Planning this trip on maps, the plan looked best.
But arranging a vehicle for this was a different experience. First we were planning to make use of the prepaid taxis that appeared to be located in all the towns we had on our itineraries. But after adding up the point-to-point costs, and realizing that we had some destinations that can be out of the usual route which may require additional costs and haggling with each taxi ride, we started to look for a taxi that would pick us up from Srinagar airport itself.
In all the places over India that I have travelled, we would get a car with 250 or 300 minimum kilometers commitment per day. If you travel less, still you would be charged for the minimum kilometers. The driver doesn’t really care how one utilizes these kilometers. But in Srinagar, each taxi operator wants to know your detailed itinerary. Because here, the rates are offered point to point, and not on Kilometer basis. And the rates too varied all over the place. Sweet talking merchants would send eye-watering quotations. Finally we hired an Innova that covered our itinerary and dropped us at Srinagar, and just 5 days of travel (actually 4 days only, 1 day at Gulmarg the taxi was not with use) costed us Rs. 16,000 for Innova. This rate is bit on a higher side because of this being the tourist season.
The phone number of the tourist operator: Sonu Singh – 9622215318
Selecting a hotel by online research proved to be a bit of a headache. A decade ago, there used to be some areas of town where many hotels would be located. But with the advent of oyo and others, now each town search brings you 100s of options spread all over the town.
Also, we generally observed that the prices for many Gulmarg hotels were extremely high. After some research, we booked JKTDC hotels (not Huts) in Pahalgam and Gulmarg using JKTDC online portal https://www.jktdc.co.in, and a private hotel called Humza in Srinagar.
A warning for booking via JKTDC. Make sure you save the receipt and send the PDF to yourself on whatsapp or gmail. I had booked Gulmarg hotel, and saved the PDF on my computer. I didn’t receive any email or SMS for that particular booking, and judging it as a typical government site bug, I didn’t think anything out of it. As luck would have it, the motherboard of my computer decided to commit suicide just a day before the trip. I called up the JKTDC phone number, expecting them to hold my booking. Shockingly, they denied having any booking by my name or phone number! As I did not have the reference number which is displayed at the confirmation page – and ideally sent to you on SMS or email but they didn’t – my booking was non existent. In fact the lady on the phone suggested me to send an email to them for refunding my amount, quoting the transaction id. Luckily I managed to connect my hard disk to another PC and get the confirmation page PDF, which alone was enough for getting me my booked room at Gulmarg.
We packed our warm clothes, usual medicines, and bedsheets. Ever since corona, we make sure that we use own bedsheets under and above us, as a layer between the hotel linen. This increased the weight of the luggage, but gave us a peace of mind too. Additionally, we had planned to do horse rides, but how do you carry a 21 month old child on a horse? Bhargavee couldn’t ride by herself, and her co-rider needed to be confident in holding her. So we bought a baby belt that is used on two wheelers to hold babies in front or at the back of the rider. This came surprisingly handy in our horse rides.
Amazon link – search for Kids Vehicle Adjustable Safety Harness
Lastly, there was an issue of connectivity. In Kashmir, only postpaid connections from other states work. Else you have to get a prepaid connection once you get there. All our mobiles are prepaid. So I bought a new Jio postpaid connection that costed some Rs.225 with free calls and SMSs and 25GB data. One can also convert his prepaid to postpaid, but that would mean sacrificing any remaining validity. I felt that rather than playing with the regular number, it would be better to have a throwaway number and connect all our mobiles to internet using hotspot. Jio worked beautifully in all of our trip, be it Kashmir or elsewhere. The process of getting a postpaid connection is straight forward, you simply visit a Jio store with your adhaar and you get the new sim card in 5 mins. Even disconnection is simple, but bit time consuming. You have to put up a request for disconnection via MyJio app using the postpaid phone’s login, and it will be done in some 1-2 weeks.
With booked hotels, car and a new postpaid connection, we started counting days till our flight.
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