Two Days on the Srinagar-Leh Highway

We left Srinagar bus station early in the morning, on one of two buses making the first journey of the season to Leh. The first part of the ride is through the green Kashmir Valley. The scenery is beautiful, minus the army bases. The bus moved quickly as the road is in good condition, we pulled over a few times for huge army convoys racing down the highway as if there was actually a war going on. Within a few hours we had already reached Sonamarg where the army coordinates vehicular traffic over Zoji La, the pass that separates Kashmir from Ladakh and that is only wide enough for one vehicle at a time. Apparently the army wasn't aware that government buses had been given the approval for travel. We waited for hours on the side of the road without any briefing from our bus driver who was busily drinking tea, unconcerned with the fact that if we waited any longer we would be crossing the pass in the dark. This prompted a rallying of the English speaking foreigners, led by an absolutely nutty German woman. We actually managed to get a meeting with the General of the army camp, who granted us permission to begin our trip over the pass. In reality I don't believe the meeting did anything, we had been waiting almost 3 hours and eventually they had to let us through (although the soldiers were telling the German lady we might be stuck there for 2 days, most probably to watch her lose it, which was a pretty unbelievable sight).

For the first few kilometers of the pass I didn't understand what all the fuss was about, but the road quickly became narrow and uneven. At some points we traveled with huge walls of snow on either side of us, the army had simply cut out chunks of snow about the size of an army truck. I felt much safer between two snow walls than I did without anything separating our huge rickety bus from the gorge only feet away. Our driver crossed the path slowly and carefully but there were some true 'hold your breath moments'. As we cleared the path we came face to face with an oncoming army convoy, which, had we met only a few kilometers earlier would have caused a great lot of difficulty, most probably involving driving down a large section of the road in reverse. Tourists in the other buses praised the 'coordination' of the army, assuming that there were walkie-talkies or radios in our bus (as we were the head of the tourist convoy), but we assured them that our safe passage was completely random. Passing so close to the line of control we stopped no less than seven times to register our passports at army checkpoints. As we waited in line at one checkpoint, in the small town of Matayan we were greeted by a crowd of young children eager to see the first busload of tourists passing through their town, even if only to register at the army checkpoint. They poured out of their homes across the field when the spotted Yann taking photos. The checkpoint officials proudly exclaimed that they were inhabitants of the second coldest inhabited place on Earth (second only to some place Siberia). That might have explained the happiness on the locals' faces, as our arrival must officially announce the end of their long, harsh winter. The whole day's drive was worth it for the fifteen minutes we stopped in Matayan. The last hour of our day was spent driving down the highway in the complete darkness, heading for our final destination town of Kargil. Once we arrived in Kargil we all shuffled into budget hotels near the bus station, Yann and I shared a single dorm bed in a packed hotel. Our departure the next morning was scheduled for 5:30 but we awoke even earlier to the sound of Islamic chants. Kargil is a Shiite Muslim town and we had our morning tea under the watchful gaze of Iran's Shah Ayatollah Khomeini from the restaurant's giant poster. Our bus got delayed as we scoured the city for the lost passport of one of the foreigners on our bus, which we were quite certain had been stolen (and weren't too refrained about expressing this belief). Our drivers kept threatening to leave, but the foreigners, who made up about one quarter of the buses passengers managed to stall until the foreigner found his passport in his breast pocket. The second day's ride was just as long as the first, but the road was less scary. Kargil was the last major Muslim town we passed as we entered into Buddhist Ladakh. Almost all greenery disappeared and the scenery became desert-like. We arrived in Leh in the late afternoon and the spectacular entrance was marred by the giant army base spread out right in front of what would have been one of the valleys most spectacular monasteries. We had apparently arrived before any of the supplies had, most restaurants and shops hadn't yet opened for the season. The word however was out! The first buses had arrived from Srinagar, and that meant that very soon the Coke and Pepsi products and maybe even Lays potato chips would start arriving in the city, things that are apparently much more exciting when you have been deprived of them for 8 months.

