CHAPTER III - PARADISE ON EARTH

Hello, hello....
Blondie all in one piece got back from Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh to New Dehli, only to continue now in Kolkata - Durga Puja festival!

However, earlier on, in the last episode....

Kashmir, The Paradise on Earth, as all Kashmiri call it....Beautiful, indeed....
But of course, not to disappoint my followers, the advanture was on

the way...
After two days in Delhi, Blondie and her Chinese friend Jiang, left their shitty, shabby hotel at taken around 30-45 minutes..well, not that morning!!!

We got stuck for 2 hours in the gigantic traffic jam, caused by monsoon and raod works...
It had rained the whole previous nite, therefore the roads turned into live rivers!!!

So, close to a heart attack, Blondie and Jiang, her Chinese companion reached the airport only to find out that the flight was actually at 11.30 (as they later discovered, all the flights give different departure time ont he tickets, than the actual...mistery of life...)
An hour later the two brave travellers reached the airport in Srinagar - airport of the highest security in the world!!! Police, army, tourist police, security guards everywhere! After declaring that they are not pigs - lack of symtpoms of swine flu - the Fearless Two were escorted by a security guard to their guide, Ashraf, who was waiting outside. The whole long airport road, all the way to the city centre, was heavily fortified and guarded by scary soldiers with big machine guns...who however, seeing beautiful blonde girl, coudn't resist smiling and waving...and then they weren't that scary any more! aaahhh, magic of golden locks...

So, finally reached the guest house, which was sweet, cosy, with a lovely garden and a cute, german shepard poppy dog! very homely place! there, the Two Lonely Knights met the third Muscateer, Sophie, from UK.

On Friday, with a masochist's joy, All Three woke up at 5.00 a.m... to see a floating veg market on Dhal Lake. In a little shikara - water taxi, Blondie and her new friends met the sun rising over the lake...

Sun was waking up slowly, changing night into day, the water lillies and lotus flowers slowely raising the heads to welcome the travellers, big brown eagles flying low over the lake, guiding them to the market....Blondie is not that much of a poet to describe it here.....

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Impressions:

Srinagar is full of:

* lotuses and water lillies on both, Dhal and Nageen Lakes

* big, brown eagels flying very low

* little green plants growing on the lakes, which looks like a big, green, soft carpet spread over

the lakes

* police and army carrying big machine guns

* gardens everywhere, which are being created into a big tourist attraction, in the meantime,

they are just regular, nice gardens full of flowers very common in Europe

* very, very old stuff - wherever you look, they tell you that everything is so old and acient,

meaning dating back to year 1700 sth...., old but not that acient...

* whatever you want to get done, it's "relax, don't worry, tomorrow, tomorrow..." - and then

tomorrow you need to push hard, otherwise it won't be done!!!

India is full of:

* hemming and hawing men and some women, spitting everywhere

* cows, though there are more stray dogs than cows wandering the streets

*smell of trash, mixed with a toilet smell, with a dash of inscents ocassionally...

*there are a lot of cows, but there are even more dogs everywhere

*Indian dogs are skinny, filthy and usually sick, Tibetan dogs are fat, fluffy and cute