A trip to the heaven on earth – Kashmir – Day 4

Day 4 was very unpredictable for us. The initial plan was to go to Gulmarg and return from there to reach Pahalgam for our night stay. But over past 2-3 days we have been hearing from various tourists about not so good experience in Gulmarg. Basically Gulmarg has Asia's highest and longest cable car project. Its in 2 phases and from people's experience we came to know that there is nothing much at phase one currently and to see some snow or good view we need to go to phase 2. Another feedback we got was of the taxi drivers/sledge workers/pony owners etc. that they are very rude to tourists and would pester you to the core to take their services. So finally the night before we decided to drop Gulmarg and directly go to Pahalgam. This I would say was one of our best decision.

One the way to Pahalgam, we stopped at Awantipura ruins, its a small place but worth spending 15-20 mins there. 

Awantipura ruins at the back

We also got fascinated to talk to a apple orchard owner and getting to know the details from plantation to exports. Both the side of the road were just full of apple orchards. Once approaching Phalagam, we were too elated to see the clear lidder river flowing. We stepped down near to the river and enjoyed in the chilled water for some time ( we didn't play any game there as it was too cold :) )

Lidder river on the way

We reached about 2 in the afternoon at Pahalgam. Again here the taxi driver dropped us at the taxi stand from where we need to take local taxi/pony to go around places. There was a view point about 2 km from the taxi stand which is usually covered by pony. We decided to walk to that point. Once we started walking, all pony owners started discouraging us first and later forcing us to take their pony. The heights was when they followed us for 45 mins with their ponies and kept irritating. We told them that we will not need it. This really pissed us off and we lost our mood half the way to even go that place. This was the only bad experience we had in our whole trip. Finally they left us alone, we enjoyed the pine forest and a valley there. But we were really excited to reach out new stop of next 2 nights. A camp 15km from Palagam - place is called Aru valley. As we have heard lots of stuff about this place, out expectations were really high.  

We reached our camp and we were just speechless to see the beauty around. It was a view we just wanted to drink with our eyes. I don't think even cameras can do justice to such beauty. Seeing that place I was very relieved as it had gone beyond our expectations. Camp was very basic in its facilities and has lidder river flowing at the back. All the sides it was surrounded by mountains which were having pine tree at lower levels and they were snow clad at the top. The air was so fresh, sound of river flowing at the back was very relaxing.

Camp panoramic view 

Aru Valley

And just than to make the while experience much better, it started to drizzle. We enjoyed snacks in rain and than we headed to Aru village which is at a walk able distance. On the way we say a small bridge over the lidder river and it view just looked so perfect- a river stream flowing between the mountains and the tree all around. I truly call Aru valley heaven on earth. 

View from the brigade

Once we reached the village we roamed around the mountains, saw paragliding being done by others. We went to a small shop to buy souvenirs. We headed back to camp as it started getting dark. At night there is a camp fire also organized as it really becomes cold. We enjoyed our delicious dinner there around the camp fire. We chatted with the co-occupants of the camp and their experiences in Kashmir. We even tried to capture the stars in the clear sky but could not do justice to it as we didn't have that kind of lenses or equipment. 

Aru Valley

We were told by various people that Pahalgam is famous for bollywood movie shooting. If you are a bollywood movie buff like me, then some of the recently movie shot here are Highway, Bajrangi Bhaijaan etc. In our 2 day stay there we even saw a telugu movie and bajaj motorcycle ad being shot there. 

Some notes :

1. Gondole ride tickets can be booked online. Each phase cost around Rs. 800.

2. Drop a comment if you need details of the accommodations. 

3. Buying thinks from a small place has its own advantage, those people dont cheat much, also they dont have to pay commission so they dont charge exorbitant price.

4. In Aru valley, only BSNL mobile network works.

Link to day 5-6 : http://manyrainbowsofmylife.blogspot.in/2016/07/a-trip-to-heaven-on-earth-kashmir-day-5.html