Srinagar Shenannigans

I arrived in Srinagar, Kashmir today, it's a funky place, little bit about it below. It was too bad, the Bombay Bar was closed for renovations when I was there, I ended up having a drink by the pool, that'll have to do. Nice to get out of Mumbai, the flight wasn't much fun at 5:45 in the morning, I was standing at the back of the check-in line and these two guys made to get in front of me, not anyone else, just me, ha, so I'm like, "Uhhhh, HELLO!" haha, they tried to pull the "I don't understand" card, I pulled the walk in front of them card. I was definitely getting cranky haha. People do sell a lot of pot / hasheesh around here, it's not legal, but it's all over for the traveling crowd.
So, the Kashmir trip, I managed to get some sleep on the plane, ate a little breakfast, and descended through the massive outlying mountains (covered in snow, totally awesome) of the Himalaya range. The town lies in a valley, the valley is ringed by these huge-o mountains covered in snow, so, today the valley was blanketed in fog, it was awesome, the snow cropped mountians jut out of the fog, making it look a bit like water / islands. We descended down through the fog and touched down about thirty seconds later on a plateau, it was funny, there was about a half mile to go to the ground, flaps up, gear down, then all of the sudden the plateau comes up and BOOM we land, ha, it would definitely be a bad short landing.
Srinagar's airport, and the city itself, for that matter, is heavily militarized. They've had some trouble with insurgents coming over from Pakistan, separatist type guys. The airport has about 50 hardened aircraft bunkers, sandbagged troop positions, a serious looking perimeter wall, etc. The city has a few troops w/ (definitely loaded) GUL machine guns every 10 feet or so, armored personnel carriers, sandbagged bunkers at intersections / important buildings, ha, crazy. I wouldn't be here if I felt it wasn't safe, nothing has happened here for more than a year and the insurgents are targeting the gov't / hindus, score one for the American Catholics! Yeah, so, it is safe, no worries.
Upon arrival I hooked up with the owner of a houseboat waiting outside to snag arrivees, I hadn't previously set one up but this guy's was pretty good, Srinagar is famous for these houseboats built by the Brits 70 or 80 years ago. The local mayor at the time wouldn't let them buy land, so they built their houses on the big lake, Dal, with all the amenities, etc. Most of these have now been converted into floating hotels, mine's pretty nice, hot water, cheap, at about $12 / night, I'm waiting for the catch, these guys can be pretty slimy.
That's the word from Kashmir, the net cafe's got some rockin' 80's pop going, American cultural INVASION!!!!