April 2

We went for a shakira ride today and I saw why the TourPolice were so hard nosed about us getting accommodation on a houseboat. These floating dwellings do not have roadway connections to the land. The only way off one of them is by a set of stairs going down to the water to board a shakira, and the owner controls which shakira approaches. They comprise a virtual tourist ghetto. All the landing spots on the shore for shakira are guarded by men with rifles. It's a very effective way of keeping possibly disruptive foreign elements away from the metropolis proper. Very neat. I was glad we had managed to avoid that particular box. Probably would have been pretty boring too, it's very early days for the tourist season, hardly any of them looked occupied yet.

The waterborne salesmen were out, though probably not as many now as there will be when it gets warmer, peddling jewelry, shawls and eatables on the waterway. All the houseboats look pretty worn, no new varnish on the elaborate carved walnut friezes for quite some time, though I am sure they are quite magnificent inside.
Remi was in crybaby mode the whole trip. He was cold, he was leaving almost immediately, he wasn't going to adapt again to a new environment, he was going to Dharmashala where at least he knew where to buy toilet paper. As far as I was concerned, he could leave anytime he wanted, just quit telling me about it and do it. I was reveling in the sounds and smells of springtime freshness, relishing the delicious warmth of the sun after the chill of the night. The temperature was just about what it is at the beginning of April on the coast, with less rain. The fruit trees are in bloom everywhere and birds are singing their hearts out. I just love it here right now.

The food is great too, wonderful cooks these munghals.
I had a small delivery to make for a friend from Goa which took us on a long rickshaw ride across the city away from the tourist section into a neighborhood of small twisty alleyways. On the way I saw that there are many many channels traversing the whole city. No part of Shrinegar is very far from water. I want to hire a shakira to take me for a ride through some of those old canals in the heart of the old city. Old Shrinegar is a wooden city, two and thee story buildings with steeply pitched roofs of weather worn wood raise straight up from the water. It made me think of some of the sets of Ghormangast. I want to do a little more prowling off the beaten path and take some photos.