How safe is Kashmir? - Liebe zur Erde

Most embassies advise against travels to or through Kashmir. If you listen to Kashmiris or mostly young passing throughs, everything seems so peaceful. What's right or wrong now ?

Travel experiences:

Three times I had to pass Kaschmir in recent years and I have spent there a total of 3 weeks. It wasn´t shot in front of my eyes, bombs didn´t explode and kidnapped was neither I nor any other tourist in my time. But I do agree - you shouldn´t travel here. So what are the dangers now?
First of all an impression of the country and the people that are summarized below.

             
                           Above: on Dal Lake in Srinagar. Below: occupied house boats

It seems impossible to get through Kashmir without being ripped off - that is my experience with all Kashmiri traders in the Asian region. The backpacker buses to Leh are full of stories from swindled tourists, the procedure is always the same, please refer to the corresponding page when it will be finished. On security issues, however, you would think you will get the right advice - or not? Here is one of many examples:

In the weeks prior to my arrival in 2006 in Srinagar there has been fired on a tourist bus. But only - where exactly? I ask my hotel owner, a religious man, ha runs around Dal Gate  a small pension.

We have already had a number of conversations about Islam and actually, I would say, I trust him. So where was the bomb? His answer: "In Gulmarg, here in Dal Gate You are sure, no problem". Oh well. In Gulmarg, where I want to go because of the altitude for height adjustment, I ask for. The people are amazed: "In Gulmarg? - Here nothing happens! In Srinagar it is dangerous: there at Dal Gate was also the coach that had been fired to. There were, however, mainly Indian tourists, so do not worry...". Now I'm taken aback. I start to investigate and try to find out the facts: and here we go: No matter whom you ask, the answer you get depends on the question if the respondent bears no financial harm. Everything else is a lie. Examples are hundreds. Christina, beautiful German tourist woman, rides on horseback on Independence Day 2006 to Tanmarg and is held back by a nervous military: they revcomend her that they would definitely not go there now. On the demand in the hotel in the evening the owner says: "everything was quiet, no problem". Only reading the newspaper next day revealed the mostly nocturnal activities of troubles and shooting of the last days and weeks - nobody would have told us that. Also the arguents and reasoning with which tourists are lured in the main pilgrimage season of the Hindus in the "supposedly" "secure" Pelegam are incredible.  


My traveling companion Richard made a 3-days days Schikara-ride last year, the Kashmiri  version of a Venice gondola, and I raved about the bird watching. The tour leaves from the Dal lake, known by the houseboats, some rivers, lakes and swampy areas along supposedly towards the Pakistani border. But that, like everything here, just an interesting advertisement. It is true, however, that the rural areas and their inhabitants, through which the journey leads,is heated up in a political and islamic way. Richards boat people last year took this into account and advised him not to say that he is an American. In addition, they have kept away from the villages. This year we are advised to types that had different interests than the safety or comfort of their passengers.

The really wonderful tour in glorious weather through a variety of quiet flowing rivers showed a unexpected downside: you can not simply as man - woman travel by gondolas through the landscape without causing upheavel reactions in the population: What has lost a woman in a gondola? - and in general, this corrupt Western culture! - and the war in Iraq and so on. Richard and I have also developed entirely different personal security systems when traveling. He alone can easily gather the youth of the village around and talk to them without anything bad that would happen. The same experiment, with me around, does not end in interested conversation, but in a casserole, in the staring at the foreign tourist which is without a veil. The consequence: a stone iss thrown, which hit the boatman at the temple - a clear sign of the villagers that such "scandals" are not welcome here. When the 3-days days boating then after 2 days is already finished, we saw a reason to reduce the agreed price - and came to a full program of Kashmiri "business manners", which almost ended in fisticuffs, and in which both sides called after the police - which, would they came, would have spoken the law to the one who would have paid the most bribes. A fellow monk says that he was quoted daily for weeks from top officials because of his proposed passport  - the pass was issued only when he paid 3000 rupees, that´s a month salary. Another type tried to sell him to take weapons to Laddakh - remember, this happens to a monk! A fellow passenger from the bus from Srinagar to Leh last year emerges now as supreme chief of police in Leh - and the joy of reunion reminds him that he could use his position to ask me for a one-night stand!


Richard has shaped the experiences into a quote, which is quite interesting. "They can` t conceptualize truth as all the other people around the world ". It means that the concept or formation of thoughts does not allow accurate representations or thoughts about the reallity. Around Srinagar are seen tons of new large villas, houses and buildings  arise. The money for this comes from the illegal border trade with Pakistan, drug trafficking and corruption. All in all quite interesting when one considers that Kashmir is the bone of contention between Pakistan and India.