We have been looking forward for an
opportunity to visit the northern part of India called Jammu & Kashmir.
However, militant activities thereat prevented us from risking ourselves for
decades. Now that peace seems to have been restored a suggestion from a friend
encouraged us. We decided to go in a group of 10. We had to decide upon the mode
of conveyance. There are regular flights from New Delhi to Srinagar but the
fares seemed to be prohibitive. Therefore we ended up booking ourselves with a
reliable tour operator at Srinagar and surrendered to him for the week long
itinerary.
Our actual journey began by train
from Bhopal to Jammu Tawi on the 5th June morning. After over 24 hours we were
at Jammu the next day morning around 10.30 AM. We had a very nice time for
having had the company of a cute little friend and his frolics.
Two vehicles
were already positioned there at the Jammu Railway Station to take us onwards to
Srinagar which is at a distance of 300 kilometres. Jammu station seems to be
built on a hillock because all the roads from there make you go down.
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| Jammu Railway Station |
The journey by road was not all that
pleasant although the vehicle was spacious and the terrain we traversed was
picturesque. The vehicle was winding its way through the hills, sometimes going
down to be very close to the Tawi river and some times going too up to catch the
clouds. When we were happy to learn that we were half through our journey, we
were caught in a terrific traffic jam. Incidentally the vehicular traffic
between Jammu and Srinagar is very high and domesticated buffalos have a right
of way.
Traffic moved inch by inch and after about 2 hours we were able to
speed-up to be caught in yet another jam. This time we came to see a dam in a
beautiful surrounding where some eating joints existed. The dam is known as
Baglihar. Hydel power is generated there. We had our fill and continued our journey.
After completing around 240
kilometres, it seemed as if we are in the plains. We were at a place known as
Kazigund, a small town full of activity. There were plenty of restaurants around
and we thought of finishing off our dinner there but some wanted to reach the
hotel, we were booked in at Srinagar. Therefore we rang up the hotel management
to arrange for our dinner past 10.30 PM.
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| Area surrounding our hotel |
By the time we reached our
destination, it was well past 11.00 PM with a delay of 3 hours.
This post is just a preamble.
Subsequent posts will take your through the beautiful valley, glimpses of people
and a peep into the culture.