The Tuman family


Tearing "the mule" down again, the ritual of coming into a decent sized town.

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2003-07-31 - Srinagar (Day 107)

In the morning, the Indian tourists left and I moved onto the boats and had them all to myself. I am staying on the family's main boat, the "Mascot One" which is large and has the side facing out onto the lack so that one can open any of the sliding windows in the sitting room, dining room or bedrooms out onto the lake. The windows have both a glass window and a screen window both of which can be slid back to leave an unobstructed view and bring in the breeze and sounds, scents of the lake itself.

The boat is a showpiece of woodcarving with the walls being of carved wooden panels and the ceilings being a pattern of interlocking cut wood blocks forming a mosaic throughout the boat. Inside, the floors are all oriental carpets of course fitting for a family that also sells carpets in Kashmir and has two shops in Nepal. The furniture is carved wood antiques and I get the feeling of staying in my Grandmother's house more then anything. It is a feeling of decoration and style from another time, and the accouterments all support that from the 1950's refrigerator to the crystal chandeliers.

The family has been doing this business for four generations and one of the first things I'm shown is the guest books and letters from the late 1800's and early 1900's. Its easy to imagine the British expatriates summering on this lake as it has a timeless feeling about it and I doubt very much has really changed in the last hundred years. However, it is also easy to gather both from looking around the lake, talking to the family and looking around that the last 13 years have been very difficult on everyone with a tourist industry being decimated as all of the tourists stayed away. Losing 80-90% of the business before the hostilities, most people in this area have been crippled and have seen a thriving industry starve.

In the same pattern as normal, I set out to find the local Enfield mechanic as the first task in Srinagar as first gear had started slipping into neutral on the way up the pass, which was serious enough to want to get fixed right away.

Imran accompanied me, thank goodness and Srinagar is a mess of streets and alleys, which would take quite a while to get one's bearings down pat. It took a while, but seeing a new Enfield on the road, we asked him where the dealer was and got an escort to the shop, as he happened to be the owner of the only Enfield shop in Srinagar.

This was the fourth time I had had the gearbox opened since I bought the bike, which is far too much all with similar problems. This time the mechanic found the root cause of the problems and though it took all day to tear down the gearbox, clutch and alternator to get to the problem I hope that my gear problems have finally been solved.

Late in the afternoon Imran and I drive back to the boats this time following the GPS back, which Imran found fascinating. I also was again amazed at this toy, which really is just the thing when one does not know the town or city.

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