Kashmir Itinerary 7 days
I recently visited Kashmir in the month of May 2023 and I want to describe my experience of my visit and places i visited. I had a local contact in Srinagar who managed my travel and hotel bookings for 7 days. I started my journey from Mumbai, my plan was Srinigar 1 night, pahalgam 2 nights, Sonmarg 2 night, Gulmarg one night.
1. Srinagar-
If you are travelling from any place in India, Srinagar is the place where you need to land first, Srinagar offers many hotel options including houseboat stays. One night stay in houseboat is sufficient.
As the other attractions such as Pahalgam, Sonmarg and Gulmarg are within 100 km radius, Srinagar can be made base to access these locations. I visited the local attractions such as Mughal Garden, Shanakaracharya temple, art and craft shops and shikara ride as part of the first day activities.
Handloom such as carpets and Kashmiri printed dress materials are unique things to buy as well as carved wooden furniture made out of walnut tree wood.
One must explore the local cuisine which was one of the items in my lists, wazwan is the local cuisine which has dishes like Rogan Gosht, Mutton Seek Kabab and few others, Kasmiri dum aalo is a must try when you are in Kashmir.
The first night in Srinagar we stayed in a houseboat which was a unique experience.
2. Pahalgam
We started to Pahalgam the next day, the distance is about 90 km and it takes 3 hours. We stayed for two nights in pahalgam.
The mall road of pahalgam is very good and has lot of shops, cafes and art emporiums to keep you busy shopping. There are many hotels near to mall road and near the rafting point, i recommend staying in hotels near the rafting point as it offers a view of the lidder river.
It was pretty cold in the evening and temperature dropped to 5 degrees, for a person staying in mumbai hot climate, this was pleasant experience.
Next day we went for horse riding, and i must tell this was one of the amazing experience me and my family had, it was 2 hours riding on horses which takes you from the base to the top of the mountain to the mini switzerland point which is area which has large meadows and a scenic place.
It was hard and at the same time fun to ride the horse as it maneuvers climbs and descends, the pine trees and rain drizzle made the experience even more pleasurable.
Pic- Mini switzerland point in Pahalgam
Next day we visited few other tourist attractions such as Chandanvari, Betab valley ,Aru valley. Chandanwari is place where amarnath yatra begins and is very scenic place where one can climb snow capped mountains and do some sports such as snow sledge which is a wooden skate on which one can sit along with the guide to slide from a height.
Betab valley is a scenic valley where movie betab song was shot and the valley was named after the movie, it has a picturesque park and a river with pine trees spread across the valley. One should note that in Kashmir, you need to either use your own vehicle for sightseeing or need to hire a local taxi, in our case even though we had hired a taxi from srinagar for the complete journey, we had to hire a local taxi in pahalgam for local sightseeing, this is the case for other destinations like sonmarg and gulmarg.
After staying for 2 nights in pahalgam and after doing shopping on mall road, we proceeded to Sonmarg.
3. Sonmarg
Pahalgam to Sonmarg is a long ride and it almost took us a complete day, i would recommend accessing sonmarg from Srinagar instead as it close by and will save time for siteseeing on the same day.
Next day we started the trek to Thajiwas glacier, we decided to use horse instead of walking as it had rained he previous day. I must tell you the experience of horse riding to the glacier and back is none less than experience of any other scenic country like switzerland, though i never been there. Its a paisa vasool experience and i was under total feeling of Awe by watching the snow capped mountains, fast flowing rivers and meadows as the horse climbed the mountains. The movie Satte Pe Satta was shot in this area by setting up a makeshift wooden house on one of the meadows.
This place is known for Himalayan Brown Bears and the bears visit the hotels exterior in search of food in the night time, so if one is curious about wildlife , you can end up seeing the bear. I heard some interesting stories of the brown bear from local people.
There are few local siteseeing points which can be visited such as snow point. but we decided to enjoy the hotel surroundings instead. After soaking in the nature beauty for one day we decided to go to Srinagar and then to Gulmarg which was our next destination.
Gulmarg -
Gulmarg is known for its meadows and its gandola ride, similar to sonmarg, Gulmarg is a scenic destination with views of snow capped mountains. The Gandola ride booking need to be done in advance online, there are two phases of the Gandola ride, phase 1 which is 2.5 km and then phase 2 which takes to further on the snow mountains which is further 2 km.
One can go to Tangmarg,which is 2 km before to Gulmarg and take a local taxi which will take you to the gandola ride as well as show the local siteseeing points.
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