I woke up by 6:30 am everyone else was sleeping peacefully. I tried to move around without making a noise and went to the washroom and got ready for my morning walk. By the time I was out of the washroom Hannah was awake and she asked “Where are you going this early?”. I told her that I was going for a morning walk and we started to talk and this woke up Anjana also. She joined our conversation. Now everyone was awake Vipin told us that he would join us later as he needed to freshen up. Usually, when I tell people on my trip that I’m going for a morning walk nobody joins, But Hannah and Anjana were different they got ready in a few minutes and started our morning walk.

There were two options one was to climb up and another was to descend, We decided to go upwards and started to walk around. The village was already awake, we could see that the horses and their caretakers have started to descend to Pahalgam city where the tourist will hire them for site seeing. It was their way of making their daily bread.

Lidroo was a village that was fully relayed on tourism !!! The previous day we had gone sightseeing on horses and we covered almost 25km on horses that day. While on the horse I was wondering “Why didn’t the government make any roads to reach these places?” Now I know the answer to my question.

Almost every caretaker group asked us if we need to go sightseeing and we humbly denied all of them saying “We went sightseeing yesterday”. But one of the caretakers stick with us, He told us that he takes special trekking trips like Tulian Lake and provides homestay also. He gave us his phone number and we said thank you and started to descend. But he started to walk with us, At one point he saw Anjana taking pictures and he went and took the camera from Anjana’s hands and told her that he will take picture of us. I could see Anjana’s soul leave her body when he took the camera !!!

He took 2 photos and we told him that it is enough. Anjana got her camera back and we started to think of ways to ditch him. We stalled on the way but he was also waiting for us. Then we decided to walk off the road and went inside the pine forest and we were successful to get rid of him. We walked for a few minutes and got back to the main road. We walked down again capturing all the beauty that was on our way. 

Anjana saw a kid running on the trail above us and we were wondering how to get on that trail. We decided to walk further until we find a way to climb upwards and we soon found a way to it. One side of the trail was covered with a fence and we could see a board saying it was the Lidder Reserve forest area. Morning sun rays were coming through the trees which was an amazing view and we started to look for a way to get inside the forest. 

Then we saw a person walking inside the forest, we called him and asked him if we can come inside, He helped us trespass the fence. He told us his village is inside the forest and invited us for tea. We told him we will join him and started to explore the forest. There were so many spots to take photos and we spend time clicking photos of each other.

Now our next task was to reach our homestay and we started to climb up the hill. On the way, we saw the Lidroo primary school. Children were standing outside the school and playing, We waved our hands and they started to shy away but some cuties came forward. I asked them why they were standing outside. They said their teacher is absent today and they’re waiting for the substitute. I wanted to take a picture with all those kids, it was really an amazing moment to interact with the kids. One of the boys came and asked all of the children to go back to their classes. I guess he was the head boy of the school and everyone did what he said. We walked further and luckily a car came and we asked for a lift. The car owner happily dropped us at our homestay even if he was not going towards our homestay. That’s true hospitality, right?

After breakfast we started our sightseeing, we hired a cab to take us to Aru Valley and Betab Valley. Our first destination was Aru Valley and we were so much excited to visit one of the most beautiful valleys in the world. On the way, we could see many beautiful valleys and mountains. It was a treat to our eyes and cameras.

When we reached Aru Valley it was almost 3 pm and the driver asked us to come back within an hour. We were starving, I saw a bakery that had some kind of bread displayed and we went to check it out. It was only Rs.5 but we didn’t like it that much. We looked for a hotel to have lunch and ended up in a small shop where they had Maggi. We were happy to have Maggi and chai. We started to walk towards the base of Aru Valley and on the way, it started to rain. We took shelter in a shop by the time we reached the base it was almost an hour. 

