The evergreen fever dream of Kashmir because the subcontinent’s enchanted Eden may need its antecedents in older journey musings of European raconteurs—typically mountaineers, preachers, medical doctors, and high-ranking officers of the British Empire. These males drew eloquent comparisons between this unheralded wonderland and acquainted delights again dwelling. The English rock climber Oscar Eckenstein recalled London’s Hampstead Heath upon seeing a blooming backyard in Srinagar, whereas the adventurer Dermot Norris’ 1932 information was titled Kashmir: The Switzerland of India.

Eckenstein, who roamed these elements within the Nineties, significantly famous similarities between the Swiss countryside and Gurez, an intimate clasp of small villages within the Kishanganga river valley. “The surroundings right here precisely resembles the Swiss however is on a bigger scale,” he wrote. Gurez was mapped in higher element by Sir Walter Roper Lawrence, an English civil servant, in his 1895 guide, The Valley of Kashmir. He ventured that some day the sweep of its harsh mountain crags, soothing teal streams, and freshly tilled plains would possibly pry guests away from the extra apparent appeals of Kashmir’s different distinguished trip spots.

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“Gulmarg, Sonamarg, and Nágmarg are charming locations for a summer season vacation,” he wrote. “Maybe Pahlgám, the village of the shepherds which stands on the head of the Liddar valley with its wholesome forest of pines, and Gurais, which lies at a distance of thirty-five miles from Bandipura, the port of the Wular lake, will earlier than lengthy rival in recognition the opposite Margs.” Within the years since, Pahalgam fulfilled the promise of Lawrence’s expectations. Gurez, which adjoins the closely guarded Line of Management (LoC) bordering Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) in Kashmir Valley’s north, remained off-limits to travellers till 2007 when restrictions have been lastly lifted, albeit just for home guests. Every passing season, vacationers streamed into Kashmir, steadily rising in quantity, however it was not till just lately that this swell embraced the self-contained sanctuary of Gurez Valley.

Tourism in Kashmir breached data in 2022, with information studies suggesting that wherever between 1.62 and 1.88 crore guests got here final yr to the Union Territory—the best quantity for the UT since Independence. The yr 2023 would possibly depart these milestones within the mud, and the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Manoj Sinha, has not let an event slip by with out mentioning this stratospheric spike. At a golf match opening in September 2023, he highlighted the G20 occasion held in Srinagar because the catalyst for a 350 per cent improve in overseas arrivals to Kashmir from 2022. He revealed that as of two months in the past (from September), journey footfall had crossed 1.70 crore guests and that by the tip of December that statistic can be shut to 2 crore guests.

Gurez’s contribution to the general tourism figures continues to be smaller than that of different locations however it’s rising; 2022’s estimates have been round 50,000, however in 2023, one lakh vacationers had visited the area by July. As fistful as these figures appear, compared with Gurez’s native inhabitants (37,992 as per Census 2011), they portend a exceptional business and cultural reshaping, teed off initially by the Indian authorities’s abrogation of Article 370 in 2019. No marvel then that in every single place one goes—nook retailers, tea stalls, military examine posts—Gurezis reply to the perfunctory questions on how they’re doing with head shakes and variations of the identical reply: “So many vacationers!”

Milk and honey

In September 2023, Bandipora, the principle transit hub between Gurez and Srinagar, hosted the “Grand Gurez” competition, a journey and cultural fete geared toward drawing extra non-Kashmiris to the area by amplifying not solely its meadows and farms but in addition its scope for out of doors pursuits reminiscent of angling, river rafting, mountain biking, trekking, and tenting. The occasion’s prime billing was reserved for a polo match, which has not been performed right here in six a long time. That very same month, Gurez was showered with extra recognition when the Ministry of Tourism selected its essential city centre, Dawar, as the very best tourism village amongst 750 entries from throughout India. To some, all this spotlighting of Gurez is “an excessive amount of, too quickly”, to others it’s delayed want fulfilment, however its days as a cloaked fairyland the place solely a fortunate few have been granted passage at the moment are over.

