Travelogue

Part 2 - Shikaras on Dal

If you remember, in my last post I was neatly packed into the army jeep at Srinagar airport and whisked away to our accommodation. We stayed in Army Area near the airport in Shekh Pora. We were put up in a grand bungalow set on spacious lawns dotted with apple and pomegranate trees, with neatly manicured hedges running along the edges. Stepping out of the comely lanes of handsome bungalows on to the main thoroughfare, beautiful snow-covered mountains appeared abruptly in the horizon. The air all around was crisp and clear, with the faint smell of pines. It was spectacular. 

Our first order of business, apart from lunch, was boating on Dal Lake. It is the quintessential experience of Srinagar. After a somewhat slow drive through Srinagar's traffic (nothing as bad as Mumbai or Delhi), we reached the shores of the famed lake and sought out a couple of shikaras. 

Now at this point I should mention that not two years ago, while white water rafting in Rishikesh, I had fallen into the rapids and had been swept away more than 1 km by the icy waters of the Ganges, before being pulled aboard another raft. I would like to say that I was calm and reacted with presence of mind, but that would be a lie. It didn't help that I can't swim and that the life jacket was the only thing that had kept me from drowning. 

All this was on my mind as we approached the shikaras, gently bobbing on the water. As we boarded the boats, they started swaying sideways, and I clenched my fists and butt-cheeks in fear. The boatman then pushed the shikara away from the dock and jumped on, causing the already-rocking shikara to sway more, and me to dig my fingernails further into my palms (at this point, I couldn't clench my butt-cheeks anymore). Just as the rocking started to subside and I was starting to relax, another guy jumped on and the process started again.

Ideally, it takes two people to row a shikara with 3 or more people on it, or in our case, one person to row and another to maintain a steady stream of chatter. The boatmen of Dal Lake are really quite different from those in other parts of the country. They are dressed very fashionably in jeans and tees, sporting sunglasses and sneakers, looking more like extras on the set of a Karan Johar movie about extremely good-looking college students. 

Once the boat stops rocking, you can't but marvel at the beauty of the setting. Other shikaras gently lapping over the dark surface of the lake, the waves created by the boats glinting in the sunlight, trees and mountains all around the lake, and no sound except that of the oars slicing through the water and Siddharth Malhotra Part 2 still chatting away, presumably because that's built in as part of the package. Once you tune that out, it really is the most splendid boat ride, until the floating hawkers pull up alongside your boat. 

Dal Lake is home to seemingly hundreds of men selling their trinkets and wares on shikaras. They glide all over the lake, like dragonflies hovering over water, and keep pulling up to every shikara carrying tourists. Once you manage to wave them away, your boatman takes you right into their hive, a floating market built in the middle of the lake. Here, they docked their boat alongside one of the vendors, and then said that they have to bail out water from the boats (you'd think that by now they'd have been able to build boats that don't take on water by just sailing on a calm, smooth lake). So you have no choice but to get out and politely look at the merchandise while Varun and Siddharth take a bright blue plastic pail and begin to slowly bail out water, one teaspoon at a time. 

The process back to the shore is basically the same, where you wave away the hawkers on their shikaras while they merrily bump alongside your boat and make it start rocking with gusto. 

However, one thing that shouldn't be missed is a steaming cup of kahwa on the lake. This sweet tea with spices and nuts is a real treat. The vendors who sell this delectable drink can be spotted easily by the crowd of tourist shikaras around them. 

After a refreshing cuppa, we made our way back to the shore and thence to our stately bungalow.