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2003-07-30 - Drass - Srinagar (Day 106)

We are up and packed at 3:30am and back out into the darkness. The road is filled with potholes and has a couple of places which are a mess due to construction and one stream crossing. As it was, going over this route in the daylight the day before was a help as it really was a mess, at least this way we knew what was coming. The ride up to Zoji-La was again very cold and all the clothes were on but I was still shivering. While not as bitter as some of the other passes, doing the ride in the middle of the night added to the cold was more stress then I would have liked. Steve's bike has another problem in that the battery dies leaving him without light as the Enfield's just don't have an electrical system that can handle running a headlight for any length of time. Fortunately, just as his light dies out the sun rises enough to give us light and this does not pose any problem.

We make it up and over the pass and I again feel a bit of disappointment that the pass is so tamec ompared to what I've been over and Zoji-La doesn't offer anything too look forward to.

About 5km after crossing over the top though we come upon a traffic jam of about 200 Tata trucks lined up for a few kilometers. Being on bikes we are able to weave through them which is a lifesaver as it would have been several hours before we would move up in that line. Weaving through to the front we find the hold up is not one but two military checkpoints 300 meters apart where one has to go through the whole registration process - id, passport, etc. and it is all moving at a crawl.

Down we go again and a few kilometers further on we come to the other side of the pass and the valleys of Kashmir open up with their pine trees and greenery so different from the deserts we have been passing through. The mountainside we are on drops 1500 meters straight down to the valley below and the road is switchback after switchback taking us down. This steep decent is made infinitely worse as the road is under construction and it is a single lane of dirt, dust and loose rocks hugging the side of the mountain, which is just jarring to the muscles still tense with cold and the bike. To add to the fun there is more glacier runoff here, which crosses the road leaving a water crossing in loose mud and several places of deep mud to try to negotiate through. After 10km of this I am very stiff and sore and only have made it 1/2 way down the mountain when I see that the road has been finished going down and we hit pavement. This pavement is unlike any I have yet seen in India - broad, flat, no potholes and no breaks - a simply wonderful road and this gets a cheer after that disaster we had been on. We pull off a ways down once we are sure this will go on for a bit and is not a mirage, to shake the muscles out. As we do, we get a view of what should have been the obvious result of a good road in India as several of the huge Tata trucks fully loaded scream past us at 80-90 km/hr, which is a truly scary sight. These guys were also riding right in the middle of the road as its assumed that the road being closed from the opposite direction no one would be coming which is of course stupid to assume in India as there is always someone coming from the other direction road closed, one way, what have you. A military truck comes around a blind corner going the other direction and two of the Tata trucks almost take us out while we are standing by the side of the road in an effort to avoid the army truck going in the wrong direction. Frankly, it is just nuts to drive in this country, as the whole concept of roads doesn't work when there is no concern for anyone by your own Tata truck.

We get back on and have a ride through lush green valleys of Kashmir filled with trees, orchards and crystal clear rivers. If we hadn't been stuck behind some diesel belching monsters for 10km, it would have simply been perfect but even so the ride in was of a beauty I didn't expect. On the way into Srinagar, Steve and I are separated but as he was staying on a boat with Adrian and they only had two rooms, that wasn't a big deal as I still had to find a houseboat of my own. I had heard that Dal Lake was noisy and busy so I headed to Nageen Lake, which turned out to be incredibly beautiful and quiet. I do not know what my mind's-eye expected by "houseboats in Srinagar" but whatever it was, the reality was much more peaceful then what I expected.

A taxi driver stopped me on the way in and took me to "his friend's houseboat" in the normal commission-tout scam but it did get me down to a boat, which through its maze of alleys I wouldn't have found on my own. The Mountain View was a pleasant boat but hearing that there were three Israeli men on the boat, I knew what I'd be in for, drugs all day, music and a party scene, which was of no interest to me so off I went to find something else. The boats are all situated down mazes of back alleys and I didn't have much luck finding any on my own. Driving up and down I would inevitably come to dead ends and had not found any boats when this boy on a bike called out, "come here!" as I passed him. Typically, I would have ignored him, but there was a note of self-confidence in the voice, which did make his imperious tone quite curious. I stopped and he came over with a "where are you going? You want a houseboat?" I said, "Yes, I'm looking for a houseboat." He said, "no problem, we have good houseboats. Come with me." With a grin on my face at his confidence and tone that was much older then his years, I followed the boy, Imran, through another maze of alleys down to a parking lot and down to his home. In front of a nice home with huge lawns, there were three houseboats, unfortunately all full with Indian tourists but which would be empty the next day. They would give me a room in their home if I wanted for the night then move me to the boats in the morning.

The air of the family and the cordiality of all the members that I met made the decision to stay with them easy and I awaited finding out what life on a Srinagar houseboat would really be like.

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