A houseboat in paradise...well Kashmir

As we walked through the wild marijuana fields that surrounded the pathway leading to our new houseboat home we suspected that it was probably going to be a fairly relaxed environment....but we're getting ahead of ourselves here so let's go back a few days.

We finally left the Goba guesthouse behind to catch the overnight "Super Deluxe" bus to Srinigar in Kashmir - meaning of course that we should be travelling in style and comfort all the way.

 Or maybe not....

Once we had attached our own bags to the roof with shoe laces and scarves and found our seats we were pleased to note that they reclined fully and were quite comfy (hence the SUPER deluxe) and when compared to the lot of 20+ Indian men who were going to be sitting on the floor for the next 19 or so hours things didn't seem so bad.

The journey itself passed without incident (other than one of the little Indian fellas groping Matt's ankle at about 2:00 am) and after the trauma of our first "mountain road" experience from Manali to Leh the mere 500ft drops at the edge of the road seemed like nothing, so once the sun came up we sat back and enjoyed the spectacular views of the Kashmiri countryside...

Soon enough we were approaching our destination and after a mere 21 hours on the bus we stepped off in the Kashmiri town of Srinigar where we were unsure what to expect - what with Kashmir having a reputation for being a bit of a terrorist hotspot and all.. But we were here now so we had to get on with it and after retrieving our bags from the roof and making sure Charlotte had zero flesh on display we jumped in a rickshaw and headed off to our hotel.  

The following day we went off to explore the town and after spending some time watching a cricket match between two local rival teams and being asked to be in about a million photos by various Indian men (well they mainly asked Charlotte) we realised that Kashmir is not threatening at all, it's just busy, REALLY busy so we decided we needed some time to ourselves and we hired a Shikara - like an Indian gondola without the singing - for a sunset cruise around Dal Lake. 

After a romantic sunset ride the evening was complete when Matt finally heard the words he's been waiting to hear since the day we arrived in India "Babe.....I've just sh*t myself". What happened next will forever remain between the two of us!

Once we'd got over this incident (i.e. the following day !) we set about the task of finding a houseboat to stay on for the next few days....which is what led to us wandering through the wild marijuana fields on our way to the "Mount View" houseboat on Nigin Lake with our new friend Ayub. One look around the boat, which was basically like a floating Orient Express, was enough to convince us that we were in the right place and we agreed to move in straight away

We spent the next few days hanging out with Ayub and his chef Rambo (his real name) on the boat mainly drinking kashmiri tea, smoking, drinking and eating great food. 

We also managed to squeeze in a visit to Jesus's grave in the Old Town of Srinigar (apparently the bible has it all wrong) where the locals politely told us to "p*ss off", went round to Ayub's house to meet his family and drink more Kashmiri tea and even got up at 4:15 one morning to visit the floating vegetable market

However for the most part we kicked back and relaxed, floating around on our own little row boat in the lagoon at the back of the house boat

That's it for our Kashmiri adventures, next up Dharamasala home of the Dalai Lama....