the journey from leh to srinagar(theory of settlement)

the guest house at drass

the snow cladded hill in the centre is the tiger hill

the road to srinagar

house boat OLYMPIAS

I have fond memories of a place I visited around 9 years back. More than the place itself, it was the journey that I can’t forget. I went for a trip of 15 days with my family to leh ladakh in the summer of 2001. I found the place strikingly beautiful and I was astounded by the beauty my country had to offer. The landscape varied from desert to Rocky Mountains to snow capped mountains to water bodies. Every inch of the ground was covered by snow and after a point of time my eyes got tired of seeing white sheet of snow spread all around and were longing to see some greenery. After 8 days of living in ladakh in the zanskar valley, we hired a cab from leh to drive us to Srinagar. The next stop on our trip was this journey from leh to Srinagar that left a strong imprint on my mind. I remember it so vividly because I was amazed by the landscape and the scenic beauty. We first came across the magnetic hill which left me speechless.  The driver showed us that the SUV was moving against the gravity all by itself on a hill. It was later that I understood that the mountain just opposite to that road was rich in magnetic content and it was that mountain that was pulling the SUV towards it. Later in the journey, I came across a road cut through huge gigantic layers of snow turned ice. The ice was so loosely packed and precariously place that I thought it would collapse. After that our journey took us to a small village called Drass.  Its major inhabitants are Muslims and it is the last village in the zanskar valley. We were allowed to stay in a reasonably well furnished guest house. The caretaker was so excited to show us the then exceptionally famous Tiger Hill (the kargil war had just ended) which was clearly visible from the guest house. The next adventure came the same night when the caretaker woke all of us at 2 in the night and told us that it was time for us to leave for srinagar. He then explained that the vehicles are allowed to cross the road and go to the Kashmir valley only between 2 and 4 at night and that too with the head light switched off or else the enemies across the border would try and shell the vehicle since the road was very much visible from their bunker. I was a little scared when I heard that but I was too sleepy to be bothered by it. i hardly remember anything that happened during the journey from Drass to Srinagar. The next thing I saw was the beautiful valley of Kashmir. The chinar and the pine trees on the mountains are still fresh in my mind. We stayed in a houseboat in the Dal Lake. The caretaker was so considerate that one day when we asked him to cook typical kashmiri food, he took us all to his home so that we could eat the world famous kashmiri rogan josh. I can never forget the old caretaker of the housebat ‘OLYMPIAS’ and his kindness. It was the trips of a lifetime. I believe that everyone should drive down from leh to Srinagar once in their life.