



"Oh let the sun beat down upon my face, stars to fill my dream

I am a traveller of both time and space, to be where I have been

To sit with elders of the gentle race, this world has seldom seen

They talk of days for which they sit and wait and all will be revealed"













ey s and empty dust bowls with large rolling winds .





We are walking along another green flat and I f

(Wedding lights, exceptionally entertaining if you run from end to end, sadly the children worked this out before I did.)





We left Kashmir yesterday after One month in Srinagar and Jammu. I recently read the history of Kashmir and Srinagar specifically. In 2008 there were Three Hundred or so people shot dead by police for protesting. Basically Kashmir wants independence from India and Pakistan feels it has some claim to the place as well.I had an interesting experience in Srinagar whilst staying on a houseboat with a Muslim family. I met a friendly man by the name of Mubarak in Delhi. He told me his family runs a Himalayan mountain trekking business and showed me many photos of people he had taken trekking before. After some interrogating I decided that he was trust worthy. So I was on the next flight to Srinagar, Kashmir to see those beautiful white tips and find the fellowship of the ring.As soon as I had gotten off the plane I met Mubarak's father Beluchi, a gargantuan Muslim man whose hobbies included duck-shooting and collecting guns. After introductions were done he asked me to 'gift him' my utility vest, we hardly knew each other and now this man wants my vest? Strange I thought. So as it turns out every member of this family wanted me to 'gift them' one thing or another.You will be happy to know that I gave no gifts, except to the one person who was deserving; their slave. They took a small boy from a very poor gypsy family in the mountains a few years ago. Ajaz, now Twenty-One years old and the hardest worker you will ever meet in your life. He never once asked me for anything, after the first week I developed a strong affection for him and started giving him little chocolates and small things to eat when no one was looking. And as a farewell present I gave him a gold necklace.Srinagar taught me many things, how to spend too much money for Himalaya trekking, my physical limits, inner strength and love. In all I spent Two-Thousand for One month with food included, the main cost out of that Two-Thousand was for an amazing trekking adventure. We hired two mountain Sherpas, five horses and eight of us in the group and we walked for seven days in to the heart of the Kashmir Himalaya. We climbed to Five-Thousand Seven Hundred meters above sea level.The first night I became incredibly sick with very bad diarrhoea and vomiting. I decided to stop eating and hoped it would go away in the next days. Also I applied to Bear Grylls teachings of charcoal ingestion.Basically on the first night we camped at the base of the highly mountainous valley. I wake up the next morning extremely hungry but refuse to take the omelet. (Kashmir's staple breakfast). I chew some charcoal instead with a fire in my eyes to bitch slap Bear Grylls. We begin walking up hard steep valleys and my hunger gets the better of me. Three hours in I look for what food I can get my hands on; butter cookies and Abuja mix. What a fucking mistake that was. I continue walking perspiration beading down my face the icy cold wind freezing my face and all the while my stomach gets more and more painful.Eventually after Four hours of walking later my stomach gives way, the pain has reached its climax, I suddenly fall to my knees and release the butter cookie-Abuja mix all over the cold ground. My guide tells me to stop and and rest while the Sherpas and the the group catch up. So I sit and churn in the cold with my guide. The the group catch up and overtake us, my guide says we have to continue so I get up dizzy as hell sip some water and continue at a snails pace after the rest of the group. Eventually after what seemed such a long time we get to the ground which we want to set up camp.Mama, (means uncle in Kashmiri a hilarious Muslim man who is a hired cook) makes me up a Kashmiri style lemon tea and I sit around with the group and we gamble long into the night playing a card game similar to 'Hearts'.Day number Two we pack up the tents and cooking equipment (very simple method for a stove; compress Kerosene with a hand pump in a small gas cylinder.) as the sun rises into the first quarter we take our starting steps. This trek is very different to the day before. We spend half of the day jumping and hopping from stone to stone through a huge canyon where either side is covered with deep red flowers that play with the multi tonal grey of the rock it grows on. It looks like some strange planet from a sci-fi film. We spend until Four o'clock walking through this gargantuan and bizarre landscape until we come to a big rise which we climb and climb.At the top we are blessed with deep and rich colours of green that contrast with multiple shades of grey rock and tonal sounds from a river trickling adjacently. It is beautiful, I ask Mustafa (the guide) if it gets much better than this. That night we gambled some more, told stories and sipped Chi long into the night.Day number Three we do the same routine as yester-morn, pack up and set out before the first quarter. Strolling through a green wonderland I notice that there is an absence of trees, Mustafa says that once you reach above Four-Thousand Two Hundred the trees don't sprout at all. So all around that you can see is green, green grass and the beautiful curves of the huge mountains around us.I ask what the next camp is going to be, he says we're heading for lake Vishnusan. A huge lake cradled by giant, towering snowy mountains. We walk and walk the entire day through green plateaus surrounded by peaks, steep brown, sharp rocky valleel something cold hit my neck, and then another and before I know it someone yells out "NEW SNOW!' so here we are, eight of us walking along a huge green plateau with a grey sky and beautiful white snow falling and lumping on our heads and shoulders. This lifts our spirits immensely especially after a few of us decided to follow mama when he went out ahead, he made us all cross an icy river which was too wide and slippery which we ALL fell in to.Any who, here we are wet and covered in snow but extremely happy! We walk a few more hours the snow gets heaver things begin to turn a little white, but only a little, everything is still mainly green. We set up camp as quickly as we can because the snow is increasingly getting heavier and a see worry on some faces. We manage to get set up in the