Photo Link:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/gWeTHYeNmVSN69ka8
So I flew over to Chennai first to spend some time with my grandma (and get over jetlag). After a few days, I flew up to Srinagar and spent a night in a houseboat hotel – Srinagar is known for these floating hotels that hang out all over Dal Lake. I then began my 7/8 day Kashmir Great Lakes trek, which I did through a company called Bikat.
The KGL trek is widely regarded as the most beautiful trek in India. I do have to say that it is quite scenic, and reminded me a ton of Kyrgyzstan (and likewise, like images that I have seen of Switzerland). I would even say that Kashmir was probably slightly more beautiful than Kyrgyzstan, but I enjoyed Kyrgyzstan more – because the trek I did there was more difficult, and because of the 5 day horse trek I did. But still, Kashmir and the KGL trek were amazing. Obviously since I prefer more desolate environments, I wouldn’t say that KGL is “the most” beautiful hike or trek I’ve ever done, but if you are into greenery then this is probably incredibly hard to beat. Both this and Kyrgyzstan are basically like way cooler versions of Montana (and Montana is awesome!). I found the whole trek to be just tough enough to not be boring, but still a very relaxed and easy trek where I was able to take it easy, absorb the scenery, and most importantly, not have any muscle or joint soreness whatsoever. If anything, the toughest part of the hike was the total distances…we did a total of 70 km over 6 days of hiking. This was also the heaviest gear I have ever carried on a trek – the mules carried all of our sleeping bags and tents, but otherwise I was lugging about 12kg worth on my rental hiking backpack, but the straps and weight distribution were fantastic so it wasn’t an issue at all.
There were 23 of us in total, and I was the only “foreigner” as an NRI (non-resident Indian). The first day, we left at around 2pm and drove 3-ish hours to our campsite for the first night, and got to meet everyone. Most people on the trek were in there mid 20s to mid 30s, so I was smack dab in the middle. The people on this trek were all awesome – slight tangent here, but one thing I love about Burning Man is that it is just like travel, where you intensely bond with people over a shared weeklong experience. Except that is with 70 to 80 thousand people instead of a handful of people.
Anyways, this basecamp was at like roughly 2400 meters in elevation. The next day was probably the toughest for me – we did about 1200 meters in straight elevation gain over 4-5 km (this wasn’t too bad at all), before a slog of 5-6 km over a super rocky terrain to hit our next campsite. The views over the valley behind us as we went uphill were fantastic, and it was super cool to go from green meadows, past the treeline, through rolling green hills, and then finally hit a purely rocky area. Walking across the rocks was such a drag though, and the total hike time (with breaks) was like 8 hours. Though I was consistently one of the 2 fastest hikers and we had to wait periodically for everyone to catch up. The one dude who was faster than me was hiking in sandals, so you knew he was legit…he was head and shoulders better than me and definitely one of the best hikers I’ve ever seen. I’m more of a slow and steady hiker (one other guy in the group dubbed my pace as “military medium”, which is a cricket term for bowlers who are annoyingly effective while bowling at a slower pace with no spin) – I’ll go the same pace uphill no matter what, and can basically do 1000+ meters of elevation gain without a single stop while doing my whole meditating walk, walking just fast enough to keep my heart rate down while focusing on breathing with every step. There are obviously exceptions here, for suuuuper steep ascents, but generally speaking it’s true for me. I was actually one of the slowest hikers in our group when it came to short uphill stretches, but if it was a big uphill stretch I would be up front because everyone else would be taking breaks here and there while I passed them.
The second day was probably my least favorite day in terms of scenery. We had a fun hike up from our base camp at 3600 meters up to a pass at over 4100 meters over just 2 or 3 km, so it was a steep ascent (which I love!). The view at the top was good, but in a generic way – the views this entire trek were consistently good, so it wasn’t really a standout view from this pass, though it was still epic. I guess you could say generically epic? But then it was a couple more km of downhill, we had our lunch break, and then it was a nice and easy 4-5 km stroll on small, grassy hills along a meandering river while we were flanked by mountains on either side of this giant valley, before hitting our next camp site, also at 3600m. While on this walk, I was talking to one other guy who was a huge LOTR fan, so we naturally brought up how all these landscapes were like Middle-Earth.
Speaking of food – it was legit fantastic for a trek. It was always good, freshly cooked Indian food for breakfast, packed lunch, snack, and dinner. Some of the highlights include Maggi noodles (not really fresh, but it’s these quick-cook noodles you can buy in stores, owned by Nestle, that has become an Indian icon over the past 20-30 years), pani puri, rajma and jeera rice, aloo paratha, bhaji, chole bhature, and countless desserts whose names I don’t know but recognize by sight. The food definitely skewed North Indian (specifically Punjabi for some reason), which made sense given Kashmir is way up north.
The third day was supposed to be the toughest, but again, that long rocky slog at the end of the first day still took the cake for me. We trekked up from 3600 meters to just under 4300 meters over just 2-3 km for a steep uphill walk, for what was probably the best view of the entire trip. You could see two alpine lakes below, nestled right by these giant mountains that circled them on one side and vast, seemingly flat expanse on the other side. But we were so high up that the rolling hills to the left seemed flat, when they really were close to 100 meters high. After that, we did a steep descent down to like 4000 meters, and then had a nice and easy 15km walk where we slowly dropped 400 meters or so to the next camp site, also at roughly 3600 meters. This entire slow descent was down this gorgeous valley, where you could see the trail slowly disappear behind the smaller and smaller hills in the middle. Really a scene out of Middle Earth.
