Day 4 in Kashmir

Photion Avalanche

Waking up at 6am is not a fun way to get ready during a vacation. But when Duty (read exotic place where we must do tourist shenanigans calls). The lines at Gulmarg are longer than the 10 Titanoboas just to bet on a cable car. Firstly, we need to rent boots and heavy jackets ,secondly you need to buy gloves , thirdly if your legs are made of jelly you are going to need a horse to travel from the main plaza to the cable house. Lastly that day was drizzling. The rain cuts like razors across any exposed skin making you shiver and tremble in every step that you take your feet ache in every step because your calcaneus (part of feet in the human body, look it up) rubs against the hard rubber of your rented waterproof rubber boots and you have to stand in the dreaded queue that snakes its way outside the gate. After an hour of waiting, we finally ascend a cable car and wait in line because we are going to ascend higher than where we currently were luckily our turn comes within 20 to 30 minutes because not everyone has a ticket to access this cable car. But as our cable car starts it ascend upwards. We are shrouded in thick mist. Mist is an understatement , it was a thick , blinding fog with only enough light to say we were covered in whiteness and the cable car stopped for a whole 5 minutes. We joked that we entered the wrong cable car, and we accidentally were on our way to heaven. Unfortunately, heaven thought our joke to be in poor taste and sent us to highest point till the car can climb. Here there was only snow , snow, and more snow. We of course got right to work by taking photos for my mother’s and cousin’s instagram post we had to make snowmen that

Had to be fashionable with modern day standards so the fashion police do not arrest us for poor taste. We had to pose on rocks which were stone cold and froze our butts rock hard . But it started snowing what a godsend amount of precipitation that meant more snow fall as the snowflakes scrape across your cheek. But the problem with that was high speed winds that will not topple you but with the snow it felt as though you were pelted with sand. which was ripping our cheeks. Filling our bags with snow if opened them and it was energy exhausting that everyone now was straining their cheek muscles to God-damn smile we trudged our way to the cable house. It was stuffed as hell as because everyone wanted to escape the storm as it intensified. My mother also had a fainting spell the stuffiness of the room created a lack of air and the heavy jackets seemed to wear us down. We had to get fresh air and sugar , lot of air and sugar. The cable cars had stopped working in these frightful conditions so we had to wait through an hour before we could descend again to the base. We returned our boots filled with water which was previously fresh alpine snow. And I forgot my gloves worth 100rs in the shop. It was just 5 in the evening, and we were still in Gulmarg. So we had to have some snacks in a Dhaba before returning to our hotel tried and exhausted.

¹Postscript
Use this website while booking tickets for gondola ride prior to your trip to save last minute hassle. It is their official site