As you already know, our trip in the north of India hadn't been a great experience until now. And before the experience turned around and became positive, we still had to go through some stuggles the upcoming days. Among others, a long and bumpy bus ride from Dehradun to a small mountain town called Mussoorie with the only purpose to see the stunning views from there. However, 3 days per year the hill is surrounded by thick fog and we happened to have the bad luck to visit one of those days. Up in Mussoorie, the fog was so thick so we could barely see the street we walked on. Well, no point to stay overnight so we took another bumpy bus back down to Dehradun instead.
Back in Dehradun, it was almost impossible to get away from there - all trains were fully booked, and neither could we get a bus further up north as we'd been planning. The hopelessness of nothing going according to our plan and not having much time left to travel, made us desperate and we ended up booking a flight to Kashmir - the only district in India were the monsoon season and rain wasn't too bad this time of the year. The flight was from Delhi, which meant another bumpy bus ride all the way back to this chaotic capital. A bus ride that was supposed to take 6 hours but ended up taking more than 12 hours instead due to flooded and dangerous roads. Our bus was stuck in mud and rain among hundreds of other vehicles and when we finally arrived in Delhi we were relieved that we booked a flight and wouldn't have to go through more of these inconvenient bus rides.
Every experience is an experience, I guess - a part of experiencing India is also going through these struggles and problems, which made me feel a a bit of hate-love for this country. In all the chaos and unexpected happenings, there's that excitement of never knowing how things will end up.
Spending our last week in Kashmir turned out to be a great decision. The stunning beauty of the Himalayas and northern Indian nature was breathtaking, and it started already in the capital of Kashmir; Srinagar. People were friendly, respectful and helpful. We got a great first impression by a taxi driver picking us up at the airport and offered us accommodation at his house boat. Of course, to him it a good was business - we booked two nights on his house boat and stayed with him and his family. But to us, it was also a comfortable and nice solution.
If you ever stay in Srinagar, staying in a house boat on the Dal lake is still the nicest accommodation option. The only way to get out to our house boat was with a small wooden boat, so we were quite dependent on our host family to take us back to the shore every time we wanted to go somewhere else.
We had a couple of relaxing days, were served nice home cooked food, read good books and regained some of the energy we'd lost during our previous days of struggles.
One day the son of the taxi driver who owned the house boat took us out in his boat on the Dal lake so we could swim. I had a pretty covering bathing suit under my clothes and thought it might be okay to undress, but the poor boy got a shock and stopped me from what I was about to do straight away. Well, swimming with clothes on isn't too bad; just one of the things you gotta accept if you're a woman and traveling in the more conservative parts of India.
During the time we visited Kashmir (summer 2018), the political conflicts were pretty critical and there had been several riots, shootings and deaths during this period. For those of you who don't know, Kashmir has pretty much always been a border territory between the two enemies Pakistan and India. Due to a new law change that would strengthen the Indian influence and power in the Kashmir area, many locals were upset and the atmosphere was tense. "Beware of stone pelting in the villages", locals warned us. "Stay away from any crowds or demonstrations". We felt slightly worried at first, not knowing how safe it was to travel through the area or walk around the streets in Srinagar, but as always, media tend to exaggerate the risks and locals are just caring - during the days we spent in Kashmir, we didn't feel unsafe at all. We were on the contrary met by very friendly and helpful locals.
The military was patrolling everywhere with heavy guns. But although the area felt like a country in war, even the military treated us well (they even wanted to take selfies with us, like every other Indian). Sometimes they asked us to turn around if we were entering an area where we weren't allowed to drive in, but always in a rather kind way than threatening way. "And always keep a distance of at least 10 kilometers from the Pakistani border, or you will get shot". Was another good thing to keep in mind. Other than that, things went well.
The second day in Srinagar we found a rental place were we could rent a "proper" motorbike, a Royald Enfield, fairly cheap. We had 3 more days to travel around Kashmir, before we had to take a flight back to Delhi and then from there to Bangkok. I still wonder how we managed to drive this heavy big bike in the Indian traffic, especially out of Srinagar, but somehow we survived. If you ever think about driving a bike through Kashmir, be aware that the roads are insane and most of the mountain roads a complete suicide mission.
To read about what happened after when we continued our motorbike trip, check out my next post here.
Ps: it's not super safe to travel with a motorbike in India, so make sure you are well prepared (more prepared than we were) if you are considering doing something similar.
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