking. I seem to have had a problem inserting links into this Blog but if you go to here you will find the Human Rights Watch page called Behind the Kashmir Conflict. It would seem to be a fairly reliable source and confirms that things had been hotting up for about a year before I arrived and 6 months before I got there Direct Rule had been imposed. In 1990 there had been a mass exodus of Hindus known as Pandits.
All of the stuff I have read in checking out what I had been told does tend to confirm me in my view that what was happening then and that has continued since bears a remarkable similarity to conflicts going on in Afghanistan and elsewhere. I can't fathom it really. It is a very complex political problem but the fanatical religious dimension has hijacked the original cause and I'm not getting involved.
I woke up on Sunday 28 October 1990 and sat down at the writing table in the living room on the houseboat. Yes, it had a writing table, the furnishings were, as I wrote home, sumptuous. My task was to write a letter of condolence to my "grandmother". My "grandfather" had died. I use these terms loosely because neither were really my grandparents although there was some genetic link between me and the person I refer to as my "grandfather". He was in fact my real maternal grandfather's cousin. When my grandfather and grandmother divorced he had married my grandmother. So he was my step-grandfather. My grandmother died and he had remarried meaning the lady I was writing to was a sort of step grandmother but probably no more than my step grandfather's second wife. My real grandfather had also remarried and so I once had a "real" step grandmother too. Both my real maternal grandfather and step-grandmother had died some years previously.
Anyway, I sat down to write to Toeti (Tante Oeti) about how sad I was to hear about Boempa's passing. Boempa was his nickname. He had earned it because of the way he reputedly stomped around when he was angry. When I was very young, exactly the age in the photograph in the posting of 24 October 2007 called "The Beginning" we spent summer holidays with Boempa and Toeti at their house called t'Jachthuis in the woods near Breda in southern Holland. They were great holidays. The woods were magical and the house was lovely. It had a swimming pool. Boempa owned a company that made a potato snack called Nibbits. They say the snack was accidentally invented. The company's main business had originally been processing vegetables by drying them (I suppose for use in packet soups). Apparently part of the process of cleaning the drums used to dry certain vegetables was forcing raw potatoes through them and someone had the bright idea of frying the resultant puree. Hey presto! Onion (for instance) flavoured potato puffs! But I digress. I liked Boempa very much. He used to tell my brother Robin and I bed-time stories about a character he invented called Pu-Pu straight off the top of his head. I was sorry that he had died and that I couldn't make it back for his funeral. I finished my letter and and spent the remainder of the morning warding off salesmen coming alongside the houseboat in their shikaras.
I then boarded a shikara of my own for a tour of the lake. My "chauffeur" was Rashid who seemed to be on call for whenever I might need a lift to the shore. I liked Rashid, he seemed to be a genuinely nice, ordinary man. He didn't have anything to say but there was something about the way he just got about his work. He didn't seem to be judgmental or after anything extra from me. Sitting in the Shikara and gliding over the surface of the lake was an extremely peaceful experience.
What can I say except to apologise for the fact that the picture of the houseboats I took as we went by is out of focus. It could have been because I was trying to use the longer lens or because the shikara was moving or simply because I just can't take photographs.
Likewise the picture below which might have been a great picture had it not been out of focus. The light is good and the composition pretty good. It's just not focused. You go all that way and you agonise about not taking too many "snaps' and then the ones you do take aren't up to the mark. What's worse is that you don't find out until you get home months later. How I wish that digital cameras had been invented. You can take hundreds of pictures and check out the results straight away.
The curfew at 6.00pm meant that as the sunlight faded we had to go back and be confined to the houseboat until the morning.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Hairpins and Horn - The Way To Srinagar
I got the bus at 6.00am. The bus was a TATA bus. Practically every bus was a TATA bus because the Tata family seemed to have had a monopoly on bus manufacture. To be honest they weren't very comfortable and didn't look very good. I suppose it was a combination of the enormous strain the buses were put under by the weight of luggage and passengers and the very poor roads, particularly in that part of the world heading to the foothills of the Himalayas. The fact that TATA had a monopoly could not have motivated them to improve their buses much either.
