You can not describe Gulmarg in words, although I have attempted to do so in this blogpost but I’m not sure how successfully can I do it. The whole country rightly calls Kashmir heaven on Earth and Gulmarg is the jewel of this heaven. Witnessing this crown jewel of India in winter, covered all in white, is nothing short of witnessing a land of crystal clear diamonds.
You can directly reach Gulmarg from Srinagar airport by taking sharing jeeps(which is will cost you less than 300rs) or you can take a direct taxi for rs.1500. You have to out of the Airport and asked around the people there about getting to Gulmarg. So In order to reach there, you have to take a bus to Baatmal(rs.30), from there another shared taxi till Tangmarg(rs.150) and from there you will find jeeps with chained tires to Gulmarg(rs.50). During summer months you can directly get a shared taxi to Gulmarg from Baatmal.
Everything was white, there were odd bright spots of reds and yellows, which were only because of the people waiting in the queue to get in the Gondola at a distance, otherwise, there was no other colour in sight. I explored the place a bit and only after walking for 10 minutes I was stormed by 20-25 vendors who were hell-bent on convincing me to hire a sledge. After them there was a group of guides, it was hard to tell them off but I managed to do so.
After exploring the place for more than an hour and sipping some hot tea, I went ahead and got myself a Gondola ride. The view was even better once you got up, from the Gondola itself you can see small shepherds hut covered in the snow looking like candies. I could see the valley getting covered under the clouds slowly and I was going above them.
Once at the top, all I could see was snow and a bunch of skiing enthusiasts, trying their hand in snowboarding, snow cycling, and skiing. I usually don’t indulge in touristy thing, but I myself like skiing and how can you skip it when you are in Gulmarg. I got myself a cheap deal fo skiing(rs1000 for 2 hours), after falling for a few time at first I think I did fine.
After a few hours which involved plenty of skiing and just watching the beautiful surrounding while sipping hot tea, I decided to get back. By the time I reached the place where the shared jeep has dropped me the sun was almost at the horizon. I quickly got into the next jeep in the queue to go back to Tangmarg, as it was freezing cold now as the sun was down. I was able to find myself a nice and cosy room in a decent hotel for just rs.800.
The next morning I got into a jeep to Srinagar to further explore Kashmir.
TRAVELbeings 