Gurez endears itself to travellers with distant pastoralism and an inaccessible, unearthly magnificence. Like crossing a moat to enter a citadel, earlier than one reaches the inexperienced vale, there’s a six-hour drive from Srinagar to endure. Swerving by harmful hairpin bends carved out of the gray mountain rock, the Gurez-Bandipora route’s highest elevation arrives at Razdan Cross, an inconsistently laid concrete mountain street at 11,672 toes (3,557.6 metres), with steep precipices on both facet. From right here, each checkpoint (the Border Safety Pressure, the military, and even the native police) scrutinises vacationers to Gurez. Sometimes, a chatty officer softens on the thought of faraway guests about to find the bounty in his yard and smilingly waves one onward.

As soon as Gurez Valley approaches, the panorama flips virtually diametrically, from granite and dirt to exploit and honey. Villages right here breathe within the glow of the waters from the Kishanganga, foaming furiously by Gurez’s plains, cupped on both facet by forested mountain slopes of willow and fir. Alongside the basin, rice, beans, and millet cultivation thrives. Walnuts, berries, and a bunch of uncommon medicinal vegetation thrive at increased altitudes. Gurez’s soil bears many riches: cumin, buckwheat, and spices develop broadly as do flowers hardly ever seen within the nation’s mainland.

Within the distance, Habba Khatoon Peak, 13,000 toes of snow-flecked limestone magnificence, casts a shadow over all the attention can see. It’s a near-perfect image of Himalayan idyll, if not for the barbed LoC wire working alongside the rock face flanking the river, a reminder that momentary silence ought to not be mistaken for lasting peace. In conversations, villagers will elevate their finger within the path of the mountain wire, saying: “See, on the opposite facet of that’s Pakistan. The whole lot is kind of regular.”

For border communities in Kashmir, geopolitics is a simmering wound that may flare up with out warning. Gurezis appear to have grown accustomed, overwhelmingly, to their place on the LoC and the presence of armed forces, posted of their villages for years. “We want their assist in the winter months,” one shopkeeper says, referring to the helicopter service that shuttles villagers to Bandipora as soon as the street to Gurez is snowed in. One other vacationer information remarks that guests are likely to make extra of the dispute with our neighbours than they do. “This battle [with Pakistan] serves a couple of vested pursuits in each international locations, however we’re fed up with it.”

Lack of primary facilities

Earlier than the hordes arrived, mountain trekkers have been foremost to find Gurez’s heavenly escape. Even at present, they’re a number of the most conspicuous guests to the valley, normally tenting right here to and from brief expeditions. Dawar, the valley’s central city, with a busy thoroughfare and a market, advertises plentiful lodges and lodging choices, together with tents by the riverside. Kaka Palace, the oldest visitor home right here, is a landmark identified to many. Contained in the visitor home’s crammed restaurant, trekkers, with fatigued eyes and slouching backpacks, clamour for lunch orders: hearty hen curries, dal-rice, rajma, with slurps of steaming kahwa on the facet. Right here and there, one spots household vacationers now. A Bengali couple at breakfast explains their Gurez journey. “We each work in several cities, so we find yourself spending time with one another solely once we journey. We selected Kashmir this time and got here to Gurez as a result of it’s so removed from all the push,” stated the spouse.

Kaka Palace doesn’t supply a lot by means of creature comforts, mere hostel-style lodging with scorching water. The burgeoning throng of vacationers headed to the valley within the subsequent few years is certain to demand extra. Throughout the gate from the lodge, building is on in full swing on a ritzier constructing, additionally belonging to the Kaka Palace proprietor, who plans to inaugurate it in Could 2024. “This is likely to be Gurez’s first five-star lodge,” whispers one native driver with a prideful glint in his eye. Zipping by Dawar as he ferries vacationers on their day journeys, he rattles off names of some different boutique lodges which have mushroomed in Gurez, including that enterprise right here could have outgrown the visitor home mannequin. Outdoors a brightly lit pine-log café, he halts his automotive to stress the signal, “Log Out Cafe! Gurez’s first espresso store.”