It is very difficult to explain or describe just how uncomfortable these buses are. Although the seats are upholstered with some kind of foam backed vinyl leatherette the covering is extremely thin and quite frequently the seat isn't secured to its frame. I can't remember where I sat in the bus. It was probably somewhere near the front. there is a science to traveling on buses. It pays to know which side of the bus the sun will be shining on and one should always choose the other side. It's a bit like traveling by ship too. On a ship the best berths are in the middle away from the afternoon sun. That way the rolling motion is minimised and the cabin is not too stuffy. On an Indian bus definitely the worst seat to get is at the back. I'm sure I never got it right but it is best to avoid sitting over the axles. The buses may once have had rudimentary suspension and shock absorbers but the roads were so very bad and potholed that every time the bus went over a bump or into a pothole the full force of the shock traveled up through the seats and (when insecure) the seat would leave the frame. It is quite an experience and this was my first experience.
The 293km journey was basically up hill practically all the way and up into the mountains. the bus went for about 2 hours and at around 8.15am we stopped for breakfast. A very polite young man called Ashraf attached himself to me and cadged a cigarette. There's no note of what breakfast may have consisted of but it wasn't a long stop and we were soon on the road again. I have noticed in a quick google that a four lane superhighway between Jammu and Srinagar was due to opened this year. Was it? I doubt it. In 1990 it certainly wasn't four lanes. It was often barely two.
At about 9.30am our progress was stopped by an overturned truck. The truck you will see was a Tata truck as is the one on the other side of it, as indeed every other truck on the road was. We were held up for about 30 minutes. This may not seem very long but given we had to be in Srinagar and indoors by 6.00pm it was a bit worrying. Once more Ashraf attached himself to me and we chatted about this and that and he cadged another fag or two. Ashraf and many of the others smoked cigarettes rather like some people smoke chillum pipes. They put the filter of the cigarette in between their little finger and their next finger and formed their smoking hand into a fist and smoked through the fist. I'm not sure that I have described that properly and hope you know what I mean. There was an enormous amount of milling around and I just can't remember how the truck was moved sufficiently out of the way to make the road passable. If you look at the picture you can see just how treacherous the road was and it got a great deal worse as our journey continued.
The journey was, as I mentioned, 293km. That's about 180 miles. It is about 180 miles from my home to my mate Stephen's house in Wimbledon. I have managed the trip in 2 and half hours admittedly driving at night and well in excess of the speed limit. The speed of travel on this road was often not much more than walking pace. In fact I often thought the bus might be able to go a bit faster if we all got off and walked on ahead.
We have all experienced the frustration on a dual carriageway of being trapped in the overtaking lane behind one lorry overtaking another. Both of the lorries have speed limiters and therefore the faster of the two lorries may be doing 60mph while the slower is doing 59mph. The manoeuvre takes ages and sometimes, if the road starts to incline slightly is abandoned. Why do they do it? One reason could be that they simply can't afford to slow down because it might take ages to build up to the top speed again.
That theory certainly seemed applicable to the way in which all the vehicles heading up National Highway 1-A towards Srinagar were driven. All the way there were signs on the road encouraging drivers to use their horns and most vehicles had signs facing traffic following them bearing the (amusing) legend "HORN PLEASE". The use of the horn was to warn of your approach whether to oncoming traffic or traffic in front of you. Given the state of the roads there was a good chance that the rear view mirror in cars (and there weren't many of them, as I said before) would have fallen off and lorries were so impossibly overloaded that the wing mirrors couldn't have been much use. Drivers relied on other drivers to comply with the "HORN PLEASE" injunction.
