Pictured above is absolutely the best value thing I had arranged before I set off. the Indrail Pass. I can't really begin to describe what a fantastic privilege it was to have this Pass. It only cost $300US which was about £200 and was valid from its first use on 25 October 1990 for 60 days.
India's railway system is stupendously large and was possibly the most efficient system in my experience of India.
Having made my reservation a couple of days before all I had to do was turn up and find my seat. My notes say I had no problems. The First Class carriages had typed lists with the names of the passengers and their seat numbers. Each First Class compartment had space for 4 passengers. Underneath the seats I discovered there were loops made of steel cable so that you could lock your luggage to the floor of the train. So my paranoia was not not misplaced. Even First Class rail travelers were vulnerable.
It was a long journey. The picture below is edited from a map I bought. Click on it to see it larger.
My notes say I arrived in Jammu at midday and it wasn't long before I began to understand what the friendly Sikh gentleman in Govt. of India Tourist Office meant. There were apparently 2.25 Lakh government employees on strike in the state of Jammu & Kashmir. A Lakh is 100,000. There was no public transport running up to Srinigar at all. If I wanted to get there I would have to go on a private company's bus. What's more I would have to leave at 6.00am and would have to make sure I arrived before 6.00pm when the night time curfew began. There was clearly trouble ahead.
I had a houseboat booked but how I was going to locate it on arrival was a problem. Somehow or other I managed to find somewhere to book another one. My memory is a little hazy about it but I think I remember that there was a guy hanging around the Railway Station who told me about the difficulties further north. His brother managed/owned the houseboat in question. It was only 175 rupees per night and that included breakfast and dinner. This bloke must have helped me get my bus ticket too. All the arrangements would be made and I would be met on arrival.
Now then. It could very well be that I had simply been hijacked. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that things might not have been quite as bad as I was being told and I might not have had any problems at all on arrival in Srinigar. But you just don't know. I was on my own and was beginning to appreciate that nothing was particularly reliable in India. I didn't have to give the guy any money, his brother Bashir would no doubt make sure he got his commission for netting a customer.
I walked around Jammu. The experience must have been forgettable because I have forgotten it. I was hardly inspired to take any photographs (because I didn't want to waste my precious slide film). I took one and it isn't very good. I haven't the faintest idea where I was. there's a large temple in the background by I don't know which temple it was. It might help if I could locate my Lonely Planet guide book but I lent it someone and haven't the foggiest notion to whom. I'll get it back one day, I'm sure.
I suppose the picture illustrates the typical hustle and bustle of the street anywhere. I wish I'd been in to see what there was for sale at the Ladakh Handloom & Khadi Udyog Corp shop. I bet they'd have had some nice fabrics on offer at very reasonable prices (with discounts) but I didn't so I'll never know.
My notes say that I ate superb food for 14 rupees (28p) but I don't have a note of what it was. After that I wrote to someone. The notes say there were a lot of soldiers around but the filofax pages are not very big so that's all it says and now I don't remember.
There's no note that I stayed in any hotel. This is very possibly because I may have stayed at the Railway Station. One of the advantages of the Indrail Pass was the ability to use the First Class Waiting Room where the facilities were (once you became acclimatised to the fact that everything was pretty ropey, even if described as First Class) not too bad.