We were approached by horse caretakers for taking us to the Aru Valley. Till then I thought where we were standing was Aru Valley and I said No to the caretaker. Hannah explained to us that we need to either hike or take the horse to reach Aru Valley. We finally agreed to go on the horse. By now I was familiarized with how to ride a horse and it was a pretty good ride compared to our previous day’s ride.

When we reached Aru Valley there was no one, most of the people who were there left when the rain started and we were lucky to have the whole valley to ourselves. I went and sat in the middle of the valley and used my shoes as a tripod for capturing the time-lapse of the moment. Everyone went to explore other parts of the valley. I sat there thinking how lucky I’m to be in the most beautiful valley in the world. After some time the caretakers came and told us that it was time, We decided to spend time in Aru Valley and cancel Betab Valley.

By the time when we reached our cab we had almost spent more than 3 hours in Aru Valley the cab driver was furious he told us that now we need to hire him for the entire day. We told him that we don’t need to go to Betab Valley. He said it’s anyways a day rent now and he took us to Betab Valley. On the way to Betab Valley, we stopped by a stream and spend time over there. It was a very calming place and we had a good time there. Anjana and Vipin started to collect stones from the stream.

When we reached Betab Valley it was too crowded and we decided to explore the nearby places and go back to the stream where we had stopped earlier. We ended our day with some Kashmiri-style Mutton curry and rice.

I woke up hearing my phone alarm, we had to leave for Pahalgam by 6. We all got up and got ready by 6:30. Hannah had called our taxi driver (Subair) and changed the timings to 6:30. When we vacated and got down there was a waiter who served me food yesterday smiling with a happy heart. He asked for a tip and I gave him some money. There was a helper who carried our bag and he also started to ask for a tip. I asked him how much do you need. He said “Whatever you give me with a happy heart is enough” (You’re going to hear this a lot if you’re in Kashmir). I gave him Rs.50 and he was like this is not enough I need more. I gave him fifty more and got into the cab.

By now it was 7 and most of the shops were still closed. It was a bit weird and we asked our driver if there was any strike or something. He told us that most of the Kashmiris wake up late and the shops only open by 10am. We still looked for some tea shops so that we could have breakfast. Pahalagam was at a distance of 90 km from Srinagar and it will take 2hrs to reach there. The road was pretty good with a view of snowy mountains all the way. You can spot an army person at every 1km on the road. There were a lot of cricket bat manufacturing factories on the way also.

I felt a bit of hesitation in Subair when we were talking in Malayalam amongst us. Only Hannah was asking him questions and talking to him then, So I started to talk to him and asked him about various things and all others started to interact with him more.

On the way we stopped in a small shop which was opening up and we were the first customers. We ordered coffee and wandered nearby to explore places. There was a garden opposite the shop which was closed at that time. But we could see many beautiful trees and flowers from outside. We went back to have coffee and by then a nearby shop also opened and they had maggie and we ordered maggie and waited.

I spotted some of the Kashmiris who were wearing pheran and were carrying kangri inside the pheran. The kangri is earthenware filled with glowing embers and encased in pretty handmade wicker baskets and is carried as a personal warmer. (I didn’t have a clue what they were carrying and got to know all these after inquiring to locals).

We started our journey back to Pahalgam and on the way there was a roadblock, sheeps were crossing the roads and we spotted that most of the sheeps were marked with different symbols and we asked Subair why it was marked. He told us that the shepherds are from Jammu and they collect sheeps from different people and to identify which sheep belongs to which owner they mark the sheeps.

We were approaching Pahalgam and we used google maps to identify our stay, then only we came to know that our stay was outside of pahalgam and it’s in a nearby village called Lidroo.

We started to see beautiful trees and valleys on the way to the village and we were so excited that we were going to stay in the village. (We booked this home stay as our last option, because most of the hotels in pahalgam were sold out). We were anxious to see the homestay, I was happy to stay in the village and didn’t care how the homestay will be. But when we reached the homestay we were blown out of our minds and it was out of our expectations. 