As the bus headed up into the mountains there were hairpin bends at frequent intervals. As we approached a bend there would be the sign telling the driver (as if he didn't know) to use his horn and without slowing the driver would cause the bus to veer over to to the wrong side of the road with one hand on the wheel and other on the horn. There was no way he was going to take his foot off the accelerator and lose momentum. Look again at the sheer drop alongside the road in the picture above. That was nothing to some of the cliffs as we got higher into the mountains. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The driver would be heading towards the precipice in order to take the 180 degree bend without being able to see what was coming down the road from the other direction. At every such bend all our lives could easily have been lost and occasionally you would catch glimpses of wrecks where someone's luck had run out. The Insh'Allah approach to risk taking tempered only by the use of the horn was the prevailing rule of the road. All I can say is Hamdullah we didn't end up at the bottom of a ravine.
The work these buses have to do climbing steadily up into and through the mountains is really terrific. The strain on the engines must be enormous and after just over two hours the bus stopped again for lunch. Once again Ashraf kept me company and I ended up giving him the rest of my packet of cigarettes (duty free B&H).
After the lunch stop which gave the bus a bit a bit of breather too we continued on our way. We had picked up a little of the time we had lost when the road had been blocked by the overturned truck. The bus climbed and climbed and then started to sweep down towards the Vale of Kashmir. What with all the hopping on and off the bus I had taken the precaution of actually padlocking my backpack to the seat in front of me. That way I could be certain no-one could make off with it. As a matter of fact, of course, there was really nowhere to make off with it to and the people on the bus were all very nice indeed but I just didn't want to take any risks.
At 4.00ish the bus was stopped by an army roadblock and soldiers boarded the bus and walked up and down it being scary and looking closely at all the passengers. This was my first real confirmation that all was not as it should be in the paradise of Kashmir. The fact that my backpack was actually padlocked to the bus caused some consternation and having the fact drawn to everyone's attention was a tad embarrassing. The soldiers clearly thought it was a bit suspicious. Somehow their suspicions were assuaged and they got off the bus and we carried on our way.
I can remember the last few minutes of the bus trip quite clearly. At least I think I can. The bus was sweeping down hill through a plain. The road was tree-lined like an avenue and on one side at least, my right hand side, I remember huge fields where I believe crocuses were grown for their stamens which are harvested as one of the most expensive crops in terms of cost to weight, saffron.
I never got as far as the bus terminal. The bus came to a halt at about 5.15pm because a man was flagging it down. This was Bashir who had been contacted by his brother and who had come to collect me off the bus. Cynically, when I think about it now, it was probably not excellent service but a simple expediency. After all his brother had hijacked me from my original accommodation and if i had reached the terminus I might have been hijacked again before he could find me.
The sun was setting. The 12 hour bus journey had been extremely exhilarating and the Vale of Kashmir at the end was one of the most beautiful places on earth. The sun was setting as we arrived at Dal lake and boarded a Shikara over to the houseboat. We had made it before the 6.00pm curfew but only just.
The notes I wrote just say "HB, dinner nvg, cricket ball". I can't remember what dinner was but I will never forget the lump of Kashmiri hashish that Bashir produced - it was the size of a cricket ball. It wasn't very nice though. A bit bitter/acrid very hard and a little too powerful for a lightweight like me who had not partaken of anything stronger than a total of three beers in the last 2 months. Still ... I wasn't exactly forced to, but then again I was, wasn't I?. I mean you can't really go all that way and say no thanks. It would have been rude. Anyway, I was on holiday - sort of.
I talked to my host Bashir and discovered what a small world we live in. I had left my job in Sutton and had traveled all the way to the foothills of the Himalayas, almost literally to Shangri-La, and my houseboat adorned with ornate wood carving is run by a chap who used to live in Wallington and went out with a policewoman there.
Bashir told me about the troubles that had just begun. It had killed the tourist trade stone dead. Apparently there were only about 30 tourists on the whole lake. I had this houseboat to myself. My room was very nice indeed. I could pick up the World Service and for £5.00 per night including breakfast and dinner I was in about the most luxurious accommodation of the trip so far. I remember going to sleep and also remember hearing what I thought was distant thunder during the night.
