We are talking after dinner with the owner of our houseboat on Dal Lake. He is explaining why tourist numbers are down and business is tough for the 800-1200 houseboats. While the lake is full of Shikaras at sunset (the Kashmiri version of cute gondolas with a little roof and a chap at the back with a heart-shaped paddle and no motor), it does feel like many of the houseboats are empty.
He says the politics are a nonsense and come from the Delhi Government which reacted to the killing of 26 tourists in the nearby trekking area of Pahalgum region in 2025 by banning all trekking in Kashmir.
This is news to us.
And now it has reacted to apparent terrorist threats in Kashmir by trying to deter Indian tourists from visiting.
“This is crazy,” he says, “Every Indian wants to visit Kashmir once in their life.”
He is not neutral given that his livelihood relies on tourism.
The conversation unsettles the Director of Health and Safety in the family, and without me realising, they start googling about the security situation here.
When the owner retires for the night, Cesca turns round and says, “Dad, why are we in Kashmir when it’s on the banned list from the Foreign Office?”
Another twist to the stomach.
I know that I hadn’t checked the FCO website recently but didn’t I check it last autumn when I planned the trip?
Or did I?
She shows me the FCO guidance and it is unambiguous. UK nationals should avoid Kashmir and Jammu except for one small part of Jammu.
Bollocks.
When we know we have screwed up we want someone to blame, and my instinct is to call the travel agent and freak out.
I realise, of course, that I have no one to call.
I am the travel agent.
Putting to one side the sense of irresponsibility I feel for putting the family in an apparently unsafe situation, the signs were there in the day and a half we have been in Kashmir.
Signs I ignored.
There were no Europeans (by which I mean white tourists) on our flight to Srinigar. We have not seen one fellow European on our day’s sightseeing across three beautiful Mughal Garden, the White Mosque and two smart retail outlets. A lot of Indian tourists but not one other European.
It felt odd (a sense of alienation) and it felt good (a sense of seeing what other people are not).
The main sign was the relentless military presence: a bored-looking solider with a gun is posted every 200 metres on the main road, staring into space with sunglasses and cap. There are armed checkpoints every few kilometers.
(There are no photos on this blog of the soldiers, the Ashok Leyland army trucks, the guns, the checkpoints, the camo uniforms as I got paranoid about my phone being inspected.)
We rationalised this as the impact of the concerns about terrorism on the weekend of Independence Day on 15th August (the date of partition in 1947). And it appears we were partly right: the Govt had put out alerts over the 15th August, which came to nothing thankfully.
So it took a day and a half of these signs and then deeper info from our hotel owner for us to clock into the situation.
“Dad, if you had known about the ban on Kashmir would we still have come.”
I don’t often lie but I feel this needs a half-truth. I mutter ‘maybe’ in response and change the conversation.
I ran into an old friend Jim last week who warned me about instability in Kashmir around the elections. When I looked that up I saw that was in the Pakistan Kashmir and left it there. And of course BA or Virgin couldn’t care where you are heading, nor does IndiGo (the Indian Easyjet).
We go travelling for many reasons and adventure is one of them, and with adventure comes danger (mountain-biking can lead to broken bones, crazy bus rides can lead to accidents).
If we are honest, what we (I?) seek is adventure without real danger. We glamorise dangerous scapes and scrapes but real danger has lost its attraction and a balance is sought. I cannot escape this debate as Cesca calls my travel agency (and parenting) skills into question. I spend the night doubting my judgement and reassuring myself that by midday tomorrow we will be in Ladakh which is not banned by the Foreign Office.
We just need to get there.
It doesn’t help that I have just inhaled a thriller about kidnapping and Middle-East terrorism and my dreams are full of black balaclava men invading our houseboat.
Two big f***-ups in two posts – I need to up my game.
Excellent. More please!
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