We started to discuss ourselves to extend our stay here for one more day as we didn’t have any booking for the next day. We asked our host Muneeb, “If we can extend our stay” and he said “Why not?”. Our next problem was how we would tell Subair, I had seen his bag. He was ready to stay here and take us back to pahalgam on the next day. When we told Munbeeb about this, He said they will arrange a cab back to Srinagar for us. Also we came to know that In Kashmir only local cabs are allowed to take us for local sightseeing (Remember this if you’re visiting Kashmir). So if you have hired a cab from a city, they will only be able to drop you at a certain point. When we talked about our extension for one more day, Subair said it’s okay and understandable. We paid him his rent and he left for Srinagar.

Muneeb said he will arrange the horse ride to see the viewpoints in Pahalgam, it consisted of 8 viewpoints and each one had to give Rs.2000 for the ride. The entire trip was 24km on horse. We all were excited, We waited at the common room as the rooms were not free by then. We got to know about our host. The family consisted of four people and they ran the homestay. Around 11 we went for the horse ride, Muneeb dropped us by the starting point and introduced us to the horse caretakers, they gave us each horse. It was pretty scary for me because I was thrown from a camel on my Rajasthan expedition(I know Rajasthan blog is pending, You will be able to read some amazing things I did in Rajasthan soon, I promise).

Horse riding was new to us and we soon found out how to ride a horse after a few stretches and I gained confidence after that, but still when we were going near cliffs it was pretty scary. We had our fun, scary moments with the horses. We stopped near a waterfall for lunch and we explored the waterfall for sometime. When we were having lunch (maggie) some of the locals came to us to sell pashmina shawls. I and Anjana tried our best to tell them that there is no use for us with shawls in Kerala. After some talking one of the locals understood what we were trying to say and  he made them understand our situation and the sellers went away. 

The caretakers were following their family tradition of raising horses and taking tourists for sightseeing. Most of them started this at the age of 15, They were speaking in mixed kashmiri and hindi. We saw many beautiful places on our way. Our main stop was at Baisaran Valley which is also called Mini Switzerland. Vipin went ahead for painting, Hannah and Anjana were busy taking pictures. There were a lot of tourists on the other side and I was looking for a place where I could be alone and then I spotted a gap between trees which looked like a gateway.  

I decided to go towards the gateway and it was a small hike. When I reached the top I was happy and excited. There were flowerbeds all around. I was feeling something which cannot be expressed in words, maybe it was pure happiness as some call it. I called Hannah and told her that there is a flower bed on top. Vipin was painting nearby and I went towards him after some time. Our caretaker came looking for us and when he saw Vipin painting he also sat with us waiting for Vipin to complete his painting.

It started to drizzle and we decided to continue our journey. There were steep hills on the way back and it was very scary at some moments. When we were almost near the base camp Anjana horse went rogue and was going to Jump from a cliff. Luckily the caretaker ran over and caught up with the horse and stopped it from happening. Anjana was pretty shaken up after that. When we reached the camp and as usual the caretakers started to ask for a tip. We gave them some money and decided to explore Pahalgam market.

We all were tired and hungry and decided to have something from the restaurants nearby. After our food we tried to look for cabs to take us back to our homestay. Most of them rejected it as it was nearby and those who agreed were asking us for Rs.1500 and more. I called our host Muneeb and told him about our situation. He told us to wait there. It started to rain while we were waiting and we took shelter in the nearby shops.

Muneeb came at last after two hours, I believe he had some purchasing for the homestay and it delayed our pickup. He asked us to wait in the car and went to buy chicken for dinner. It was raining heavily and on the way back we drove slowly as it was very hard to see the road. When we reached our homestay we were tired and we took comfort in warm clothes and blankets. For dinner we had delicious chapati and kashmiri style chicken curry. After some time we decided to call it a day and went to sleep. I had decided to go for a morning walk and set an alarm for 7.

