Thursday 11 October 2007

We reached Srinagar next. This was a short visit before going to Baltal from where we trek to the Amarnath cave, we were going to come back to Srinagar after the Amarnath trek.
The previous day we had learnt that there was a major attack in Srinagar (near Lal Chowk), we were watching TV in Katra, live coverage of the spot and the happenings over there. We also learnt from local people that what we get to see in Bangalore and other cites are only tailored versions of those coverages.

On the way to Srinagar, we crossed a lot of hills, the views were beautiful, greenery everywhere and water streams here and there...


We met quite a few military people on our way, they were on work...sometimes they used to wave at us too :-)















We visited the Sri Shankara temple in Srinagar, its not the Sharada Peetha that Sri Sankaracharya established, that one is in POK.
This temple was constructed by Maharaj Pratap Singh, it has a huge Shiva Linga and it seems Shankaracharya carried out his penance here.


The people in Srinagar were raw (rugged), confident with high self esteem. Another thing that needs to be mentioned is the purity of their language. They say "Parichay ki jiye" if they want to know your identity :-) They address men as "Sriman ji" :-)

A view of the Dal lake

Tuesday 9 October 2007

The next destination was Vaishno Devi temple in Katra, J&K. I learnt that J&K state has their own laws that are different from all other states in India.

In a cool and pleasant early morning we climbed the hill riding on ponies, assisted by the pony-owners. The pony-owners were kind and helpful, they live in houses that are quite far from Katra and they stay near the Vaisno Devi temple and work with the govt. to take people to the temple. All of them carried Id cards.

The pony I was riding was called Chamak-challo and the owner's name was Younis. Irrespective of their religion, people there greet each other saying "Jai Matha Di".

We also met a kannada officer in one of the many check posts we went through, he told us that there were a lot of kannadigas in Kashmir!














A view from the Vaishno Devi temple walkway

Could be used for a Pepsi ad!

A view of the Vaisno Devi temple hill in the evening

Monday 8 October 2007

Finally I am inspired to blog on the Amarnath trip that I went to in 2005, thanks to Mom and Dad who are visiting the north and east of India now. The trip mainly was to Amarnath, we did visit a few places before and after that.
We started off with Delhi. Nothing much to say about Delhi except that people never obey traffic signals! Yeah, stress on "never"... they just keep going as if the lights don't mean anything. And another thing I felt strongly at that time was that I hated Delhi weather (its a natural feeling for someone born and brought up in Bangalore I guess :-))

A picture taken near the Qutub Minar, Delhi

Our next stop was at Jalandhar in Punjab. We visited the SriDevi temple there. Punjab is a rich state and thats known. But I must mention that I was surprised and pleased by the fact that they provided refrigerated water to general public on the streets :-)

A view of the Sridevi Mandir, Jalandhar, Punjab




















The above two pictures show the streets of Punjab, the second one with paintings on the street.