If you read my blog on Pehelgham, I am sure you would have got
a picture of what the “Heaven of India” is all about.

The place we visited the day after Pehelgham trip was Gulmarg.
We were assured that we would get to see snow. We were quite
excited about the fact. When I say “we”, its my mum, dad and
bro-Nikhil. The journey to the snow-land was much much more
beautiful than the journey to Pehelgham. There were many local
farmer on the roads, trying to sell the red-cherry boxes. Must
say, I felt like taking each and every box that was being solt 🙂

Anyway, we reach the destination in about 2-1/2 hours jouney from
Srinagar on our favorite JKSRTC bus 🙂
I was shocked to see green-grass there. Where did the snow go 🙁
People told that since it as off-season July’05, there would be now
snow at the base. To see the snow, we would have to take the
cable-car to the peak mountain there. I sure does cost alot but it
sure is worth it. It takes nearly 5-10 to reach the middle-point of
the mountain where there is good view of the valley, horse-riding,
garden and sledge-riding 🙂

But, that is not what we came to see @ Gulmarg. I/We wanted to see
the SNOW. So, we immediately took the next cable car that took us
to the peak ie., around 14000ft above sea-level. This time around the
journey in the cable-car was for around 15 minutes. And finally finally
finally, we reach the peak that has SNOW SNOW SNOW and only
SNOW all around. Every mountain around the peak were snow-clad.
And the best part is that, we were standing in the place where
generally all hindi-movie-songs are shot. And the JOY of seeing the
SNOW and be able to HOLD-IT, was some kind of experience. We
were given just 10 mts as that is the time allocated for everyone at
the peak.

I tried my hand with a bit of ICE-SKIEING. So, did my bro-Nikhil. We
enjoy every bit of it. And just when we about to stop skieing, it
started snowing. And my bro started shivering while his
skieing-shoes were being removed. It was so cold that my hands just
became NUMB. And the skieing instructor immediately rushed us to
the cable-car-station. He us to warm ourself by keeping the hands
under the armpit. My hands sure did freeze there. It took around
5 mts to get back to senses 🙂

Then we had some coffee to warm our body. While drinking coffee I
was just thanking god for giving me this excellent opprotunity of
being able to see the SNOW-CLAD-ground, enjoy playing with
SNOW and most of all- SEE THE SNOW fall for the first-time :))

Well, that was about the snow-clad peak at Gulmarg. And yes, while
we were getting back to ground, we got an announcement that no
more cable-cars would ply to the peak for the day since it start
snowing. I felt so lucky 🙂

On our way back to the base-level @Gulmarg we did try out SLEDGE
ride and also HORSE-RIDING. It was an amazing experience of riding
on a SLEDGE for nearly 2kms from the peak to a base-point 🙂
Surely , it wasn’t all that thrilling compared to SKIEING 🙂

We were all so involved with seeing the new place that we forgot to
have lunch. But, then on our way back to our bus, we packed some
superb parathas which we joyfully had.

Sometimes we see so many of these places on TV and Movies. But,
seeing it for real is something totally different. I surely will
encourage everyone that I know and also those I don’t, to visit
Kashmir. You would know why I call it the “HEAVEN ON EARTH” 🙂

Pictures :
1> My Bro Nikhil ENJOYING himself
2> Thats me doing a bit of SKIEING 🙂
3> Cable-Car view
4> View of the Valley