OVERLAND SYDNEY TO LONDON  DAY 111/319/23: JAMMU TO SRINAGAR, KASHMIR, INDIA

August 1980 and “10 October, 1980

Well    if I haven’t been close to a nervous breakdown by this page – I sure as hell got cerebral shutdown – coming to Srinagar.

BOY WHAT A DAY.

A TATA bus trip is something that must be tried to be believed!

Some commonly heard comments were;

Kind of hair-raising ….

At least our driver is cautious ….

The driver really puts his foot down when he is stoned …

Do you think the conductor is singing to keep the driver awake?

We must have passed 6 bingled trucks in the course of the day – a really safe road.”

These comments from the 1980 Trip Book show that the drive from Jammu to Srinagar is one of the most hair-raising drives possible, around blind corners, hair pin bends, landslides, and steep drops around 3,000 feet straight down as you turn around corners. Smashed buses and trucks are clearly visible down the steep valleys, straight under us, as we seem to be outside the road width, around nearly every corner. Not for the faint hearted. Valium and local anaesthetics like Kashmiri green are the order of the day.

We can’t drive a double decker bus into Srinagar, as the tunnel into the Kashmir Valley is too low, so Knackers stays behind in Jammu. On the westbound overland trip I’m also not sure if Gary and Knackers will continue on with us, as Knackers is one of only two Top Decker buses in the Indian sub-continent. No more Top Deck buses have able to drive through Iran since we drive through more than two months ago, as no more tour leaders have been able to obtain Iran visas since we obtained them in July, 1980.

But the hairy, scary drive is worth it.

Shah Jahan once said of the Kashmir Valley -

“If there is paradise on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this.”

Every punter and crew would agree with this sentiment. Sometimes I wonder if they’re just thankful to be alive, after one of the scariest drives on the overland, but the Kashmir Valley really is paradise on earth. Corrie and I returned to Kashmir for our honeymoon in 1987, but we decided to fly from Delhi to Srinagar to avoid the drive.

We drive through the beautiful Kashmir Vallley to Dal Lake, where houseboats are our home away from home. We stay with the Dubloo family on their Houseboat New Australia, a large 12 berth houseboat where most of the punters stay, the Houseboat New Sydney where the rest of the punters stay, and the Houseboat New Melbourne, a smaller 4 berth houseboat commonly used by Top Deck crew over the decades, where Corrie and I stay.

Habib Dubloo is the master of the houseboat operation, and immediately after we have all settled into our houseboats, arranges for a beautiful Kashmiri meal cooked by his parents and sisters, and served by Nazir, our “houseboy”:  dal, mutton curry, vegetable curry, roti and Kashmiri Pulau; and other local relaxants, beer and hubble bubbles which help to turn the nightmarish drive into the beautiful Kashmir Valley.

↑ Day 318 ↓ Day 320