The mountain retreat of Mughals and Buddhist lamas; the Alps of India; Jehangir’s Valley of Paradise. All these terms have been used to describe Kashmir, one of India’s wildest and most controversial tourist destinations. After 20 years of isolation, travellers are slowly drifting back to this legendary backwater, returning to Srinagar’s famous houseboats and walking the trekking routes north of Pahalgam. Kashmir boasts some of the highest and most rugged landscapes on earth in mountainous Ladakh, and one of the most sublime in serene Dal Lake.
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If Srinagar is the City of Gardens, Jammu is the City of Temples. The winter capital of Kashmir is awash with Hindu shikharas (temple towers) and Sikh gurdwaras (temples). Founded in 1730 as the capital of the Dogra Rajas, Jammu is the main bus and railhead for Kashmir, and an interesting place to break the journey from Delhi to Srinagar. Unfortunately, the city is also a major target for extremists – make sure things are calm before you come.
About 52km southwest of Srinagar, the pine-fringed meadow at Gulmarg – literally ‘Meadow of Flowers’ – is a busy ski resort in winter and a popular walking resort in summer. The Alpine landscape is a marked contrast to the flat, poplar-lined fields that cover the bottom of the Kashmir Valley, but don’t expect a quiet retreat. Gulmarg is packed with domestic tourists year-round and most of the meadow is given over to a golf course that doubles as a training slope during the ski season.