After Amarnath, we left the Baltal camp and headed towards Srinagar, next on the itinerary was Gulmarg, a mountain that could be reached by taking a cable car.

Just check out the cable cars down the hill in the picture on the left, I can see atleast 14 of them!

The cable car and the trees would be covered with snow in the winter, its just so bright and the view is clear during the we went there...
Gulmarg supposedly hosts the world's highest golf course, however we didn't go there :(

We went boating in the Dal lake in the evening, this would be our last day in Kashmir/Srinagar.

We noticed that the roads were deserted, there were no street lights as we went to the hotel :(
In the past 15 years or so, life has been a living hell in Srinagar, it has lost its charm. One of the localities was telling us that if we expected Kashmir to be like Switzerland (which people used to to do) then he can only be sorry for that!

I did speak to people from Kashmir as to how they feel about all this, they told that they didn't bother much about the attacks, they had learned to live with it, they were only concerned about bringing up their kids, their education :(

So that was Kashmir with its amazing people, phenomenal beauty and now turned to a place that probably holds uncertain future for it's own kids :(
But to the visitors it is, as the BEACON (Border Roads Organization force) puts it

Kashmir,
-The Paradise on Earth
-The bowl of fruits
-The bed of Saffron

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