For the last 13 days we've been in Kashmir, what a wicked place!!

Firstly we hired a jeep with a guy we met in Leh and took 3 days to travel to Srinagar, Kashmir. The drive was spectacular and because we'd booked the whole jeep we were able to take our time. We visited a few Gompas (monasteries) where little girls would put run away with your shoes and old ladies sat for photos before asking for backshish, we stayed with a local family in a village within Dahanu valley (19km from Pakistan border) that was 20 minutes walk from the nearest road, we've been stared, followed and laughed at by local children - one even trying to give me a cassette tape real tail just like him, we watched 2 trucks become lodged together on a single lane dirt road with a 1,000m drop below with the drivers more focused on fighting and stealing stuff from the other truck rather than move the vehicles, we passed many funny road signs warning "Drink Whisky, Driving Risky", "Drive on Horse Power Not on Rum Power", we've been saddened by small gypsie kids barely walking standing on the side of the dusty road calling out for money as you motor past. A wicked journey!

The closer we got to Kashmir the military presence was more apparent, though with us being so close to Pakistan you can understand why, there were also signs warning us that "You Are Being Watched By The Enemy".

Once arriving in Srinagar we found a house boat on Dal lake and spent the next 7 days either chilling out on the boat or hiring shikaras (canoes) and visiting parks, mosques, floating vegetable markets. Scattered throughout the lake are about 1,400 house boats and we've heard horror stories of tourists being ripped off etc, thankfully we met a guy in Leh who recommended somewhere, so it didn't take us long to find a place to stay. We stayed with a family who have owned house boats for 80 years, they'd kept letters from the early 1900's where their grandfather had taken tourists out to shoot bears and tigers - there aren't either animal still inhabiting those parts anymore. Sadly there weren't many tourists in Kashmir, with most government agencies advising against travel to Jammu and Kashmir (other than Ladakh) it is keeping people away. This place is amazing though and just so chilled, there were some problems with militants whilst we were there but on the lake you are a world away - I would definitely recommend anyone traveling in this part of the world to visit!

Our house boat owners talked us into doing a 3 day trek into the Kashmiri mountains. We hired a cook and 2 pony guys and the house boat owners supplied tents and sleeping bags. We headed for Naranag valley and walked into the mountains (uphill) to Trundkund and set up camp for 2 days. The views were breathtaking!! There are no chai stalls or shops along the way you had to take all of your food in with you - well the ponies had to take it - so you really were in the middle of nowhere. Trundkund valley is scattered with gypsie huts and their cows, sheep, goats grazing near by (the cows also tried to eat our tent). We spent our time walking to lakes, trying to entertain the local gypsy children by showing them card tricks and playing a game of rugby with a plastic bottle, or sheltering in our ill-designed tent during a raging storm counting the seconds between lightning strikes and thunder - we could have stayed up there forever!!

We are now in Dharmashala, it took us over 48 hours to get here - traveling in shikaras, rickshaws, jeep, rickety buses and finally a taxi. The drive in the jeep was pretty terrifying with our driver constantly talking on his cellphone whilst trying to negotiate blind bends high up in the hills, we had quite a few near misses! We almost got stranded in the dusty town of Jammu as there have been bus strikes, thankfully we met a couple of Tibetan guys who were heading this way, they were able to negotiate for us to get on a bus heading for Amritsar which dropped us off in a random town where we found a hotel for a few hours, Ant and I were stuck up in the front section with the driver and... 9 other people (it should only have sat about 6 people max and there were 11 of us)... but we made it, safe and sound. It's been raining here for most of the day, so its good that we've wanted to spend most of the day catching up on sleep. Not sure how long we'll stay - who knows on this trip, at the moment we are talking about heading to Indonesia!