It is very difficult to explain or describe just how uncomfortable these buses are. Although the seats are upholstered with some kind of foam backed vinyl leatherette the covering is extremely thin and quite frequently the seat isn't secured to its frame. I can't remember where I sat in the bus. It was probably somewhere near the front. there is a science to traveling on buses. It pays to know which side of the bus the sun will be shining on and one should always choose the other side. It's a bit like traveling by ship too. On a ship the best berths are in the middle away from the afternoon sun. That way the rolling motion is minimised and the cabin is not too stuffy. On an Indian bus definitely the worst seat to get is at the back. I'm sure I never got it right but it is best to avoid sitting over the axles. The buses may once have had rudimentary suspension and shock absorbers but the roads were so very bad and potholed that every time the bus went over a bump or into a pothole the full force of the shock traveled up through the seats and (when insecure) the seat would leave the frame. It is quite an experience and this was my first experience.
The 293km journey was basically up hill practically all the way and up into the mountains. the bus went for about 2 hours and at around 8.15am we stopped for breakfast. A very polite young man called Ashraf attached himself to me and cadged a cigarette. There's no note of what breakfast may have consisted of but it wasn't a long stop and we were soon on the road again. I have noticed in a quick google that a four lane superhighway between Jammu and Srinagar was due to opened this year. Was it? I doubt it. In 1990 it certainly wasn't four lanes. It was often barely two.
At about 9.30am our progress was stopped by an overturned truck. The truck you will see was a Tata truck as is the one on the other side of it, as indeed every other truck on the road was. We were held up for about 30 minutes. This may not seem very long but given we had to be in Srinagar and indoors by 6.00pm it was a bit worrying. Once more Ashraf attached himself to me and we chatted about this and that and he cadged another fag or two. Ashraf and many of the others smoked cigarettes rather like some people smoke chillum pipes. They put the filter of the cigarette in between their little finger and their next finger and formed their smoking hand into a fist and smoked through the fist. I'm not sure that I have described that properly and hope you know what I mean. There was an enormous amount of milling around and I just can't remember how the truck was moved sufficiently out of the way to make the road passable. If you look at the picture you can see just how treacherous the road was and it got a great deal worse as our journey continued.
The journey was, as I mentioned, 293km. That's about 180 miles. It is about 180 miles from my home to my mate Stephen's house in Wimbledon. I have managed the trip in 2 and half hours admittedly driving at night and well in excess of the speed limit. The speed of travel on this road was often not much more than walking pace. In fact I often thought the bus might be able to go a bit faster if we all got off and walked on ahead.
We have all experienced the frustration on a dual carriageway of being trapped in the overtaking lane behind one lorry overtaking another. Both of the lorries have speed limiters and therefore the faster of the two lorries may be doing 60mph while the slower is doing 59mph. The manoeuvre takes ages and sometimes, if the road starts to incline slightly is abandoned. Why do they do it? One reason could be that they simply can't afford to slow down because it might take ages to build up to the top speed again.
That theory certainly seemed applicable to the way in which all the vehicles heading up National Highway 1-A towards Srinagar were driven. All the way there were signs on the road encouraging drivers to use their horns and most vehicles had signs facing traffic following them bearing the (amusing) legend "HORN PLEASE". The use of the horn was to warn of your approach whether to oncoming traffic or traffic in front of you. Given the state of the roads there was a good chance that the rear view mirror in cars (and there weren't many of them, as I said before) would have fallen off and lorries were so impossibly overloaded that the wing mirrors couldn't have been much use. Drivers relied on other drivers to comply with the "HORN PLEASE" injunction.
