Day 3

Day 3 – June 14:

Udhampur – Srinagar

Stay: Golden Lily House boat (ok….. it was a house boat)

We start from Udhampur in rain accompanied by cross winds. The progress is very slow. We stop after sometime to have breakfast and some respite from rains. Had breakfast but no respite from rains. Anyways we continue on. In between somewhere Rahul gave lift to a small school kid till some distance. It started getting clear when we started climbing towards Patnitop. We got some nice views from Patnitop and most importantly Rahul’s and my first view of snow capped peaks, though a bit too far away. We anyways were excited. Descending from Patnitop towards Jawahar tunnel we stopped at places for tea and clicking around. Next big target was Jawahar tunnel, had heard a lot about it. But Jawahar tunnel turned out to be scary, a bit too congested for the kind of traffic that goes through it. Once inside, I had to give pass to four wheelers who, I suppose won’t be able to drive if honking was impossible. I somehow missed the Titanic view point (don’t ask me how….. I have no clue). Rahul saw the view point but wanted to stop me from missing it, and eventually he also had to just bypass it without stopping. Once he told me, I tried to stop but was asked by army personals to move forward. Anyways, we both stopped after sometime at a hotel like place where there were lots of army men and a few tourists. We also had to wait for Abhisekh who wasn’t to be around. After Jawahar tunnel the road is bad, really bad. We started chatting with a few army men and they suggested taking a right just after a visible turn ahead, which would take us through the inner parts of Kashmir valley and the road is much better than the highway. This was great information. The road really was wonderful and the best part was, it passed through villages with greenery all around, with no or very little traffic and small streams running with us. This was the Kashmir that should be seen rather than overcrowded and expensive tourist locations. Abhisekh was a bit concerned as we were riding at places where there were no tourists at all and very little army as compared to any other place in Kashmir. Anyways we stopped at a small village for tea, chatted with the locals there and they seemed pretty friendly. They also invited to stay in their homes instead of staying in Srinagar as Anantnag and most of Srinagar was closed due to protests over killing of some youth. We declined politely and moved forward into Anantnag which was really closed, all shops closed only a few local vehicles and a few autos at the auto stand. We crossed through Anantnag and caught the highway to Srinagar. Some more photo stops and we were in Srinagar. We had to enter our bike numbers while entering Srinagar, where the army guy told us not to stay near Lal bazaar. We anyways wanted to stay near Dal lake. On reaching Dal lake on the highway to Leh, Abhisekh got the fascination of staying on a houseboat which we got for Rs. 1100, way too high for our budget. Anyways it was the first time so we took it. After dumping our bags we had a long shikara ride in the lake, ate Rista and kebabs, finally had our dinner a bit late and slept over. Next day we had to cross Zozila and I was excited, reason being snow walls…. :)

Please find the pics here.