Kashmir Trip Report: 30th March to 4th April 2012

Fellow Indiamikers,
This site helped me in many ways in planning all my tours, and I am regular here since 2010, but i rarely post something. I apologise to all my fellow IM members for not writing any TRs till date. I am from the god's own country-kerala, currently working in Mumbai. In last 3 years, i have done some very good touring with my college friends.
After the successful completion of manali, rishikesh and sikkim tours, this time we palnned a trip to the heaven on earth. We a group of 9, all working in different places across the globe decided to meet at Srinagar airport. As per plan we met at the srinagar airport on 30th March morning.


We all reached srinagar by 9am. I had booked a tempo traveller through phone and the driver was waiting for us in the airport. The traveller cost us 2500 per day. Mr. Mehraj arranged that vehicle. The driver was very nice to us. We asked him to directly take us to pahalgam. During the journey, we stopped and had lunch. We tried some kashmiri items, but didnt taste good.

Srinagar was fully covered by army force. U can see military men standing at the gap 100meters, carrying gun. The route to pahalgam was something similar to that in kerala, but of course- more green, more beautiful. After half an hour there started seeing fields completely covered with yellow flowers. Clicked some good snaps there.

After reaching pahalgam we searched for a room, after so much of bargaining we got 3 rooms, 700rs each, with an extra bed in every room. Apart from the journey nothing much happend that day. We all were tired, and slept quickly.

Day 2 Pahalgam

Pony ride was the plan for the day. When we woke up, we saw 9 people standing outside our hotel with ponys. The hotel people might have informed them. We spoke to them and they were asking for 1000rs per pony. Our bargaining at last turned into a quarrel. What i would say is, the kashmiri people are not at all friendly. They make fight for each and every silly things. We had the same experience entire trip. After so much of bargaining, we got it for 450rs per pony, for covering 5 points.

We started around 9am and first we went to baisaran valley which is known as 'Mini Switzerland'. The valley was exceptional, but all other points were not upto expectation. The pony ride was really scary in the beginning, later we adjusted with the movement. Still some ponies were making small fights and one pony bite my friends leg. . While coming down from the vallies, some ponies slipped and they almost fell down, but somehow they managed to stand on their legs. Luckly my pony was very intelligent and it was taking proper paths

We finished the ride by after room, around 1pm. After lunch, we booked taxi (sumo) to visit Chandanvari and Behtab valley. There is govt authorised taxi stand and the rates are well displayed in front of it. First we went to chandanvari, where the driver stopped at a point in the road and told us 'this is chandanvari'. We couldnt find anything attractive there. By the time some local people came and they started quarrelling with the driver. The actual view point was 1km ahead, since the road was not good, the driver purposely stopped ahead.

Then we went to behtab valley where the bollywood movie, behtab was shooted. It was a well constructed park with very good views of snow covered peaks. We spend there till the sunset. Then we moved to room, after having a very nice party, we all moved to bed.

Pics are not getting displayed...Waiting for more info....

It is indeed nice of you to post your trip report, though little late. Any how, as bappa had indicated above none of your pics are displayed here. I think there is some error somewhere. Please try to reload the pics once again. I'm sure you will post your TR in several installments and it will be nice if you discuss the logistic part of your trip viz. Hotel, Pony, Vehicle with their contact numbers and the charges paid by you in one of the installments.

Apologies. Its my first attempt. After so much of trials, now the pics are visible. I am including maximum of details I could recollect.

Day 3 Pahalgam-Srinagar

In the morning, we started to srinagar. It was raining in pahalgam. Pahalgam was looking all beautiful even in that off peak period. We reached srinagar around noon and directly moved near to Dal lake. Our first aim was to get a hotel room. As per our plan, we had 3 night stay at srinagar. So we wanted to get a cheap accomodation. We splitted our group into two, half group went to inquire about the hotel rates and the other about houseboat. The houseboat lay well inside the dal lake and it need to hire a Shikara to reach there. The shikara will charge 200rs. Even though it was off peak season, the hotels were much expensive. But the group who went to inquire about the houseboat had done excellent bargaining and the managed to get a 3 bedroom house for 3k per night. We booked it for 2 nights. All the houseboat people have their own shikaras and the transport from-to houseboat is free of cost.