The fourth day was by far the easiest, and honestly a joke in terms of physical fitness. It was a quick 6-7km day where we went up 200 meters and hit the next camp…the entire thing took 4 hours, and this was with extended stops for waiting for the rest of the group to catch up. Coincidentally, it was also the prettiest day, with vast expanses of green everywhere you looked. And this was just at the border point where by the time we ascended, we hit a rocky patch that looked otherworldly, so it was very cool to get both sides of Kashmir in this quick and easy day.
The 2nd to last day was a super fun one. We spent about 2 hours traversing this crazy tough boulder field on the side of a mountain – we effectively stayed level at 3800 meters. This was all created from some avalanche/rock slide from way back, but it was definitely the most physically demanding part of the entire trip for me. I actually finished my entire one liter bottle during this, and we had no water source to refill for a while but thankfully that never became an issue for me. After this boulder field, we had a steep climb up ~300 meters or so over under 2km to hit another pass, where there was a similar, amazing, twin lake view from above. Spent some time here, and then had a crazy steep descent down to 3600 meters over what must have been 2km tops, where I finally refilled my water. We then had a nice and easy stroll to visit both lakes that we had just seen from way up above – the first one in particular was incredibly serene.
On our final day, we basically had a nice and easy small uphill section for a few hours, and then 4km worth of a steep descent downhill to a random town where we got picked up and then drove off back to Srinagar. Overall, like I said before, it was a nice and easy, super scenic trek. Physically and mentally it wasn’t demanding at all for me, though there were a handful of first-time trekkers in our group who probably would beg to differ. We thankfully had picture perfect weather – occasional clouds but otherwise clear skies and clear views of the vast, amazing landscapes. Definitely glad I did this trek.
I had a couple of days in Srinagar afterwards, staying at the same houseboat as before. The US Supreme Court once defined hardcore pornography as “you know it when you see it”. And honestly, I think the same holds true for occupation. You know it when you see it…troops with assault rifles stationed every 100 meters or so, machine gun nests that are straight out of Call of Duty, an enforced 8/9pm curfew where the entire city shuts down. Not to get too political here, but it certainly doesn’t seem like the locals of Srinagar/Kashmir as a whole are happy with their current situation.
Anyways, the first day after the hike, I sort of just relaxed all morning before meeting everyone for a giant group lunch. We had what was called a Kashmiri Wazwan, which is basically a giant feast of a meal. Very meat heavy and surprisingly not too spicy, though my single favorite dish here was something called a methi maaz, which was a spinach based curry with lamb meat, that packed a nice spicy punch and was absolutely mouthwateringly delicious. We then just went for a long walk around Dal Lake, before eventually going to the only bar in the entire city (besides the two bars that are in 5* hotels and thus prohibitively expensive). Srinagar is a pretty religious town (Islamic), so this was the only bar and boy was it a dive. It was just 8 of us at this point, 5 guys and 3 girls. The entire crowd there was all older men, and not to judge, but it was seedy. I honestly absolutely loved it, it was such a cool experience. But what was not-so-cool was leaving at 7pm after a couple of hours because a couple of the guys in our group said that they could hear other men making comments about the girls in our group in Hindi and Kashmiri.
The next day, I did a full sightseeing tour of Srinagar. The first few hours were spent visiting some Mughal gardens. I think the gardens I saw in Suzhou (and to a lesser extent in Shanghai) were head and shoulders above these. In both cases, there is an incorporation of the garden with nature, but the Chinese ones were absolutely more harmonious…that was like peak serenity. These were still quite cool, and worked with the landscapes…you would see mountains in the background and then water cascading down pools in the garden itself, so it almost felt like the garden waters were coming from the mountains in the back. After these gardens, I went to see a couple of mosques…one in particular, called Khan Qah, was really cool since it was a giant wooden structure. The only other wooden mosque I have ever seen was the one in Kyrgyzstan that was built in a Western Chinese (so I guess Uygher?) style, and this weirdly reminded me of that because it was wooden, though it clearly did not look Chinese stylistically. After that, I walked through the old town to see an old Mughal tomb, which was like a poor man’s version of the tombs that are scattered about in Delhi.
Srinagar honestly reminded me a ton of Cairo and Baghdad. I have mentioned how those two reminded me of India, so honestly I think that pure chaos (I love this shit. Really my bread and butter for a city) combined with an overt Islamic influence will cause me to think that these places are similar. I am genuinely curious as to how Kabul will compare to these cities.
So I have one more night to rest in Srinagar, before flying off to Chandigarh, where I will meet my dad (he just flew into Chennai a couple of days ago) and my aunt to do a road trip in the Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh. We’ll be visiting an area called Spiti Valley, which is culturally Tibetan (actual Tibetans, mountain monasteries, all that amazing jazz) and geographically similar to Ladakh, which is up there with Tajikistan as my all-time favorite landscape. So I am definitely very, very excited for this trip, and I hope that my high expectations don’t lead to any minor disappointment. Will then head back to Chennai after that to hang out for a week, then my dad flies back home to NY, and then I’ll head up to Uttarakhand, another Himalayan state, to do another weeklong Himalayan trek that I think will be slightly more difficult than KGL was.