Gulmarg With 'Old' Buddies
Pestered with articles and phone calls describing the beauty of Gulmarg and Pahalgam, I decided to give it the benefit of doubt. Going to the taxi stand was told to be the best idea. What was not, was that Bengalis (no offenses please, I derive the feeling associated with this from my year-long stay in East Bengal) could wait until even the last seat of their shared taxi got occupied.
I was the one. Although I cannot deny the fact that such situation did help me by reducing my travel expense, I was much annoyed by the constant high amplitude high pitch conversations, often monologues, delivered by one Mr Pal (or Roy, I do not remember now). Needless to say, those were studded with wisdom pearls, from Sanskrit and obviously other travel experiences. These included trips made earlier on exactly the same dates or to exactly the very same destinations, or with exactly the same (except me of course) company. Gosh, I was with the regular travel company of theirs!
As though this was not enough, it started drizzling. I was hell bent on defining my own happiness despite the possible oncoming slaughter of my dream vacation, and excluded the ‘I hate rains’ thing from the definition. A prop to that was our driver being benevolent to warn us against the horse riding business touts at Gulmarg. Alternative arrangement suggested was to walk straight to the cable car. Another and an amazing one was that a place called ‘Bakshi’ served the most amazing parathas I had had before I went to Sonamarg. Crisp-ish, nicely cooked with soft stuffing, the paneer paratha was more than enough for me to stand the flak of the horse ride touts, aimed at me for they thought it was me who educated my co-travelers, weaning them away.
A 2-km long walk, a thousand metres high haul and a 5 hours drive in total – all in rains, was what filled the time until 4pm, and I was back to the Swiss Hotel to tell Altaf about how the trip to Gulmarg sucked.
Nevertheless, I had quite a few gems that day: connecting with Rafique, our driver; seeing an apple tree with more apples than leaves; and having walnuts sold by the roadside like ‘wada pav’! The evening was as free as it could have got – no bag packing, no tidying up, nothing. I was warm and cozy in holding my steaming tea-cup in the living of Swiss, watching ‘Behind Enemy Lines’ with Fayaz and Altaf.
Then was a solitary night again, totally bent on spending a lazy lazy next day, after a Shikara ride early in the morning.
Return trip to Gulmarg in a Toyota Qualis: INR 300
Return ride in the world’s highest cable car: INR 300
Knowing 15-odd words of Bengali and being thought as a small brother by Bengalis: Priceless
I was the one. Although I cannot deny the fact that such situation did help me by reducing my travel expense, I was much annoyed by the constant high amplitude high pitch conversations, often monologues, delivered by one Mr Pal (or Roy, I do not remember now). Needless to say, those were studded with wisdom pearls, from Sanskrit and obviously other travel experiences. These included trips made earlier on exactly the same dates or to exactly the very same destinations, or with exactly the same (except me of course) company. Gosh, I was with the regular travel company of theirs!
As though this was not enough, it started drizzling. I was hell bent on defining my own happiness despite the possible oncoming slaughter of my dream vacation, and excluded the ‘I hate rains’ thing from the definition. A prop to that was our driver being benevolent to warn us against the horse riding business touts at Gulmarg. Alternative arrangement suggested was to walk straight to the cable car. Another and an amazing one was that a place called ‘Bakshi’ served the most amazing parathas I had had before I went to Sonamarg. Crisp-ish, nicely cooked with soft stuffing, the paneer paratha was more than enough for me to stand the flak of the horse ride touts, aimed at me for they thought it was me who educated my co-travelers, weaning them away.
A 2-km long walk, a thousand metres high haul and a 5 hours drive in total – all in rains, was what filled the time until 4pm, and I was back to the Swiss Hotel to tell Altaf about how the trip to Gulmarg sucked.
Nevertheless, I had quite a few gems that day: connecting with Rafique, our driver; seeing an apple tree with more apples than leaves; and having walnuts sold by the roadside like ‘wada pav’! The evening was as free as it could have got – no bag packing, no tidying up, nothing. I was warm and cozy in holding my steaming tea-cup in the living of Swiss, watching ‘Behind Enemy Lines’ with Fayaz and Altaf.
Then was a solitary night again, totally bent on spending a lazy lazy next day, after a Shikara ride early in the morning.
Return trip to Gulmarg in a Toyota Qualis: INR 300
Return ride in the world’s highest cable car: INR 300
Knowing 15-odd words of Bengali and being thought as a small brother by Bengalis: Priceless
posted by Tejas at
6:12 pm
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