We all shifted our luggaues to houseboat. The boat's interior was really luxurious and we all felt our guys had done an excellent deal. Again we went to road and booked 3 shikaras. They offered to show 5 points and 2 hour ride at 1k. Again a 10-15 minute bargaining was needed to bring it to 500rs per shikara. The ride has nothing exciting, and i felt sleepy after one hour ride. In the night we settled in the boat and played cards till very late night.

The third pic is taken inside the hall of houseboat

Day 4 Gulmarg trip

I would call its the 'best day of the tour'. Woke up early morning and started by 8am. Even though its just 50km, it took 3 long hours to reach there. It was getting colder and colder with the height. We could see snow on the road and covered trees. Our vehicle stopped by locals at a point, well behind the gondala point. We got boots on rent (50rs) and walked till the gondala ticket counter. The whole area was snow covered.

While walking, we saw some people going back disappointed and heard some discussions that the gondala ride is off for the day. Our disappointment had no limits. Still we decided to go to the counter. there we saw a long queue. On inquirng, we came to know that the gondala was stopped for some maintenance work, and be opening in 45 minutes. by the time, one agent guy approched us and offered us to get ticket quickly. We did a research. The tourists queue was very long and there were hardly 5 people in guide's queue. He asked 1k, and we settled the deal for 700rs. As offered he got us the tickets quickly. The stage one ticket cost 300rs. We rushed to boarding point. One gondala cabin accomodates 5 people. our group got in two seperate cabins.

The view from gondala was breathtaking. We saw snow covered huts and trees beneath us. The guide told us that there was a storm 2 weeks before and some soldiers were died at that place. We reached stage 1 within 10 minutes. Without wasting time, we asked our guide to get tickets for stage 2. Somany sports activites were going on at stage 1, but we decided to do that after coming back from stage 2.

I have no words to explain the ride to stage 2. Its second best thing I have witnessed ever(First-of course is- The frozen Gurudongmar lake). At a certain height, we were completely covered with clouds. We could hardly see anything in front of us. After heading to some more heights....wow... we reached above the clouds. There the sky was all clear and blue in colour with out a single cloud on it. We reached the top of the mountain.

I felt like I am in heaven. It was white snow everywhere. There was light snow fall. Indo-Pak LoC can be viewed from that point. After spending one hour, we moved back to stage 1. There we planned to do some sports activities. All preferred Skiing. 1000rs per person was the initial demand and again after so much of bargain, we brought down the rate to 300rs, without guide. For guide/traniner they were asking 500rs more. So we decided to do our own. 4 of us fell few times and they stopped. But we, other five., learned it after 3-4 falls. We skiied for more than 40 minutes. Then we were all tired and had a tea and noodles from a hotel there.

After some much of adventure, we had little energy left in us. We all slept quickly after reaching back the house boat.

Nice pics & excellent narration. Pics are now displayed correctly. Good going.

hi united always,
please send name , contact no, and charges of hotels and house boat if possible. please let me know that is it worth to stay one or two noght stay in gulmarg ? what is good pehalgam or gulmarg stay?

@ United Always

I really like your Trip Report. I would like to ask you what are these Black T-Shirts that you all are wearing, are you members of some organisation or like that?

As Dr. Vipul Gurjar asked some information, please do post here if you can else PM to me too.

Wow... pix are full of life & colors!
i'll be back to focus on your detailed report...
cheers

Dear Dek, We all were classmates in enginnering college and passed out five years back. Before every trip of ours, we print a common t-shirt with some caption on it. This time caption was 'Life is a journey. For us, journeying is life".

Mr. Mehraj arranged us the tempo travller, @ 2500rs per day. His contact number is +91 9419090310.
The hotel we stayed in pahalgam was much inside from the town. And the hospitality was also not that nice. I wont recommand that hotel.
In srinagar we stayed in Taj Houseboat. Their number is +91 9596478545. We got the 3 bedroom boat @ 3000rs per night since it was off season. (Season starts from april, and we booked 31st march). But we came to know that the very next day booking was @ 3000rs per Room !!!!!

Gulamrg is a good place to stay. It will be a different experience than staying in srinagar hotel room. If we want me to compare pahalgam and gulmarg, no doubt, its pahalgam. we can see many beautiful valleys and beauty of nature in pahalgam

That's the spirit,,,keep it up!!

thanks united always,
please continue your remaining experince of further trip for pehalgam up to return.