Into The Top of the World
Although I had shown a rosy picture to my wife, I wasn’t
very sure about our prospects on a journey to LEH with our three year old kid.
Especially few words like altitude sickness problem look scary when you Google
to plan for a family holiday. As advised by fellow holidayers, our plan was to
reach Leh-via-Srinagar- Leh route giving sufficient time to our bodies to get
acclimatized with gradually lowing oxygen levels. So Kashmir came to our itinerary
by default, although it was not the right time to visit Kashmir in its full
splendor.
It was early October, when our afternoon flight landed at
Srinagar airport. Exhausted after our long journey from Bongaigaon, it was
quite a relief to reach the hotel room.
However, we were quick to freshen up and get ready for a visit to
DAL-LAKE: the one we have been seeing in numerous bollywood flicks, post cards,
analog photo albums, FB posts all our lives. Its beauty has to be felt by being
there to appreciate this creation of god through all your senses. A SIKARA ride
with the setting sun gave me one of my best shots of the journey on the very
first day.
We did a trip to Sonmarg valley
in a hurry the next day to spend the evening at what was turning out to be our
favorite hangout spot at Srinagar: The DAL-LAKE. Shopping for souvenirs from
the roadside vendors, walking besides its shore line or just sitting in the pavements relishing its beauty at night, hours were
passed. 
Our next day’s itinerary took us on a local tour to the Medieval
Gardens, lakes, Shrines and market places in and around Srinagar. Driving along the boulevard encompassing the
DAL-LAKE, our first stop was Mugal-Gardens. Built on a hill facing thelake, an artificial terrace of water cascade through its heart with an array of flora lined up along its banks. Besides DAL-LAKE the other lake of prominence in Srinagar is the NAGEEN-Lake. Relatively untouched by the littering Indian tourist whose sense of a water body is nothing better than that of a trash can, this lake still boast of a serene floating lotus garden.
We spent our last night of
Srinagar in one of the numerous house boats that dot the far end of
DAL-LAKE. These houseboats are normally
attached to the houses of the local
villagers like a part of their extended home. It feels very welcoming to sit
along with the owner’s family in neatly laid kashmiri carpets and have your
dinner.
We hired a cab next morning to
our final distination-Leh. As we went up, the green Kashmir valley gave away to
dry rocky desert of Ladakh. Vegetation was thinning down and wildlife
was practically non-existent. Human habitation was limited to few small hamlets beside
rivulets with long stretches of total emptiness. By 10 o’ clock we had crossed
Zojila pass. Dotted with several war cemeteries, Zojila was
the battlefield of 1948 Indo-Pak war. By noon we had reached DRASS -
recognized as the second coldest inhibited place on earth. Standing tall next
to