I woke up hearing someone saying it was 5 am and the sun had risen, they were chatting nonstop about their morning trip towards their new destination, and guess what they were Malayalis and I was the only one in the dorm who was able to understand their rantings. I opened my curtain shade and looked outside and decided to go for a morning walk.

I pulled myself up by 6:30 am and started to explore nearby places. I could see many people jogging and doing exercise by the steps of Dal lake. There were many mountaineering cycles parked along the dal lake. One of the shops was open and some were having tea from there. I ordered a coffee and talked with the cyclists. When they heard I was from Kerala they loved me. After spending some time with them I said goodbye and walked to my stay. I needed to check out early as Hannah, Anjana and Vipin will be reaching by 9 (I haven’t met any of them in person till then). They had booked a stay in Lal chowk for the day which was an hour’s ride away from where I was staying.

On the way back I decided to take a shortcut as I saw many sheep in front of me. When I caught up with them I saw a boy in one of the trees and he was chopping off the branches so that the sheep would have their food. There were four shepherds. I had a little chat with the head of the shepherd and he told me he was from Jammu during the Summer they visit Kashmir for the food and in winter they go back to Jammu. They will walk all day trying to find food for the shepherds and stay wherever they feel like. Basically, they were like nomads, I couldn’t talk more to him as he was talking in a mixed Kashmiri and Hindi.

While walking back I figured out what was the issue of the system dependency and reaching my stay the first thing I did was to confirm my assumption and it was true. Now I know what was causing the issue. I got a call from Hannah saying that they had landed and were on their way to our stay. I said I would join them in an hour and went for a quick shower.

I was walking with my luggage towards the roads assuming I will get a cab from the road towards the Lal Chowk. Then I saw a person in his early 60’s smiling at me, I smiled back and asked him where to get a bus/cab to the Lal Chowk. He told me to wait there itself, he was also going towards Lal chowk. We started to talk while waiting for the bus. He had worked in Kerala for a decade. He was selling Kashmiri shawls and other artifacts in Kerala. We were talking nonstop and I thought to myself “How much I have improved since my first solo trip”. He gave me his contact number and asked me to call him If I needed anything in Srinagar. (The bus was only charging Rs. 15 towards Lal chowk and yesterday I paid Rs. 500 for the auto. Poor ME !!!)

I got down at Lal chowk and called Hannah. She told me the location of the hotel and I started towards the hotel. On the way, there were lots of street shops opening up. I could see the excitement in the eyes of the shop owners as I was a prospective customer. I told most of them that I will visit them back later and continued walking.

The room was on the fourth floor of the building and there was no lift. By the time I had reached the room, I was tired. Knocked on the door and heard Hannah’s voice saying that it was open. I opened the door and entered the room. Hannah was sitting on the bed and the others were standing on the small balcony of our room. We started to introduce ourselves. I was familiar with Vipin’s works as I was following him on Instagram. Anjana and I were from the same college but were meeting in Kashmir for the first time. How crazy is that? We were in college for almost the same years and have never seen each other in college. For Hannah, I felt like I knew her for a very long time although we were meeting for the first time. Hannah was a common friend for all of us and we were all connected through her.

Our room was not the same as what was shown on the website, it was totally different. We ordered additional beds and sheets like the ones which were there were dirty. They assured us that they will provide all the things by evening. Anjana was having issues with the mobile network and I told her to wait for some time and check again. I could see everyone was tired from the long journey and they decided to take a nap before going out to explore Srinagar. I told them I will be in a restaurant downstairs as I needed to have a call with my team and tell them about my findings. 

I ordered a bread toast and Kashmiri Kehwa and started my work and called Sravan to inform him about my findings. Sravan said he had found an alternative approach and he did a POC on that. We decided to go ahead with the new approach because when we fixed the system dependency, We found another system dependency that needed to be fixed. We were not sure how many dependencies we needed to install before it worked like a charm. We decided to complete the work by evening and connect back by night. In between Anjana and Vipin came and informed me that they were going out to explore the nearby places. I was happy that we found a new approach and I could enjoy my vacation now.

