Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2011/05/20
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Dear Larry Thank you for showing these. It reminded me of my visits in 1982 and 1983 when I was a student on the 'Lonely Planet' trail. I stayed on a less luxurious houseboat and enjoyed the views from the little shikara boats and the relaxed and clear atmosphere. The toilet opened directly into the lake and I soon caught a severe gastroenteritis and visited a pharmacy where I was put on a drip for dehydration, which nearly killed me from anaphylaxis. (This has given me useful insight with my allergy patients.) Fortunately they were ready with adrenaline, and half an hour later having paid my bill I was out on the Srinagar boulevard, not really wanting to back to the houseboat. A young local came up and asked me if I liked Kashmir, to which in a burst of homesickness I replied 'No'. He took me home to his family and fed and watered me for several days. The following year I went back but this time not on my own, and were treated to a great tour of the region and rode donkeys to see the remains of a glacier. I bought a Kashmiri goatherd's woollen cloak which was a real hit at student parties later! He came to stay when I was at Clinical School at Oxford, it was winter and although covered in snow like Kashmir it was damp English snow and he was unhappy and homesick. My turn to cheer him up. We are still friends. A few years ago he phoned me on Christmas morning to wish me a Happy Christmas... he is a Muslim. I have lots of Kodachrome 64 slides that one day I may get round to scanning. I had an Olympus OM10 that was stolen on a train later. I'll never forget the bus journey from Jammu up to Srinagar. Have you any photos of that? Best wishes, Matthew ====================================== Matthew Hunt Cottenham, Cambridge, UK http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/mnsh/ -----Original Message----- From: lug-bounces+matthew=hunt.tc at leica-users.org [mailto:lug-bounces+matthew=hunt.tc at leica-users.org] On Behalf Of Lawrence Zeitlin Sent: 16 May 2011 21:00 To: Leica LUG Subject: [Leica] Houseboats on Lake Dal, Kashmir In the late 80s I had several lectures to give in Kashmir/Jammu and the sponsors were kind enough to put us up in a houseboat on Lake Dal. These houseboats are luxury accommodations, elaborately carved and richly furnished. Apparently foreigners were not allowed to own property in Kashmir so the locals built rental houseboats for the tourist trade. I'm sure Jayanand can furnish all the details. Ours was one of a small fleet owned by the Wangnoo family. It was built around 1900 and was the one used by Theodore Roosevelt when he vacationed in the area. Just about every surface of the houseboat interior is paneled with intricately carved solid walnut. This type of wood is almost unobtainable in the US and Western Europe but in Kashmir it was so plentiful in the 1980s that it was being burned as fuel. The following photos show both the houseboats and the carved interiors in detail. The young lady is my daughter Karen who accompanied us on the trip. She enjoyed Kashmir, at least eating there, more than the rest of India because she didn't like curry. The pictures were taken with a Rollei 35SE and scanned from Fujichrome slides. http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Larry+Z/Houseboats+on+Lake+Dal+_87.jpg.html http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Larry+Z/Houseboat+interior+on+Lake+Dal.jpg. html http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Larry+Z/Houseboat+carving+_87.jpg.html Kashmir is one of the most naturally beautiful areas I ever visited. A lovely blue lake surrounded by snowy mountain peaks. On the other hand, there were thousands of Indian troops stationed in the area to quell social unrest and every decade or so there was armed conflict on the border with Pakistan. I took plenty of photographs of the area, the people, and the boats on the lake - but none of the Wangnoo family. I was politely discouraged by Mr. A. R. Wangnoo, the patriarch of the family. because he said that it violated Islamic tradition. However the Wangnoos were thoroughly modern in every aspect of their life so I suspect that his hesitance was based on the fear that the Indian authorities might somehow get access to the pictures. The Wangnoo family was very active in the "Free Kashmir" movement and strongly lobbied for an independent state of Kashmiristan. A quarter of a century later the problems are still unresolved. Larry Z _______________________________________________ Leica Users Group. See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information