Travel Photography | India | New Delhi | Kashmir | Agra | Part VI

© 2012 Wazari Wazir | Kashmiri Muslim devotees participate in a procession to celebrate the birthday of Prophet Mohammed in Pahalgam Srinagar, Sunday, Feb. 5, 2012.

© 2012 Wazari Wazir | Pahalgam in Winter | Kashmir

On Sunday Feb 5, we decided to visit Pahalgam, which is approximately two hours drive from Dal Lake Srinagar. The night before we have a little bit of discussion with the hotel manager Mr Rouf, we ask his advise and telling him bout our interest in Photography. At first he suggest us to visit Gulmarg which is famous for ski resort but I told him that we are not very interested with skiing and then he suggest Pahalgam.

Taxi fees per vehicle is Rs2000 or approximately USD37 for return trip and the journey will take approximately two hours but since Sunday February 5th falls on Prophet Mohamed Birthday according to Islamic Calendar, we met a lot of procession along the way by Kashmiri Muslim devotees  to celebrate the birthday of Prophet Mohammed and this things slow us down but nevertheless this kind of an experience is really something to remember, I did asked our taxi driver to get down and take some pictures of the procession but he advise us to take a picture from the car. He told us for a security reason but I think maybe he just wanted to reach Pahalgam on time.  The procession to celebrate the birthday of Prophet Mohammed is not a threat, it is not a demonstration  but a peaceful assembly to show our deepest love (peace and blessings be upon him) for our prophet.

Along the way we did past a beautiful small villages with a snow capped mountain as their background. We did ask our driver to stop along the way when we saw something worth photographing but to be honest, the journey towards Pahalgam is very picturesque and worth photographing but we also understand that the diver needs to get back to Srinagar on time and maybe it will be dangerous or troublesome for him to get back to Srinagar when its getting dark.

Maybe the very next time if we decided to visit here again, we will chartered a taxi for the whole day  instead of taking us from Srinagar to Pahalgam but we will explained to the driver that we wanted to photograph anything that attract our eyes along the way and we wouldn’t mind to pay a little bit extra and trust me, especially to those who have never visited  Kashmir before, the landscape is here is breathtaking and every landscape photographers should make Kashmir as one of their must visit destination and to be honest with you guys, especially to those of you in Malaysia or Asia, it really doesn’t break your bank accounts to visit here compare to Swiss Alps.

I will share some of the pictures taken at Pahalgam in the next post, stay with me, because I’m quite busy…

*Related post : Kashmir Part V