Nagin Lake, scrinagar, 08-05-1994. Life on a house boat on Dal Lake - or in our case on Nagin Lake - is definitely relaxing with only "minor" disturbance of the occasional seller of typical tourist junk who sort of accidently wanders into your house boat`s living room. These sellers are absolutely desperate to sell at least something now with hardly any tourists around because of the war. Our house boat is absolutely A-class delux with our own personal man servant and three meals a day - we are talking wholesome and tasty food - twice a day tea and bisquits and a hot water bottle discretely place the sheets of your bed before you retire to sleep and the free use of the boat`s Shikara etc etc. All of that for the absurt price of a 100 Rp. a day!!! Before the war one paid for all this 38 american bucks a double or 28 a single, talking about desperate people. Of course the chocolat wallah is irresistable with his assortment of sweets, cookies and chocolates with their walnut, honey or whatever exotic concoction you might like.

A bloody warzone!!!

Nagin Lake, Scrinagar, 07-05-1994. Taking the Shikara again this morning we were confronted with harsh raelity and the simple fact that the whole of Kashmir Valley is a bloody warzone when we saw a couple of locals in their civvies guarding a small floating island that had a small wooden shed on it half hidden among the long vegetation. Both locals had a very serious looking machine gun and were stategically placed on both corners of the island. They kinda waved at us so we gave them a friendly but nervous hand waving back, most locals gliding by in their Shikaras didn`t even give them as much as a second look. At night sitting on the balconey of our house boat we are every night reminded of Kashmir`s peculiar political situation when we can hear pretty heavy fire fights in the distance with lights flashing and the occasional beam of strong laser lights. Mo and Lisa have some friends staying opposite our former house boat had a chai stop - Kashmiri tae actually which is much better as the indian catpiss the hindus mistakenly call chai - at their house boat and a little charras party to round things of.

Trying a Shikara.

Nagin Lake, Scrinagar, 06-05-1994. Trying a Shikara is definitely not as easy as it might look like. Me in the front, Mo at the end and Lisa in the middle caused quite a bit of amuzement to the locals watching us trying to navigate our way through the lake. Mostly we were going around in circles before we figured out a way to go more or less in a straight line, more of a sig-sag course to be honest. The Hazratbal mosque was nice enough but the place was clowling with soldiers armed to the teeth and wearing bulletproof vests, most of them hiding in sandbag made bunkers surrounded with barbed wire. The area had a really war like feeling with burned out house to add to the scene.

Kashmiri house boats.

The Kashmiris have built up an amzing good and luxurious tourist accomodation system withn their house boats. Old english furniture with quite intricate woodwork all over, a dinning room, a living room and some sort of, what i presume is english, toilet on every boat, seperate bedrooms with attached bathrooms. You eat on the boat and the food is good and healthy and as much as you can eat served with tasty kashmiri tea. The Moghuls as well as the english colonisators definetely knew how to live it up when they came to Kashmir. Nowadays the boats are nearly desrted of tourists because of the independence struggle and only hippies, alternative types and marijuana smokers come here to live it up. The boat has got its own Shikara so i think i will be out today and explore the lake.

Nagin Lake.

Nagin Lake, Scrinagar, 05/05/1994. After changing house boats, too much hassle at the other boat, we spent the whole day being lazy and smoking our newly acquired hashish.

Lotus flowers and dirty dogs.

Apart from shikaras and house boats the lake is full with ltus flowers and water lillies. With summer approaching fast and the sun out in force, there are more of these beautiful water flowers appaering ev ery day, amazing. The lotus flowers open up early each morning when the sun comes up behind the horizon and close again at nightfall, a true wonder of nature!!! The kashmiris cultivate their vegetables on small floating gardens, collecting dead waterplants from the lake they use as fertiliser. In short, Dal Lake is really worth my coming here on this long overnight bus from Jammu. Scrinagar on the other hand is dirty, polluted, smelly and full with heavily armed indian soldiers referred to as ``dirty dogs`` by the kashmiris.

Life`s necesities.

Dal Lake, Scrinagar, 04-05-1994. Dal Lake is full with boats, shikaras as the local here call them. Some are loaded with life`s necesities like soap, shampoo, toilet paper bisquits and even hashish, handy for when you do your shopping, you never need to leave the house boat even the dope is there for the buying. Like floading supermarkets, something for the Edah or Albert Heyn to consider in the Amsterdam canals, sure they would make a bundle. Other boats have a paddle wallh and a well dressed business person aboard trying to sell jewelery to foreign tourist, not too many around of these nowadays. Old men is shikaras loaded with sweets and munchies come along side your own shikara and try to sell their wares at terribly inflated prices, usually twice the price asked ashore, i presume you have to pay for their paddling to your house boat or shikara. Naturally when you do buy your house boat owner rakes off a little commision.