Kat's Travel Journal

From Mumbai to Mountains: One Reckless Journey

I try to keep my balance as the skinny horse sways and jolts beneath me, picking carefully through the loose rocks. I glance up again at the apparently vertical slope we're ascending, and hear the stones bounce down, out of earshot. I feel a flash of affection for the hot, sticky, velour-upholstered taxis of Mumbai, over 1500 miles away.

The sound of '70s Bollywood tunes happily piercing through the grumbling chatter of the cab drivers is now a dim memory, replaced by the indiscriminate humming of folk songs from my guide. His five-foot frame strides easily up the mountain ahead, cigarette lodged between his lips, climbing with the confidence and grace of someone who has done this a million times.

Memories of the two days packed into a third-class train car, finding a niche to exist in amid the maelstrom of people, bags and steaming chai vanish into the silent evergreens around me. I drink in the cool fresh air like a dry mango tree absorbs the first monsoon rain.

Our guide motions me to come forward, his serious face cracking into a smile. The wrinkles of a much older man weathered by conflict and tobacco smoke crinkle up around clear blue eyes. They shimmer in his dark brown skin like the streams in the valley I can now see below; sapphire wedged between ancient mountain slopes. Those peaks loom like guardians, far more imposing than the actual soldiers I encountered just yesterday while driving from Dharamshala to Srinagar.

When I stopped at a military checkpoint, the serious faces and fatigues of the soldiers were undermined by snatches of Bryan Adams streaming from an unseen cell phone and by one of the soldiers passing cookies around. The road stretching out ahead—past a sign reading "Don't be silly in the hilly"—was far more intimidating. On the winding mountain route, I extracted the ominous warning beneath the rhyme as we drove along the edge of oblivion, shifting impossibly closer to the edge to make way for passing trucks. Drivers dusty as the road peered out from the riotous colours and pom pom decorations of the trundling vehicles.

Through my current window of dark green branches and rocky soil, I see the lush valley below the stoic Himalayas, I understand why this place is called "the Jewel of India." I also understand what drew me to this place, weeks ago in a cramped booking office in Mumbai, where I'd gone to arrange a more reasonable trip to Delhi.

It seems like forever ago when I spotted the tiny photo, standing out like a diamond in the rough wall of dog-eared schedules, outdated maps and dusty ledgers, and decided to change my reasonable plans and have a rather fantastic adventure.

One reckless moment led me from quirky taxi, to sweltering train, to precarious bus ride and finally to this wobbly horse, which were all worthwhile, just to see Kashmir.