As the bus headed up into the mountains there were hairpin bends at frequent intervals. As we approached a bend there would be the sign telling the driver (as if he didn't know) to use his horn and without slowing the driver would cause the bus to veer over to to the wrong side of the road with one hand on the wheel and other on the horn. There was no way he was going to take his foot off the accelerator and lose momentum. Look again at the sheer drop alongside the road in the picture above. That was nothing to some of the cliffs as we got higher into the mountains. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The driver would be heading towards the precipice in order to take the 180 degree bend without being able to see what was coming down the road from the other direction. At every such bend all our lives could easily have been lost and occasionally you would catch glimpses of wrecks where someone's luck had run out. The Insh'Allah approach to risk taking tempered only by the use of the horn was the prevailing rule of the road. All I can say is Hamdullah we didn't end up at the bottom of a ravine.
The work these buses have to do climbing steadily up into and through the mountains is really terrific. The strain on the engines must be enormous and after just over two hours the bus stopped again for lunch. Once again Ashraf kept me company and I ended up giving him the rest of my packet of cigarettes (duty free B&H).
After the lunch stop which gave the bus a bit a bit of breather too we continued on our way. We had picked up a little of the time we had lost when the road had been blocked by the overturned truck. The bus climbed and climbed and then started to sweep down towards the Vale of Kashmir. What with all the hopping on and off the bus I had taken the precaution of actually padlocking my backpack to the seat in front of me. That way I could be certain no-one could make off with it. As a matter of fact, of course, there was really nowhere to make off with it to and the people on the bus were all very nice indeed but I just didn't want to take any risks.
At 4.00ish the bus was stopped by an army roadblock and soldiers boarded the bus and walked up and down it being scary and looking closely at all the passengers. This was my first real confirmation that all was not as it should be in the paradise of Kashmir. The fact that my backpack was actually padlocked to the bus caused some consternation and having the fact drawn to everyone's attention was a tad embarrassing. The soldiers clearly thought it was a bit suspicious. Somehow their suspicions were assuaged and they got off the bus and we carried on our way.
I can remember the last few minutes of the bus trip quite clearly. At least I think I can. The bus was sweeping down hill through a plain. The road was tree-lined like an avenue and on one side at least, my right hand side, I remember huge fields where I believe crocuses were grown for their stamens which are harvested as one of the most expensive crops in terms of cost to weight, saffron.
I never got as far as the bus terminal. The bus came to a halt at about 5.15pm because a man was flagging it down. This was Bashir who had been contacted by his brother and who had come to collect me off the bus. Cynically, when I think about it now, it was probably not excellent service but a simple expediency. After all his brother had hijacked me from my original accommodation and if i had reached the terminus I might have been hijacked again before he could find me.
The sun was setting. The 12 hour bus journey had been extremely exhilarating and the Vale of Kashmir at the end was one of the most beautiful places on earth. The sun was setting as we arrived at Dal lake and boarded a Shikara over to the houseboat. We had made it before the 6.00pm curfew but only just.
The notes I wrote just say "HB, dinner nvg, cricket ball". I can't remember what dinner was but I will never forget the lump of Kashmiri hashish that Bashir produced - it was the size of a cricket ball. It wasn't very nice though. A bit bitter/acrid very hard and a little too powerful for a lightweight like me who had not partaken of anything stronger than a total of three beers in the last 2 months. Still ... I wasn't exactly forced to, but then again I was, wasn't I?. I mean you can't really go all that way and say no thanks. It would have been rude. Anyway, I was on holiday - sort of.
I talked to my host Bashir and discovered what a small world we live in. I had left my job in Sutton and had traveled all the way to the foothills of the Himalayas, almost literally to Shangri-La, and my houseboat adorned with ornate wood carving is run by a chap who used to live in Wallington and went out with a policewoman there.
Bashir told me about the troubles that had just begun. It had killed the tourist trade stone dead. Apparently there were only about 30 tourists on the whole lake. I had this houseboat to myself. My room was very nice indeed. I could pick up the World Service and for £5.00 per night including breakfast and dinner I was in about the most luxurious accommodation of the trip so far. I remember going to sleep and also remember hearing what I thought was distant thunder during the night.
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