Srinagar City and Dal Lake

Intro
Srinagar is the summer capital city of Jammu and Kashmir state. The city had been troubled by terrorist violence for the past two decades but has returned to normalcy for the past year or so.


How to reach
Delhi to Jammu (620 kms) - via train or buses or flight.   http://www.ixigo.com/trains/JammuTawi-JAT
Jammu to Srinagar (300 kms) - via bus or private taxi or flight
OR
Delhi to Srinagar - via flight


Places to visit
Dal Lake - famous for houseboats , Nagin lake
Gardens (Nishat Bagh, Shalimar Bagh, Chashma Shahi)
Sankarcharya temple
Jama Masjid


My Diary

So after visiting Vaishno Devi we headed towards Srinagar. We took the Jammu-Srinagar highway and passed Jawahar Tunnel and PantiTop one of the hill stations in J&K. We started around 2 in afternoon from Katra and with a 1 hr halt in Pantitop were able to reach Srinagar by 11 at night making travel time close to 7.5 hrs.

Ready next morning by 11 to visit Dal Lake and other places in Srinagar City we headed straight for our Shikara ride. Dal Lake is quite large having an area of 18sq km and with a shore line of approx 15 km
but the locals have named lot of spots and lakes within the lake famous ones being

Golden Lake - This area is one of the most spots in Dal Lake. It has lot of house boats for tourists and it is named "Golden Lake" because at night when all the house boats lighten up it gives a golden appearance to the lake. We missed the night picture though but even during day time it was beautiful
with vast stretch of lakes and himalyas all around. How beautiful would it look during winters when all the peaks gets covered with snow and there is ice film over the lake!!

Nehru Lake - This part of the Dal Lake has a park  and we got down over here. This was our shikara with the boatman Kashif. Though there are a lot of Nehru parks in the country but this one seems to be genuine as told to us, in the sense chaca nehru our first prime minister used to visit this land mass from Golden Lake and it was named after him.







Anyways after wandering around the lake for an hour so we started feeling hungry and it was time for breakfast. This is one of the boat shops and there are plenty of these. We bought a cold drink and some snacks from here to munch. There are other
lakes around like Okal lake, dal server and jheel as called by locals and we took a nice big ride across the lake.






Now it was time for serious breakfast and fortunately we got a real restaurant.
Pakodas and maagi but I would like to tell about Kwawa - kashmiri tea which we had here. Kwawa indigrents are ginger,kesar (saffron) and walnut with no milk.

Srinagar-Sonmarg-Kargil-Leh Highway view from Dal Lake. This small 2km stretch highway is mesmerizing with Dal Lake on one side and mountains on the other and surrounded by tall devdar trees I guess.

  One of the by-streams form Dal Lake. It leads to the local village. Talking a little about the people living in these villages in and around the lake they have two main sources of income.
During summers as there is a considerable amount of tourist rush they earn living by riding shikara or serving in house boats along the lake.

During winters when the lake gets covered with ice they keep themselves busy in weaving,embroidery and woodwork to produce goods like mattress,sarees,shawls,wooden decoration pieces and cricket bats.

Houseboats where tourists stay. You will be surprised to find they don't move, i don't mean they can't but tourists who stay here ride along the lake in small canoes.













Just have a look at the exquisite woodwork on these house boats. These houseboats range from 10 lakh (smaller ones) to even 1 crore(big ones).

Thereafter completing our 5 hr long ride in Shikara we headed towards Sankarcharya Temple which commands full view of Srinagar being at a higher level. The temple is dedicated to Lord Siva. We were not allowed to take cameras anywhere near the temple that's why we had to click this from a far off place. I suppose this place being a strategic location from where the entire
Srinagar City can be viewed so Army had some restrictions over here.

Top view of Srinagar from temple. The small hillock and fort we see from here is called Akbar Fort. There also Army has placed its troop and it's not allowed to visit that fort as we were told.

Dal Lake View From Sankracharya Temple

 My friends trying water scooter in Dal Lake.

Lal Chowk - This is one of the most sensitive areas of Srinagar. Lot of bomb blasts and terrorist encounters have happened here. We were able to see this place on our way to Gulmarg.












The first night in Srinagar me and my friend left hotel  in search of mutton seekh kabab. Luckily on our way we saw Jama Masjid and we asked our auto driver if we can see it and he said yes why not. Not missing that opportunity we took a round of Jama Masjid and at that time of night around 8'ish it was quite peaceful. Something funny happened over here. We were busy looking at the architecture inside and a lady with her daughter were offering namaz (prayer) so we thought why not we also bend down and pray. As we got up it was little strange to find that the mom-daughter were kinda staring at us as if we had done something terribly wrong.
Anyways we left the Masjid but then on our way back it clicked to us that it was the women's area to offer namaz.

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