Horizons Unlimited - The HUBB - Srinagar/Kashmir Update

Hey guys,

A few folks were looking for information on the situation in Srinagar so I thought I'd share the experiences of my partner Celia and I who travelled through the area on our Honda Posties a couple of days ago.

Firstly, Kashmir is amazing! To be honest we were struggling a bit with India but the "Manali-Leh" has been a big highlight of our trip so far. If you've walked the Annapurna Circuit, this is a bit like doing it by bike :thumbup1:

Secondly, and I'm not sure if this is due to people having Enfield rental restrictions, but if you finish your trip in Leh you're really missing out on some more fantastic riding. Nubra Valley/Pangong Tso aside, the road west via Kargil and Sonamarg is quite spectacular and for the most part (well, the first part at least) you'll have surprisingly good condition, winding black-top to enjoy. This route of course ends up in Srinagar.

Although we'd loved the ride to Leh, we're heading to Pakistan next and the thought of riding back over all those mountains again to Manali on our Posties seemed a bit laborious so we were keen to take the Srinagar/Amritsar route if possible. Unfortunately we found decent information a bit hard to come by. We'd heard that the curfew had been lifted in most areas but had been replaced by strikes, we'd heard that travel through was possible but only by night, and the oppposite that travel was possible but only by day. This information had come from Srinagar residents who had left the city for one reason or another and seemed confident with their advice. I think the contradictions come from the changing situation.

In Sonamarg (80km out) we were advised that we should travel by day, not try to stay in the city, not expect to be able to buy anything, expect to have some rocks thrown, but otherwise we'd be ok...

A mechanic then stripped the spark plug thread out of my top end so we left Sonamarg at around midday with a plug jammed in place and the mechanic's son telling me that we were "too late" and should have left very early in the morning.

About 20km from the city we met our first mob in the roadway, they seemed a bit excited but parted ways for us and waved us through. On the edge of the city itself we were stopped at an Indian Army checkpoint where they asked where we were coming from and going and then commenced the usual bike questions and "Selfie-Sir?" behaviour we were used to, which we took as a good sign. The soldiers pointed us in the direction of a sign saying "Srinagar" rather than the one saying "Jammu", insisting that would be the most direct and best route to follow.

Not more than 200m down the road and we had some rock throwing. The perps weren't much more than kids but they let rip at point blank and weren't throwing the small rocks. A bit further down the road and we had a guy rush out and try and lower a barrier arm across the road. Further on still we ran into another smaller mob at an intersection who were trying to stop a car and shifted their attention to us when we tried to pass through. They were a bit half-hearted and disorganized and our resolution to avoid stopping for anyone not wearing a gun and uniform seemed to work to our advantage.

Srinagar itself is a bit of a mess which is a shame as all reports from the residents made it sound like a really nice place to visit during more peaceful times. There is a lot of anti-India graffiti, a lot of broken glass, a lot of razor wire and almost every business is closed, so plenty of people wandering around. We actually found that most people we passed gave us the same friendly or bemused looks we were used to, including a 100 or so people gesturing to Celia that her headlight was on (Aussie bike, can't turn it off), and we even had some friendly guys on a scooter escort us to the best route out of town when we got stuck at a roadblock (seemingly construction related). We were certainly on edge the entire time we passed through the city but in our experience we were mostly in danger of being stopped or delayed (not lynched) or being hit by a rock, which is of course quite frightening.

From what we have been told, the residents are fed up with India and are in this for the long haul so I'm not sure that the situation will improve any time soon. We travelled during the day during a period when the curfew was lifted. We'd been told that during curfew the businesses are forced to close during the day and travel is only possible at night, which sounded a bit bizzarre. The city is crawling with Indian army but all of our close encounters occurred in sections without any army presence. It seems you are likely to be targeted/disrupted if you appear in any way Indian or out of the ordinary, and all "trouble makers" we encountered were younger guys who seemed to have an excited yeah-lets-break-some-stuff mob mentality than a clear agenda. Although the Srinagar residents are calling for freedom from India there seemed to certainly (and not surprisingly) be a religious element to the conflict; some graffiti we found said "ISIS!" and "Taliban!" which is a bit worrying.

The road from Srinagar to Jammu could also have been a highly enjoyable ride through the foothills if it weren't for the insane congestion caused by army trucks and civilian trucks that are being used to support the army, all of which have lost at least part of their windscreens for that service.

Anyway, that was our experience. If you're keen or need to go through Srinagar try and get as much information as you can and make sure it is up to date. I think if the situation got much worse you'd be prevented from entering the city by the army. If we were going through again we'd probably go very early in the morning but tbh the thought of riding through there at night isn't very appealling. Don't even think about trying to stay in Srinagar or being able to buy anything with the situation as it is, move briskly and don't stop unless you need to, and if you do I'd be more comfortable doing it near a decent contingent of the army. Keeping your group small would definitely be easier. Celia rode first and attracted the attention which usually meant that people were more mobilized and had found decent rocks by the time I came past. If there had been more to our group I think one of us would have been stopped some way or another. Make sure you have enough fuel and your bike is mech-sound (mine ejected the plug halfway through which was less than ideal) and make sure you have your phone/GPS/map working and show your route to the army before you head through.

Sorry if that was all a bit long winded. Once again, Kashmir is awesome and you should see as much of it as you can without going overboard in the risk department.

Safe travels :mchappy:

Tig & Celia