Trip to Kashmir

Hello to the world! I am starting this blog as a learning experience to know what it's like. As someone who is posting online for the first time, I'm gonna start by introducing myself. I am Smiti Mittal. I am 12 years old and a student in 8th grade. I enjoy indian classical singing, cooking, playing tennis, swimming, painting, science and hopefully I'll enjoy blogging too! The blog is called Smitipedia- kudos to my friends who gave me the nickname in 4th grade on account of my brains (Wikipedia) ! It used to be a joke that one day I should start a website called smitipedia.com. I suppose I've got there now, 4 years later. To start off with I'm gonna tell you about my trip to Kashmir in the summers.

"We left for Kashmir on the 23rd June, 2014. The flight was really short- just over an hour. When we arrived in Srinagar it was afternoon and so we hadn't felt the cold of Kashmir yet! We drove to a popular tourist spot near by- Pahalgam, where we stayed for 2 nights. There, went to a valley, Besaran about 1/2hr away on horse. The ride was fun but even more was the panoramic view.

 We got pictures clicked there while wearing traditional Kashmiri clothes. It was a magnificent journey and the horses seemed to have carved their own route through the mountains.

 Afterwards we went on a drive to a well-known tourist spot- Aru valley. There was a slight climb to get to the main valley and it was raining but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!

The next day we drove to a small valley- Gulmarg where we stayed for another 2 nights. At Gulmarg we went to a counter early morning to buy tickets for going up to see the snow. We had to wait for 2 hours before we got the tickets and that was after booking them online but it was all worth it. We went up to the snow(2nd level) and were immediately bombarded by people trying to get us to use their sleds where they took you up a slope. But we wanted to try climbing so we climbed up. From there we went on a short accompanied ski trip to a place from where we could see the LOC or indian line of control(border). We came back and played in the snow making snowmen, though the snow was all dirty snow. The gear we had rented- thick jackets and snow boots- served its purpose well thought it was still cold. We came down to the 1st level and had lunch at a 'dhaba'. We came back down in a gondola.

Next day we headed to the summer capital- Srinagar. Evening time was devoted to a beautiful Shikara ride on the famous Dal lake.

Later we saw flowers at a garden although the real blooming time is Aug-Sept, so there weren't many flowers. 



We spent the night at the beautiful Taj hotel. After lunch, we headed to a houseboat called "Buckingham palace" which although quite lavishly furnished did not match the rating of 4.5 on tripadvisor. Nevertheless, a unique experience, especially since I haven't been on the house boats of Kerela either. 

The whole of Kashmir was fun and busy because of the peak season visiting time.

It was much better than I thought it would be.

I thought it would be boring because it wasn't abroad but boy was I wrong.A perfect end to my summer vacations. "

So that was my experience of Kashmir. Hope you enjoyed reading about it. I would be more than happy to receive comments/feedback as I am new to this.That's it for now!

Bye,

Smiti.