I went to the room to keep my laptop and that sound made Hannah wake up. She suddenly started to feel a leg cramp and let out a huge cry. I was familiar with the situation and made her stand and press her leg to the floor which will reduce the cramp. The pain got reduced in a while and we decided to go out to explore the places nearby. We called Anjana and asked about their whereabouts. We started our journey towards them and found them sketching in front of a cafe and there were lots of people admiring their works.

I and Hannah decide to go inside the cafe and see what they have. Vipin needed additional hours to complete the sketch and we decided to spend some time in the cafe itself till he completes it. We were hungry and ordered a chicken sandwich and white sauce pasta, the cafe had a perfect ambiance. We talked a lot and got to know each other during this time. Anjana and I were talking about our college and the common friends we had. After some time Vipin indicated that it is going to rain soon and we should head back. We were planning to go on a Shikara ride in the evening and it seemed like we had to drop that plan.

On the way back Anjana showed us the wild blackberries and we started to hunt them down like small children. It rained a little when we reached the hotel and we all were disappointed that we will need to stay at the hotel the rest of the day. After some time we decided to go to Dal lake and see it anyway. 

When we reached Dal lake there were Shikara rides and they were ready to take us for a ride. It will cost us Rs.2000 for four people and we got into the Shikara. As it was a rainy day with strong winds and currents they needed two people to row and we started our beautiful Shikara ride. It was an amazing experience with a slight drizzle and chilled winds. We did some shopping in the Meena bazaar and on our way back we ordered tikka from the Shikara itself. We ordered Mutton, Chicken, Mushrooms, and fish tikkas each. We all loved the fish tikka as it was the best.

We decided to walk around the dal lake and saw a local shop which was selling shawls and jackets, Vipin bought a jacket and I bought a shawl which was only Rs.100. We started to look for a place where we could have tea and found a place. There was a momos place also, we ordered fried and normal momos. There was a provisional store nearby that was issuing local sim cards for the tourist and we decided to buy local sim cards for our use as we didn’t have a proper network with our Vi sims. After a long wait, Anjana and I bought new sim cards and we left for our hotel. 

Our mind was full with Shikara ride memories and our tummy was full with all the good food we had.

When we reached the hotel I and Hannah asked for the settlement as we were going to check out early in the morning. Hannah told the manager that the room is not the same as shown on the website, they didn’t have anything to say and blamed the Oyo team for doing that. The next day we headed to our first destination, Pahalgam.

One day I got a message from Hannah asking if I wanted to join them on their Kashmir trip. I was searching for my next destination and this happened. It was like the Paulo Coelho quote “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” 

The trip date was so close and I needed to get leave approval from my client. I said I will get back to Hannah and messaged my client asking if we have any major releases on my trip dates. He said it was okay and asked me to go ahead. When he heard it was Kashmir, His first question was “Are you planning for Everest?”. I said no, But yes I have plans for the Annapurna Base camp trek. We started to discuss the places he can visit in India. I did all the bookings in the next few days. 

In between these days, I was added to a new project and sadly the release date came colliding with my trip date. On the day before the trip we found out that there was system dependency for the feature we were developing and it was blocking the release. We were trying to find a solution for it and I had to catch an early morning flight the next day. It was raining heavily outside and my flight was continuously rescheduled every hour. Also, we didn’t have any hotel bookings, Our plan was to go there and get a homestay. When Hannah checked booking.com, all the hotels were sold out. We panicked and started to look for hotels also.(Everything was going wrong for me on that day with an humongous amount of pressure)

 I told Hannah about my project situation and she took the responsibility of finding a hotel for the day they reach. I was reaching a day before them and had booked Zostel for that day. After rigorous searching, she booked a hotel for some days of our trip. We decided we will figure out the stays for the rest of the days after we reach there.

