The Magic of Srinagar

Our last night on the houseboat in Srinigar was quite a night. The next day (Good Friday) we were to set out at 5:30 am to go to the floating market, here in town, to watch the farmers who work on the 'floating gardens' sell their produce to the merchants of the village. They do this everyday and it is quite something to see actually. It's a little like watching the guys at the back of Loblaws unload trucks but different. The kids, however decided to take a pass on this and slept in with their hot waterbottles close at hand. I don't know if we mentioned that we were located about 500 meters from this huge mosque (Hazratbal), which, as (un)luck would have it, was celebrating its biggest day of the year - when they display a case in which they have stored a hair from the head of the Prophet Mohammed. I'm not sure, but by all accounts, this is a huge deal to Muslims. The mosque was filling with people all night and the chanting through the loudspeakers was magical. We could hear it ALL night long. Needless to say, we slept, as best we could, until 5:15. We then got in the shakara and headed out to the market. The slow, methodical paddle on the still waters of the lake, with the moonlight shimmering and the snow capped mountains only faintly outlined by the rising sun was a like a dream. The rising mist from the lake obscured all movement of the people on shore in the darkness. We could hear the faint rumble of footsteps and tuk tuks under the loudspeaker chanting, of people on their way to sunrise prayers. Again, it was a bit surreal. We paddled on our way and as the sun began to rise we reached our destination. We ducked under a small bridge and right there before us were about 20 shakara's. Some empty, some full. Some buying and some selling. We took a few pictures but felt a bit odd as it wasn't quite bright enough and the camera flash seemed to be ruining what was turning out to be a perfect morning. We made our way back, floating on the mirror like lake with a blanket over our legs and a cup of Kashmeri tea in our hands. As we passed the mosque daylight had hit it's stride. The huge crowd of people were chanting and cheering wildly as "the relic," (as they would call it) was being displayed ahigh overhead in a wood and glass case. It was like a movie. I can't explain to you the strangeness of it all - especially riding on a shakara with a wooden sign (name) on the roof which read "Stranger in Paradise". 'Yeah, baby', I thought, as Hunter S. Thompson once wrote, 'it just hasn't gotten weird enough for me'. Pete

A Sharkara on Lake Dal

Carly and Molly on a Shakara ride

Inside our houseboat- WOW!

Landscape on Lake Dal