Past mocha lattes and cappuccinos, villagers hope for extra substantial adjustments from tourism. Some have upgraded from wood properties to concrete constructions and day-long indoor heating to alleviate harsh winters. But it surely stays a problem, provided that your complete area nonetheless receives electrical energy just for a couple of hours within the night. This, regardless of its proximity to the Kishanganga Hydroelectric Venture, which provides energy to Bandipora and neighbouring areas. In a 2018 column, the Kashmiri bureaucrat Wajahat Habibullah lamented Gurez’s lack of primary facilities since Independence. “The 330 MW 3 unit [Kishanganga] undertaking will generate 1,713 million items of electrical energy yearly. Of this, the residents of Gurez will get not a sliver,” he wrote, including elsewhere: “There is no such thing as a electrical energy, no piped water, no drainage, no public sanitation, no tarred street and no hospital.”

Amongst a gaggle of tourism college students from Kashmir College, having fun with their night tea on the standard viewpoint Khandyal Lotuh, the discussions are much less heated however nonetheless full of life. Whereas debating the deserves of Gurez as a vacation spot, one among them stated: “We’re right here to organize a report for our class on what amenities in Gurez can enhance the expertise for travellers and residents alike.” One other scholar discusses how they might make journey to those elements “extra sustainable”. Years of negligence have remoted Gurez, however within the earnest optimism of those college students, business tourism and its lightning tempo will ship the valley hurtling in direction of the longer term it deserves.

From one other world

There are swathes of Gurez unbothered by practicalities, or maybe spiritually at odds with the quotidian. Even somebody not born of this land wouldn’t care to alter a leaf right here. On the base of Habba Khatoon—the height named after a mystic poet who in a number of the legends wrote pining songs for her misplaced lover, the previous ruler of Kashmir—a cool stream gushes alongside gently subsequent to the village of Achoora. Native individuals imagine this water to own therapeutic qualities. An outdated lady, in her wood cloak and khoi (a woollen skullcap worn by locals), lugs an outsized bundle of firewood on her again, hunched over like a hook to hold its weight. Watching her trod alongside quietly, one can strike out the considered ever complaining about heavy backpacks once more.

The sting of Tulail Valley, a sub-tehsil of Gurez established in 2014, is among the area’s most romantically bucolic. In Anaikot, one other tiny hamlet, ladies, younger and outdated, carry firewood throughout shaky bridge planks and stack up logs to construct their historic wood cabins on stilts, conjuring a time when all that existed have been these mountains and these individuals. Gurez’s unique settlers are Dards, tribes from Dardistan, who converse a language referred to as Shina. In antiquity, Dardistan encompassed a number of the uppermost mountain reaches of India and Pakistan. After Partition, Dards have largely been consigned to Gurez, struggling to protect their heritage at the same time as their environment are quickly modernised.

Again at Khandyal Level, one observes a slew of makeshift tents, the type typically constructed by nomads and shepherds consisting of stylish material triangles with a single central pole. “The Bakarwals have arrived,” cries out a vacationer information who sees them. Contained in the tents, ladies wearing conventional salwar-kameez with dupattas overlaying their heads sit enjoying with kids on their laps. A toddler gravitates to a vacationer’s iPhone, posing for footage playfully. The vacationer requests one of many ladies to pose too, which she relents to after some persuasion.

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The Bakarwals, chronicled obsessively by travellers world wide, have been a topic of everlasting fascination. Rural nomads for all times, they’re resolutely of one other world, transferring by the mountains and pastures with their sheep or goat herds, gathering wildflowers and herbs alongside the way in which in massive material bundles. Come summer season, they slowly climb their manner as much as Gurez from Rajouri and Poonch, heading again to the lowlands as soon as snowfall resumes.

A Gurez the place resorts, ski rinks, and golf programs edge out its maverick indigenous peoples would possibly lose what made it particular within the first place. Many years in the past, Joni Mitchell had warned about paving paradise to place up parking tons, and Gurez appears perched on the cusp of an identical upheaval. The world outdoors would possibly do nicely to go mild on this stunning valley. Maybe that’s the superb discount of any journey, particularly to a spot of unfathomable hidden nooks and secrets and techniques. The extra one sees it, the much less one touches the hem of its garment.

Lakshmi Sankaran is a author and editor primarily based in Pune.