Konni and Matt - Perpetual Travellers

Indulging in fresh and delicious Kashmiri cherries and learning about the modern history of the Vale of Kashmir, the contested jewel of South Asia’s northernmost region, with its very obvious police/military presence and frequent acts of violence, whose lakes, fertile valleys and remote, snow-covered peaks have remained the single most important cause of conflict between Pakistan and India ever since 1949 (including some nuclear sabre rattling), while arguments for Kashmir’s autonomy have periodically dominated the political agenda and the aspirations of the hospitable local people, and demands like “Go, India, Go!” or “We Want Freedom!” can be seen written onto the road in white paint.

Taking a regional bus from Khanabal to Srinagar’s heavily polluted Batmaloo General Bus Stand (60 km, 2 ½ hours, INR 35.- per person), spotting en-route (i) beautiful women clad in elaborate, colourful churidars tending the fields, (ii) non-descript men clad in a banker’s outfit publicly urinating without any sense of shame and (iii) grumpy Indian soldiers clad in flak jackets guarding the Kashmiri people against Delhi’s invisible enemies, thereafter a city bus to the famous Dal Lake (INR 12.- per person), thus witnessing Srinagar’s rampant urbanisation, and meeting boatman Farooq +919797011459 with his elegant shikara (water-taxi) “Phool aur Pather” (INR 100.- for one hour) who reliably helped us to find a suitable houseboat.

Click below for a summary of this year's travels
2011 Map Konni & Matt

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Photos 2011-06 N India I

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25 May - 30 May 2011 Bhadarwah

South Asia
Republic of India
Jammu & Kashmir
Bhadarwah
Hotel Broadway +919419224585

Adequate double room with private balcony for INR 500.- or US$ 11.40 per night.

Beer: Only one brand available at the local wine shop, chilled 500-ml cans of “Haywards 5000 Super Strong Beer” with 8.5 % alcohol content, for INR 60.- or US$ 1.20 per can.

Click below for an interactive road map of the Hotel Broadway in Bhadarwah and for directions:

N 32° 58.80' E 075° 43.09'

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Exploring the busy and beautiful mountain town of Bhadarwah (touted as “Little Kashmir Valley”) with its friendly, mixed Muslim and Hindu community, and meeting Kalyan from the Bhadarwah Development Authority (“Bhadarwah: Paradise - undiscovered and unexplored”) +919419169216 who invited us to visit Bhadarwah’s annual cultural festival (heavily politicised with many patriotic overtones and spiced up with boring propaganda speeches by local politicians under a heavy police/military presence, but still very authentic, with us being the only foreign visitors amongst hundreds of enthusiastic locals) thus (i) applauding the brilliant dancers for their colourful folk-dance performances, (ii) watching the Kashmiri wrestling contest which happened 30 km from Bhadarwah in the picturesque Jai valley (altitude: 2,100 m) and (iii) listening to sweet Chaista and many other talented singers and folk musicians at the local song contest; ... and also remembering Abdullah Noman and his bhand pather from the razed village of Pachigam "...where Boonyi danced and Shivshankar sang and Shalimar the clown walked the tightrope as if treading upon air."

Hiking the scenic environs of Bhadarwah near Kailash Kund (altitude: 3,980 m) and Kapra, a mountain village which is surrounded by thick deodar forests on steep slopes.

Taking the Bee Tee Gupta bus from Bhadarwah to Batote (80 km, 2 ½ hours, INR 70.- per person), thereafter a crowded local bus from Batote to Ramban (30 km, 1 hour, INR 20.- per person), thereafter another local bus from Ramban to Banihal (30 km, 1 ½ hours, INR 30.- per person), sharing eventually a worn 4x4 Tata Sumo jeep for the final leg from Banihal, through the 2,500-m long Jawahar Tunnel (the longest road tunnel in India), to Khanarbal near Anantnag (70 km, 2 hours, INR 100.- per person), already located inside the once beautiful but increasingly battered and environmentally scarred Kashmir Valley (with many ugly and messy building sites, litter and dirt everywhere, crowded with sinister, dump-like police/military facilities [Salman Rushdie in Shalimar the Clown: “It was fences and barbed wire and sandbags and latrines. It was Brasso and spit and canvas and metal and the smell of semen in the bunkhouses…”], with heavy truck traffic jamming the narrow mountain roads and with blemishes from unfinished road works everywhere).

