Kuch Kuch Hota Hai - Day 3

After Day 1 and Day 2 of my Indian tales, here's more.

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DAY 3: SRINAGAR (in Jammu & Kashmir, India)

27th Dec 2008:

0920hrs. We are in the car, making our way to Gulmarg, the snowy hill resort. left the boat house and it was freaking foggy outside. The shikara was freezing and we couldnt see what's in front of us.


Archie and I couldnt feel our toes.
But being the professionals that we were, we just smiled it off, baby.


Time now is 0930hrs and our journey will take 2 hours. I am wearing a thermal blouse, a long sleeve tshirt and a jacket. inside my bag is another thick jacket which will be much needed. Stupid me didnt buy thermal pants...so my legs are just clad in jeans.

Frostbite.









........

It's 2100hrs and i was sent by my creepy butler to sleep. I'm having a mind-numbing headache and almost slept on the dining table.

The day was fun. Too much fun, in fact. We reached the snowy mountains and my sinus was acting up as the altitude got higher.

We reached the halfway base of Gulmarg and changed into some heavy duty boots. Then we hobbled back into the car and wound our way up to the top. The journey was amazing. Swaku...have never seen snow before.




We slipped and fell as we made our way to our ski guides. Archie, CY2 and I were already out of breath and we hadnt even started our god damn skiing session.

We got on our skis...and we had fun going down slopes. It's the skiing up part which was a bitch. I had 2 helpers one to push and the other to stop me cause I went damn fast. Cause I am not afraid to die like that.

Right.
More like to balance the mass.




Anyway..my arms ache like mad. After about a never-ending 30 minutes of huffing and ouffing on skis, we had to walk up the hills to the freaking cable car. We were damn wiped out. CY2 started seeing stars and we had to stop because she was breaking out in cold sweat and was about to pass out.

To add it up, we were all dehydrated. I would have sucked a snowball dry if I had not seen so many Indian men peeing by the roadside since I first came to Delhi and Kashmir.


CY2 breaking out in cold sweat...and about to pass out.

It was jihad climbing up the hills but we finally reached our destination. Imtiaz, our snow guide had to put up with 3 weak people haha. There was a mama shop so we headed straight for Coke. Brain freeze.

We next took the cable car ride to the top. There's always somewhere higher..just when you think you were high enough. Just like life, isnt it?




The view on the cable car was fantabulous. We saw the Himalayas and the peak of Mount K2 ...awesome. Reached the top and we were given 30 mins to fling snow at one another.

Snow was super thick. We walked and got stuck thigh deep. Awesome.








CY2 went bonkers on coke and snow and started doing weird stuff on the snow. So amused was I that I accidentally dropped my precious E71 into the snow. Panic for a while. After that, pictures taken for the next 1 hour turned out blur and foggy.

Like this one.


I call this shot 'Defeated'.

We went back down cause it was time for lunch. But to get to our food place, we were made to sit on wooden sleighs pulled by Kashmiri men.

Faint, lah.
I'm so fat...you sit, I pull lah.

Anyway, I managed to be towed by one and along the way, he got freaking rabid and started to push me down the slopes like crazy. The sleigh skidded to the right and fuck...hard snow wall!


Crash!


Not only did I crash into the snow, my sleigh puller/pusher tumbled on me (ouch!!) and he rolled onto the road. What the fuck!

He continued pulling..less rabid now. Apparently Imtiaz had told him earlier not to go all Michael Schumacher on me. But I deserved it also cause I went ''F1! F1!'' on him.His nose bled from the fall. I just grazed my palms. Serve me right for not wearing my gloves.




Lunch was much needed and we began to defrost and space out. The ride back to the boat house was tiring and bumpy. All wiped out.

Gulmarg was great fun.
For 1300 rupees, everything was taken care for.
Except tips for respective helpers.

Oh well.

We were back at about sundown..around 1715hrs. We walked around our houseboat to wind down and we sat at the balcony to freeze chill.







As we were chilling out, sipping the wonderful Kashmiri tea, we had a man approaching us selling pretty pashmina shawls.

It was quite a torturous time cause unlike at shopping places where you could just walk away, well we couldnt cause he was at our door.

I was hesitant at first...but decided to get one pure pashmina for 650 rupees for the mother. After much drama (seriously these mamas!), CY2 got hers at 600 rupees.

We had dinner and then...here I am, nursing a headache which is getting worse by the minutes. My stupid period is not helping also. Damn you, womb.

Tomorrow will be our 3rd day at Srinagar, a place I have grown to love because the men are freaking gorgeous. Even some of the army guys who are guarding this place look so...yummy. There's something about them, as they hold the M16. Oh come to mama!

Where was I?

Oh tomorrow we'll be going to some mughal gardens and then to shop a little. We will be done by lunch time cause shops will be closed by then; it being a sunday and all.


Haha got Malay wedding to attend, right?



P/S: There's no phone reception here, let alone internet connection. Gosh, I miss my internet.


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