Am selben Tag Gulmarg Trip mit Mittagessen

When you are off to Kashmir, you go with a mixed feeling not knowing what to expect because you wouldve heard about its beauty almost as a myth from people who were lucky to visit it in another age whilst you wouldve also heard about all the possible negatives to percieve it as a highly dangerous place. Once your plane approaches the srinagar airport all feelings describing my latter perception were quickly dispelled as I saw the mighty white peaks of the Himalayas emerge almost as guardians standing tall amongst the clouds. You can see the color of the water in the several streams below which is almost aqua blue. The tin rooftops reflect the sunlight almost as gleaming jewels and out comes a green plateau as the plane descends. After you make your way out of the airport, beautiful kashmiri homes dot both sides of the road and surprisingly most appear to be large. As our driver explained most homes are made keeping in mind the need to host large getogethers! However srinagar is like any other town with busy markets except for Dal lake ofcourse! At the onset it looks crowded and dirty and "overhyped" however there are two good points to the Dal. One is the stay in a houseboat which is unique in terms of its carvings, food, hospitality and ofcourse the fact that you can sip Kawa sitting in the verandah of the house boat looking at water around yourself. The second is the part of Dal where it is clean and you can see the green hills in its background. The small shikara boats take you for a leisurely ride on the waters for as long as you want. Its really enjoyable yet sometimes irritating to have other vendor shikaras as I would call them hawking traditional kashmiri items. But the nice thing about kashmiris is you will always find them respecting the tourist and not bothering them beyond a point. Theyre proud and cognizant of the tourist comfort. There are some great places to eat in Srinagar if you want to try out traditional kashmiri wazwaan food such as Ahdoos and Mughal darbar. Ofcourse the Lalit or the Grand Palace is something one must stay in if can be afforded. It used to be the erstwhile palace of Maharaja Karan Singh the ruler of Kashmir. Now the hotel has a modern building and a wing which has just suites which is the converted palace. The whole place is surrounded by tulip gardens which makes it very very special even more so if you are with kids. Lastly, Ive rated srinagar as average but my description perhaps is certainly more than average. The problem is once you leave srinagar for pahalgam and gulmarg you will perhaps agree with me. The beauty of the places I mention pales the beauty of srinagar as is normally the case when we compare a city to a hill station. But its not something that one must miss.