Day 8-10 (12th-14th July Patnitop to Srinagar

July 11-12 Patnitop to Srinagar
We did nothing much on July 11th because Jennifer had the shits and I didn’t want to leave her alone in bed. I did go for a short walk and got lost despite there being only one road, although the hotel is situated off a short side road which I missed until I asked someone. Patnitop boasts a wire line that you can sail down strapped into a seat and some horses that you can go for a ride on. The adventure playpark was covered in litter. We had a nice evening meal; I persuaded Jennifer to have a bowl of tomato and basil soup while I had a huge Kashmir-style chicken biriani which, according to the waiter (who fussed round us doing everything apart from putting the food in our mouths) was made with locally produced herbs. The night was ruined by a horde of small children running up and down the corridor screaming at the tops of their voices and by their parents who were screaming even more loudly telling them to be quiet. Until well after midnight.
The road to Srinagar went back down the mountain and, after crossing the border into Kashmir, descended a mountainside. The further we travelled down the road, the deeper the valley got on the left with very little in the way of protection to stop cars going off the edge. Which was a constant worry with cars and lorries driven by maniacs in both directions. Mukesh’s driving was more impressive than ever. We passed huge convoys of army trucks and the number of soldiers increased as we approached Srinagar. There were frequent roadblocks although we weren’t stopped. At Anantnagar, a small town near Srinagar, there were a great many “sports shops” and “bat factories” and the town is the world centre for the manufacture of cricket bats.
Mukesh got lost in Srinagar because the army had closed some of the roads but he eventually found the eastern shore of Lake Pageen (the second largest of Srinagar’s two large lakes) and met his friend who took us on a small boat across to the western side of the lake where he had booked a houseboat. It is owned by Mr Manzur who welcomed us with cups of Kashmiri tea with spices. We rested for some time listening to the Azar (Moslem call to prayer) from 5 or 6 mosques. The area of Lake Pageen is 99% Moslem according to Mukesh, these being people whose ancestors decided to stay in India at partition while hardly any Hindus stayed in what is now Pakistan.