Travel Photography | Kashmir The Land of Mystery

© 2012 Wazari Wazir | Kashmir | The Land of Mystery

In my personal experience, Kashmir is truly The Land of Mystery, some people use to called Kashmir as Paradise on Earth. You can learn about Kashmir by reading magazines, books andy watching the news on your television but it will never be the same as being there by yourself. I spend seven days here in Kashmir and still can’t get enough of it, yes it is still a mysteries to me and to be honest with you Kashmir is beautiful, in fact the photograph will never be able to do justice to how beautiful Kashmir are.

A lot of people get turn down to visit Kashmir when they read the news, there are bombings, demonstration, rally, and shooting here and there, it looks like Kashmir are in a chaotic situation. You can never tell it yourself if you have never been here. Yes the military presence is huge in Kashmir, in fact, Indian Army are everywhere from the moment you step into the Srinagar Airport up until you reach your hotel, you can see huge presence of Indian Army by the roadside. I’ve traveled few countries and I can tell that Kashmir is totally different experience.

Yes it can be scary at a time but do not freak out, from my experience and my personal experience will be different than other people, it is safe, but we must be “realistic” here, the land of Kashmir is fantastic, most people used to called it Paradise on Earth but Kashmir is not a paradise where only good people living here. There are bad people and there are good people like anywhere else in the  world.

Back to the pictures above, this is the photograph that I took on the first day we are in Kashmir. Actually I didn’t plan to take a shikara ride on the first day. We just wanted to look for some good restaurant after we check-in at the hotel nearby. While walking along the Boulevard Road, we are approach by few Shikarawallah and one of them introduce himself as Ashraf, he is not pushy but gives me a good price for the ride, I like his look and good looking manner and decided to take his offer.

Actually it was almost dark, the lighting is not good for photography, we are hesitate to take the offer at first but I really attracted to his good manner and my instinct says that he is a good person. The photographs above were taken when we finish touring the Dal Lake, we are on our way to get back to the Boulevard Road and you can see the great Himalaya on the background and I must say that the experience exploring  this beautiful Dal Lake is something to remember.

We were surrounded by the Great Himalaya and how could it not be better and yes it was so damn cold. We were shivering inside the Shikara and thanks God, thanks to Ashraf, it’s looks like he knows that we are shivering, so he took us to his home, not very far  from where we start and get a pot of  hot tea or “chai” or better known as Kashmiri Kahwa for us (he asked his wife to make one for us).

Actually there is more that I wanted to tell and wanted to share but at the meantime, I will keep it a mystery…