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2003-08-16 - Water Trek - Srinagar (Day 123)

Yet again I'm woken up but this one was even more annoying as kids from the banks started calling out to my tent at just after 6am trying to get attention. Sticking my head out I see that several boys are already sitting and watching the tent which truly seemed like a ludicrous waste of time but seemed to be enough for them.

We eat breakfast, of course under the eyes of those on the banks and finally head off back upstream. There were numerous kids bathing in the river on the way up and many swam out to the shikara to yell out their greetings. There is no compunction among the kids about bathing nude until they reach puberty and it was quite cute to see the kids running naked along the banks after us.

We pass many men and flat topped shikaras on the way back to Shrinigar using long shovels to dig out the silt from the bottom of the river. In all, it is a horribly wasteful job but as I have seen around India, a waste of a life is nothing as these people are only a source of physical labor. Everywhere I have been there are always men and women sitting beside the roads with hammers breaking rocks in employment just as worthless as this. In a poor country with an excess of people, human labor is used as a better alternative to a dredging machine or rock crusher, which would obviously produce much more and be more efficien,t but presumably at a higher cost. As these lives and brains are deemed even cheaper then petrol their waste is not noticed.

By this time, I am tired of the ride and cannot wait to get off. The constant talking of the cook has not dropped off at all and he is now on his fourth day of constant conversation having only stopped to sleep or while he was cooking. I did find that I was asking for food even when I was not hungry as that was the only time he was quiet, but it was well to the point where I wanted off. Even without the cook, 4 days was enough and I was very happy that I had not accepted the 6 and 7-day treks that were being pushed.

We make it back to Srinagar and the cook refuses to just let me off insisting that we make a last meal since I'd paid for it though all I wanted was to get back to the houseboat and peace and quite but I had to continue to wait until he had prepared another meal. While I have to admit he was a very good cook and the food was excellent, at this point I simply could not stand the man. The minivan that was supposed to pick us up had gone elsewhere so we crammed all of our belongings into two rickshaws and drove back to the lake. To my amazement the cook who rode with me, stepped into the rickshaw and within 15 seconds had started a conversation (hard to call it that as the rickshaw driver didn't get a word in...) which continued all the way back to the lake without a moment's break. I must say he was an amazing man in that I have never seen someone who could talk for four days straight with nothing but a sleep break (he talked in his sleep though as well...)!

Back on the houseboat, I have a pot of coffee and just soak in the silence, which had become very precious at that point and let the afternoon slip away with a book.

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