Day 4 (24st Oct 04): Sonmarg

Today we were to go to Sonmarg. Supposed to be a Shooting (bollywood) Paradise of one-time (e.g. Satte pe Satta), and was quiet some time more known for its Shooting in the other sense (no e.g’s here). The journey was overwhelming, and I was in-charge of the Handicam today and I ended up finishing one complete reel just en-route to Sonmarg. It was kinda interesting to see Kargil (some 200 km) and Leh (some 400km) written on the Milestones on the way – not something I see too often wen I’m on a highway. Reached Sonmarg in like 1.5 hours and fixed 5 horses to take us to the Glacier. We tried a lot convincing Kapoor aunty to agree for horse-ride, but she wont budge. Had a nice time with Rani – my ghodee, hehe! Reached the glacier, but it was all dry, and the ice was still a far cry (hey tht rhymed!), the view breathtaking nonetheless. Came back and had lunch - Nothing to write about. While coming back it was 5.+1 again, was into the final chapters. But we guys stopped a beautiful spot, where the adjoining stream was very close to the road, so close that we could all climb down. Spent a great 10-15 min there, and it was remarkable taking one of Mom-dad’s photos on a rock in the true “Titanic Pose”! As we reached to close to the end 5.+1, we also reached close to today’s journey. Left turn from the Kargil highway, as we took the 5 km long road next to The DAL to get into Srinagar. But we’d hardly covered 2 km and we saw that Army folks were sending all the cars back. Even we were asked to, and the reason being “No one’s being allowed anywhere close to the Legislative Assembly. Either get out of Srinagar or take the long turn around DAL and enter Srinagar from the other side”. Mom was a lille concerned, so I had to say “Mom, Kashmir aaye hain, kuch to hona chahiye jisse lage kee kashmir mein hain”, knowing very little tht this tour had lotsa music in store. We took a long turn and finally reached the lodge at 7. As usual, dinner at “Vaishno Dhaba” and back. When we came back and switched the tv on, we heard about the attack on the Abdullas at Anant Nag. Only then we realised why there was so much security on the road next to DAL and why we were asked to take a different course to enter Srinagar. I immediately asked dad if we were going to Anant Nag. He told me that we don’t plan to stay there, but we’re planning to do some shopping there, while going to Pahalgam (2 days from then). But, if things remain bad, we can take the bypass. I was like happy with the ‘bypass’ idea. Snooze …