Click below for a summary of this year's travels
2011 Map Konni & Matt

Click below and see more Konni & Matt Pictures

Photos 2011-06 N India I

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23 May - 25 May 2011 Jammu

South Asia
Republic of India
Jammu & Kashmir
Jammu
Hotel Shubam +911912578651

Adequate double room for INR 600.- or US$ 13.60 per night.

Beer: 650-ml bottles of chilled Kingfisher’s Lager (INR 72.- or US$ 1.50) and Kingfisher’s Strong (INR 72.- or US$ 1.50) in any of the many wine shops.

Click below for an interactive road map of the Hotel Shubam in Jammu and for directions:

N 32° 43.66' E 074° 51.74'

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Exploring the sights of the graceful old town of Jammu, the winter capital of Jammu & Kashmir: (i) the 1857 CE Raghunath Temple with its seven shrines, with gold plated interiors, (ii) the 1883 CE Rambiresvar Temple with a 75-m high tower, and (iii) the Bahu Fort, perched on a hilltop overlooking the Tawi river, with its impressive outfit of persisting beggars, remarkable cripples and slimy touts infront of the entrance.

Taking a worn P.K. Vaid bus, well equipped with protective charms such as chillies and lemons hung on strings, from Jammu’s Indira Chowk to Bhadarwah upon Neeru (200 km, 8 hours, INR 150.- per person), a valley of bewitching natural beauty and panoramic vistas, and for the first time in Asia, spotting snow (on the Ashapathi Mountains looming over the Bhadarwah Valley).

Click below for a summary of this year's travels
2011 Map Konni & Matt

Click below and see more Konni & Matt Pictures

Photos 2011-06 N India I

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20 May - 22 May 2011 New Delhi

South Asia
Republic of India
New Delhi
Paharganj

Smyle Inn +911123589107 smyleinn@hotmail.com

Small, clean double room, including wifi and breakfast, for only INR 690.- or US$ 15.30 per night. You can book this hostel in Delhi from here.

Click below for an interactive road map of the Smyle Inn in New Delhi, which we would recommend, and for directions:
N 28° 38.50' E 077° 12.88'

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Catching up with some admin work (travel blog, photos and financials) and teaming up with the Amazon Services LLC/EU Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for websites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.de, Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.ca, thereafter exploring the exotic and anarchic heart of Delhi’s backpackerland, Paharganj, squeezed between wholesalers and cloth merchants, cheek by jowl in the ultra-narrow lanes opposite the New Delhi Railway Station, and trying to understand Lutyens’ and Baker’s lost dreams: “… first and foremost it is the spirit of British sovereignty which must be imprisoned in its stone and bronze... ”; simple and sophisticated, traditional and modern, East and West were all juxtaposed in New Delhi.

Leaving the crowded streets and the air pollution of New Delhi by rail, thus zipping with the air-conditioned, ultra-modern (equipped with laptop/mobile chargers) and cheap Delhi Metro (INR 8.- per person) from the New Delhi Railway Station to the Old Delhi Railway Station, taking the Shalimar overnight express (fare for the 600-km long trip: INR 964.- or US$ 21.90.- per person in “2-tier a/c, sleeper class, 2A”) from the Old Delhi Railway Station to Jammu upon Tawi, the second largest city in the state of Jammu & Kashmir, a Bosnia-like cocktail of Hindu Pundits, Shia Muslims and Buddhist Tibetans, which marks the transition between the Himalayas in the north and the dusty plains of the Punjab in the south, bridging these two extremities by a series of scrub covered hills, forested mountain ranges and deep river valleys, and reading in Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar, the Clown: “In Kashmir it is paradise itself that is falling; heaven on earth is being transformed into a living hell...”

Click below for a summary of this year's travels
2011 Map Konni & Matt

Click below and see more Konni & Matt Pictures

Photos 2011-03 South India I

Photos 2011-04 South India II

Photos 2011-05 South India III

Facing India
© Konni & Matt

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19 May - 20 May 2011 Hyderabad

South Asia
Republic of India
Andhra Pradesh
Hyderabad
Hotel Nandini +914024746163
Clean double room for INR 400.- or US$ 9.10 per night.

Beer: 650-ml bottles of ice-cold Kingfisher’s Lager (INR 70.- or US$ 1.40) and Kingfisher’s Strong (INR 80.- or US$ 1.65), “India’s largest selling beer”, in any of the many wine shops of this Muslim stronghold.

Click below for an interactive road map of the Hotel Nandini in Hyderabad, which we would recommend, and for directions:

N 17° 22.77' E 078° 28.87'

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