nick of time, just before sunset.There is a great picture that I will not easily forget, all of us huddled in the tent sipping hot tea warming our faces with the steam, all looking out of the tent door as the green ground becomes wrestled into submission by the white white snow.The night grows long and the snow heavy every half an hour we have to whack the roof of the tent to remove the snow build up. Mustafa seems very worried and is constantly walking out with a torch to assess the situation, Mama and him have a long discussion in Kashmiri, all that I can go by is the body language of each one.I ask Mustafa if everything is okay and he tells me that all of this snow is concerning and that if it keeps on we could be in some real trouble, he then tries to shake my nerves with a joke. He tells me not to worry, we will stay Two toThree more days in this spot and if it gets to that stage he has a bottle of rum we can hug while we wait for that imaginary helicopter that will never come.On day number Four I wake to look out side my tent and see nothing but white, pure, perfect, perpetuating white. I step out side and see the Sherpas huddled around their fire puffing on their hubbly bubbly (hookah like pipe). My tent is covered in white and so is the main one. I walk inside it and have some breakfast and talk with Mustafa, he tells me to go for a walk to the lake about Thirty minutes east of camp. So I chew some tasty nutritious charcoal and set off passing groups of boulders and leaving my trail in the snow behind.I spot many family's of beavers sitting on the scattered boulders absorbing the sunlight. They see me and let out wails from a One-Hundred meter radius, they all vanish beneath or behind rocks. I press on and decide to take a video recording. I reach the lake and I'm immediately impressed by its character: the size, the colour, THE MASS! and how impressive it looks cradled by the adjacent mountains.I spend maybe a few hours sitting by the lake watching some beavers and small birds while listening to the peace. I'm walking back to camp and spot someone with their sleeves and tracksuit pants rolled up standing in the river splashing around. I focus and realise its mama, squatted down on a rock in the middle of a stream trying to catch fish with his hands. This looks hilarious, I stroll down to see if he has caught anything and I soon see he has nothing except freezing cold limbs. I decide to hang around camp and bask in the views with some hashish, sitting down with the mountain Sherpas and they offer me some hubbly bubbly.I go and lay down in my tent and open the windows and roll a hashish cigarette. Lying in peace until all of a sudden this totally deranged dark bearded face pops into my view through the door. Its mama, the Kashmiri Abe Lincon, he creeped over and asked "Hashish?" I come out of the tent and share the cigarette with mama and sit in silence, because his English is really not much better than my Kashmiri. We spend the rest of the afternoon observing the sights of so many surrounding mountains.At about Four O'clock the melted snow of the previous day is replenished and another snow storm decides to bless us. Later that night I walk into the tent intrigued by the sound of much laughter. I sit and listen to the stories with forever coming cups of hot Chi thanks to mama.Mustafa tells me stories of mountain men who are 10ft tall and who roam the Himalaya. Mustafa has photos of foot prints that he found in the snow. This dazzles and also frightens me because as I hear this story I peer out side into the dark and snowy gloom, an amazing contrast with the light and chipper atmosphere from within the tent.The night once again grows longer and colder, I creep back to my tent in the dead of night clutching a hot water bottle which I will keep with me in my sleeping bag under Four thick blankets. I have much trouble getting to sleep because my stomach pains are still persisting. I listen to Mama and Mustafa talk for half an hour more and then stop. I manage to fall asleep and what feels like Three hours I wake to hear steps and rustling right next to my tent, I IMMEDIATELY think of Mustafa's mountain men stories and I build up in my mind a huge man in a loincloth holding a club observing my tent trying to perceive what it is. I lay as still as i can in hot chills and listen on, this thing hangs around my tent for who knows how long (hours) I hear it move on and drift off.I wake up in the morning to Manzula (Mustafa's brother) yelling "AUSTRALIA!" I reply "KASHMIR? What do you want?" , "DID YOU HEAR ANYTHING OUTSIDE OF YOUR TENT LAST NIGHT THERE ARE MANY FOOT PRINTS". Immediately goosebumps across my skin, I fall out of my tent to look at the prints. I knew it was a mountain man I'm saying to my self, the foot prints sounded so thick, heavy and calculated. But I see not the huge foot prints of some freaky beast but the tiny hoof prints of mountain goats. I become sad and go in to sip Chi. The next day we pack up our stuff and begin the treacherous journey back, we walk and walk Two days we climb a steep valley that reaches to Five-Thousand Seven Hundred and I collapse to the ground gasping for oxygen twice. Mama sprints to the top and lights himself a cigarette and tells me to hurry up. Altogether it was an amazing experience and I'm so happy that I listened to that man Mubarak in Delhi.We head home in a Chevy jeep, it takes us hours to get through so many small mountain villages. I'm told that there is exciting things awaiting us when we get back. Beluchi tells that his son Mubarak is coming up from Delhi to have a marija (Marriage) his family have arranged a wife fit for the man. I wait around and talk with two Germans from from Hamburg whilst thinking about my journey.The entire time I was being told what to buy as a wedding gift which annoyed me greatly they kept saying gold, gold, gold. This enraged me to such an extent that I refused to get them anything except my graceful presence. The wedding was large and extravagant Mubaraks dress was One Hundred Thousand Rupees his scarf Thirty and he had 3 different dresses for each day of the wedding all together easily Two Hundred. nearly my entire budget!The wedding very Kashmiri, I danced into the night and the band played music well on after sunrise. The next day I felt terribly ill and spent all day in bed and missed some of the greatest parts of the wedding. Over all the trekking experience made the entire trip for me and I'm so happy that it happened. My experience in Kashmir has shaped my entire trip inside India and now outside. Its funny how one decision can put you on such a different path to what you had originally assumed to be the outcome.