Occupied Srinagar

Most people who come to Srinagar stay on one of the famous houseboats of Dal Lake. Dal Lake sits right in the centre of the city and there are thousands of houseboat owners vying for tourists. Although reportedly calm and peaceful they also are home to some very annoying potential scams. The main one involving the fact that the only way on or off the houseboats is by small rowboats. We decided that we didn't have the energy. We stayed 'on land' as the only guests in a quiet hotel in the tourist district of Srinagar (that was noticeably lacking in tourists). The old streets of Srinagar are lined with beautiful wooden building and balconies but the tourist district is a more modern and polluted section of town. I blame the pollution for the nasty chest colds that both Yann and I developed over the course of our week in the city. On our first morning in town, we sought out an internet cafe to check the local news: one death on the Jammu-Srinagar highway after a grenade was thrown at a convoy carrying politicians and one shooting death of a protester in a crowd denouncing the degradation of a mosque under Indian control. More protests were planned and some locals told us where they would be so that we could stay away. Most locals seemed skeptical to admit that anything was going on, even the woman at the tourist office denied protests were taking place as a protest marched by the heavily guarded office. Despite the seemingly bad news, everyday life in Srinagar seems to go on as if everything was normal. It's hard to escape the feeling of occupation in the city. Makeshift sandbag bunkers and barbed wire litter the scenery. Intimidating crowds of Indian soldiers hang out at every street corner. Kashmiris seem to do a good job going about their daily lives but its impossible to escape the Indian presence and control in the area. Everything from traffic to curfews is decided by the army. One boy proclaimed "even the police are afraid of the army, they don't answer to anybody" and another explained "if ever there was a referendum 10% of people (the corrupt) would vote for Pakistani control, the other 90% would vote for independance". Kashmiris have a visibly different culture from their Indian neighbours. Every morning we purchased hard, flat, pretzel like breads for breakfast, meat is readily available and there aren't so many cows roaming the streets. Most evenings we went to bed to the sound of Islamic spiritual chanting from the mosque next door to our hotel. Locals were happy to let us visit mosques, take photos, while proudly reciting the origins of the buildings, many with Persian influence (and absolutely beautiful). Most women wear a long black tunic with colourful hand embroidery around the collar, younger men sport the usual jeans and t-shirt, but older men wear the two piece white suit and a mandatory vest. Neither Yann nor I could resist getting ourselves Kashmiri vests from a little old tailor who insisted to me that they were unisex, even though I never once spotted a woman wearing one. As you might recall, the reason we were in Srinagar was to catch a bus to Ladakh. When we asked locals about the bus, most responded that it wasn't leaving for another few weeks (the Kashmiri version of solidarity seems to be to keep tourists in Kashmir for as long as the possibly can, even if that means holding them hostage on their houseboat or lying to them about road closures). Even the bus station attendants claimed to not know when the first bus would tackle the two day journey. They recommended we come to see them everyday, because they would start selling tickets as soon as the army gave their approval. We gave ourselves an approximate 10 day waiting period, at which time if there weren't any buses we would turn around and head back the way we came. One evening we spotted another tourist (a rare sighting in the area) and I ran after him to ask him if he had any information about the highway. Our assumption that he was also heading to Ladakh was correct and we exchanged stories over dinner about our lack of information about the highway. Thus began the beginning of our month long journey with German Jochen who decided we seemed to have some idea of what we were doing so we might be a good couple to travel with. Other than sharing the same travel philosophy his mother might possibly worry about him more than Nicole worries about Yann so we had lots to talk about.

We waited only 4 nights in Srinagar before we got the news that we could buy tickets for the first bus ride of the year to Leh, leaving on May 1st. I spent most of the last days in bed sick (this is becoming a pattern) and Yann and Jochen went on some adventures, renting a motorcycle that broke down halfway through their trip, getting harassed by a crazy man, having tea at a hotel owner's mansion, poking a snake with a stick and getting interviewed for local television (really I don't have all the details of this excursion so that's about all the information I can provide). Other than the terribly annoying shikara (rowboat) drivers and the oppressive Indian army, the locals were extremely friendly and seemed genuinely happy to see us visiting their city, even without the tickets to Leh we still would have been happy with our trip to Kashmir, unless we had been hit by a grenade, that would have really sucked.

The Long Road to Srinagar

Buying bus tickets to Srinagar wasn't possible from the small McLeod Ganj bus stand, but we were able to get a direct bus to Jammu (Jammu and Kashmir province's winter capital) from where we could apparently "easily" get to Srinagar. At the McLeod Ganj bus stand we were introduced to an old Ladkhi monk who spoke neither Hindi nor English but seemed extremely happy to have travel companions to Jammu (I found out our day of departure why he was so happy when his Tibetan monk friend, challenging my preconceived notions about Buddhist monks, warned us to "be careful in Kashmir, 99% of Indians are thieves"). We agreed to meet the Ladakhi monk the next morning to travel together, we promised his fellow monk that we would take good care of him, although we weren't given any instructions on how to do so.

We met the Ladakhi monk early the next morning in the town centre and found a taxi that would take us to the bus stand. We discovered that the monk was carrying two large hockeybag-sized sacks, which as far as we could tell were containing bricks. Yann and I carried them, loaded them onto the roof of the taxi and then paid for our three places in the taxi. As the three of us waited for the bus to Jammu, the monk pulled out his bus and plane tickets from under his robes and handed them to me for safe keeping. He was more and more becoming our responsibility.

The bus ride from McLeod Ganj to Jammu lasted about 7 hours. The Ladakhi monk and I shared a bench and Yann shared one with a talkative local teenager. The monk held my hand for most of the ride, despite the opressive heat and shared his stale Tibetan bread with Yann and I. Meanwhile, Yann had to buy him water and food, because he didn't seem to be doing it himself.