I was stuck with the work and did not find a solution for the issue, by then it was 5 am in the morning. Sravan and I decided we will stop for today as I had to leave for the airport in half an hour. We agreed to resume work in the evening and said goodbyes. I took a quick shower and grabbed whatever I found and left for the airport.

When I reached the airport, there was a long queue for the baggage drop as most of the flights were delayed. After the security check-in there was an hour left and I was sitting in the waiting area. I was sleep-deprived and I decided to buy the expensive crap coffee to keep me awake from the airport. It did work and I was awake. I was constantly worried about my connecting flight as I had to pick up my luggage and do all the security check-in at Delhi airport too. 

I was standing in the baggage drop queue in Delhi and was talking to the person next to me. He was from Srinagar and it was his first flight. I helped him with the airport process and made him comfortable. After sometime he asked the usual question “Are you in the army?”. I said I was not, I was fed up with the security check-in at the Delhi Airport. The police officers were constantly telling people to remove metal, electronic items from their hand luggage while screening, but still the people were ignorant. Luckily I was able to complete all this before the gate closes for my next flight.

Everything was sorted and I got a Masala tea within the flight with the Mountains backdrop view. It was a wonderful experience to see the snow-covered mountains from the flight. When the flight landed at Srinagar airport there was an announcement saying not to click photos of the airport as it was an army area. Still, some stupid people clicked photos outside the airport and got busted by the army officials, they were forced to delete the photos.

Hannah had informed me that only postpaid sims work in Srinagar, So I had changed my plan from prepaid to postpaid. When I landed in Srinagar I got a message saying welcome to Srinagar after that there was no network. Collected my luggage and went outside and on the way I saw a board having the details of the JKTDC bus schedule.

I went outside and went to the prepaid taxi center and showed them where I wanted to go. They told me it will be Rs. 1300 to go there. I said I don’t need it and started to walk away. There was no sign of any autos in my vicinity.  After walking a little I saw a man sitting near a minibus and I went and asked him about the Bus and showed him my destination. He said I need to get down at the last stop and catch another bus or auto from there and it only costs Rs. 80. 

On the way I spotted more army officials than the locals, after an hour I had reached my destination and was surrounded by auto walas and guides. They were disappointed knowing I already had a hotel booking and one auto rickshaw wala agreed to take me to my destination and charged Rs.500 (It was not needed, I could have taken a minibus which cost only Rs. 20). I was too tired to argue and got into the auto. 

On the way I saw the Dal lake and the mountains as backdrop, it was a view for my eyes. I was talking to the autorickshaw person and he was trying to impress me with his English. He told me he has never gone to school and learned English from tourists. He was speaking very good English and I was impressed. I asked him why I didn’t have a mobile network even though my sim is a postpaid one. He told me to restart the mobile and try again. He mentioned that there are jammers near the airport and you won’t get signals near the airport side. Luckily after switching on I got my own network and there was only a 3G network available.

On the way I saw a ghat and opposite to that there was the famous Mughal garden: Nishat Bhag. Within seconds I reached my destination and checked into the Zostel. It was a decent place with no rush of the city and a charming background of mountains. The bed was tempting and I needed a sleep, But my heart told me I could sleep later and I went along with it.I took a quick shower and went for a walk. I knew that the ghat which I saw was close by and I started towards that.

When I reached there I started straight towards the steps where the shikaras were tied up. I was amazed by the golden sunset rays which were giving me an enchanting sunset experience. I sat on the steps and waited for the sun to set.

I went to the nearby shack and ordered some kebabs, it had a different taste. There were a lot of snacks and I ordered a mixed plate of snacks. I decided to go back to my stay and start the pending work.

I found a spot near the reception area, where there was a good network and started to work. Most of the people who were staying in Zostel were from my field, they started to came and ask about my work. One person suggested not to work like this and I felt agreeing to him, But it was a commitment I made and I don’t go back on my word. Sadly we were not able to find a solution that day also and gave up for that day and went to sleep.