24th July it was 1030 flight to Srinagar, the first leg to Delhi, n then with a 90 min break and then we were to go on a flight to Srinagar, Indigo was the airlines of choice, n luckily I had booked a wheelchair for my mom, which meant I could accompany her n get my check in done doubly quick, I had packed as light as I could, no laptop, only 1 camera and a few battery’s there were 5 of us, My mom who is 85 years old and tends to get tired while walking also ensured we were allowed to pre-board and watch all the passengers troop in, she was on a flight 1st time after the pandemic and the fog of sanitizer being sprayed was a sight that was comforting and not
We reached Delhi on time, and then the fun started, we had 90 minutes to change plane and the 2nd plane was from a different terminal, Delhi has 3 terminals, t2 and t3 are adjoining and t1 is 30 minutes away they say, almost 6 km away,
After disembarking we made our way to the exit and were waiting for shuttle bus which charges Rs 40 / passenger but for some reason it was free for us, and as we waited and waited and waited (bus frequency is 10 minutes we were told) and a good 30 minutes later we realized we had to hop on to cab if we were to make the next leg of our journey. OK so we negotiated and were told prepaid cab will cost Rs 500, that’s Rs 100/km, were we being overcharged possibly, but there were 5 of us and we were not in a position to negotiate so off we went, run run run and we did make it to T3 where from the flight was to be from and yes we did make it in time barely I say, we were off to Srinagar, Kashmir. They say Kashmir is “ heaven on earth” and we were going to find out if it was indeed true.
The journey was 75 minutes and landing in Kashmir, our first night stay was at a houseboat, and to reach the houseboat we needed a shikara, a small boat to ferry us to the houseboat, here we have 3 of the guys , My brother in law nephew and me as we drifted in the shikara towards the houseboat.
Along the way we came across a market that was on the water and the nly way to acess the shops is by boat, there is a complete economy that exists based on the waterway and the tourists who are the main customers here, interestingly things are not too expensive as one might think of this as a tourist trap, and one can indeed buy buy here too, at a fairly reasonable price.
And viola here is our houseboat, our hotel for the night .
Incredible journey and your captures of kashmir are mesmerising !!!
ReplyDeletethank u , much appreciated
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