We arrived in Jammu fairly early in the afternoon and felt confident that we would be able to hop on a night bus to Srinagar. Unfortunately there was someone preventing us from doing that: an old, lost, scared-looking monk. We lugged his bags of bricks to the waiting area of the bus station and waited, and waited, and waited. We had understood that he had a friend coming to meet him at the station and that he was catching a plane to Ladakh in two days time, but no one seemed to have showed up for him. He and Yann set off to search for his friend in the sprawling bus station while I sat on the floor guarding all of our luggage. I quickly became surrounded by a large crowd who had encircled me and seemed to find me interesting. A considerate shopkeeper would disperse my fan club by yelling and swatting his broom in the air, but almost immediately after his attempts to free me, the crowd would reconvene.

After two hours at the bus station, it became quite clear that no one was coming to pick up the Ladakhi monk. Yann and I concluded that we would have to find a hotel room and stay two days in Jammu until the monk's flight home. As we tried desperately to extract any piece of information from him, the monk sprang, headed to a rickshaw driver and managed to communicate to him, in his broken Hindi, that he needed to find another Ladakhi. The well-informed driver managed to come up with Ladakh House, a small community centre/boarding house for Ladakhis in Jammu. There might still be hope! The monk and I hopped into the rickshaw, leaving Yann with the bags. When we arrived at Ladakh House I spotted the crimson robes of another monk through the gates and felt unbelievable relief. I left the monk, took a public bus back to the bus station (for one tenth the price of the rickshaw) and found Yann. We loaded the bricks onto a new rickshaw and raced back to Ladakh House to drop them off. The two monks were waiting for us at the gates, hugs were exchanged and invitations to their home monasteries extended, no money was exchanged however, despite Yann and I having spent nearly half our daily budget trying to get our monk to safe place. Damn him for being so cute and old! Back at the bus station, now late in the afternoon, we decided to leave Jammu despite our exhaustion. When we approached the ticket counter we were told by various people that there were no more buses to Srinagar, that night, or maybe even the next day. Of course, no one talking to us actually worked for the bus company, but they all seemed to be able to tell us more than the employees themselves. Suspicious. Typical.

The explanation we finally accepted was that the road was open to traffic in only one direction, we had missed the last day's bus to Srinagar so we had to wait a full day before the road would be open in our direction again. If you spent even 5 minutes at the Jammu bus station you would understand why this was extremely depressing. If you spent even 5 minutes in India you would understand why we didn't believe what we were being told about road closures. As we stood, trying to figure out our next move we noticed two young Kashmiri men that had been on the same bus with us from McLeod Ganj. We took the opportunity to ask them about the road closures. According to them, although there were no buses leaving for Srinagar, private vehicles were still able to make the journey. The two of them would be leaving late in the evening and were looking for other passengers to fill a jeep.

Over dinner Yann and I debated whether or not it was a good idea to set out in the middle of the night with perfect strangers, on a treacherous highway through Kashmir, possibly defying army orders. We came to the puzzling conclusion that it was a very wise idea. After some negotiating with our jeep driver, we set out in a full jeep, towards Srinagar, now several hours after the sun had set. Before leaving the city we had one last stop at the local wine shop. Luckily, Yann and I had withheld payment for the ride until arrival in Srinagar, so we were able to instruct our driver that we wouldn't continue if he was planning on drinking. After some highly unconvincing arguments from him and the younger passengers we were able to get a promise of sobriety. In the back of our heads was the fact that a bus had flipped off the same highway earlier in the week killing most of its passengers. We agreed that at least one of us should be awake at all times, to watch the road and to make sure the driver didn't decide to tap into his stash that he had conveniently placed under his seat.

Only a few minutes out of Jammu, our driver pulled off the main highway, down an unlit gravel road through the countryside, even passing over dried up riverbeds. Nervous Emilie concluded that we were driven out to the middle of nowhere to be robbed and abandoned. Calm Emilie concluded that we were avoiding an army checkpoint preventing travel from Jammu to Srinagar. I was reassured after a few minutes when we looked back to see a whole stream of lights coming down the same road, a convoy of jeeps and trucks travelling the same well-known, checkpoint-avoiding route. I was nonetheless relieved to be back on the highway an hour later, a whole 13km from Jammu.

The rest of the ride was equally painful, with Yann and I working to stay awake. I proved to be rather useless, with Yann getting about one hour of sleep in the fifteen hour journey. Our driver was obviously drowsy, often swerving, but he was also obviously more macho than drowsy, so there was no question of taking a break, despite our offers. At about 3a.m., the driver and friends had decided to pull out the beers. Yann climbed onto the roof of the jeep and began unstrapping our bags. This led to a heated argument between me, the driver and the two young men who had recruited us for the ride. We prevented the driver from getting anything save for a few swigs and we were able to continue with the ride, but we probably offended their sense of manliness. The rest of the night was filled with large oncoming trucks, hairpin turns and lots of unnecessary passing and speeding. By 5a.m. we had reached the mouth of a long tunnel controlled by the army. The tunnel opened only at 8a.m., making us question our drivers motives for our speedy arrival there, he probably planned on getting into the beer, but Yann stayed up with the boys until the tunnel opened, while I got to sleep in the jeep. We were in downtown Srinagar by noon, we exited the jeep into a sea of hungry Kashmiri rickshaw drivers, what a relief.