Kashmir Diaries: Chapter 1
- abhisek ghosh
- Aug 12, 2021
- 4 min read
Aru Valley: An Instant Love Story
A beautiful tourist spot, located 12 kms ahead of Pahalgam, from where we started our trek, is Aru Valley. It’s 11 kms upstream from the scintillating Lidder River, and is known for its rolling meadows and, tall mountains and scenic valleys. However; our journey from Srinagar to Aru Valley was quite literally like a contemporary adaptation of, The Comedy of Errors. In a city like Srinagar, with whom we shared a mutual relationship, of being complete strangers, looking for the correct location itself was a challenge. We realised how important it is to know someone locally, when our google map direction took us to a completely different location from where we were supposed to be picked up. Thanks to my fellow trekkers, my nephew and I finally managed to reach the location.
As we loaded up in our tempo traveller and started the journey, our driver was confused about our destination within 500 meters of us starting… we called the tour operator, confirmed our destination, which was Pahalgam and started our journey once again. As we traversed through the bustling city of Srinagar and eventually crossed a section of the famous Jheelum river, we started to climb and see some snow capped mountains in the distance, and we really thought, life was good…
We stopped at many a checkpoints, to clear our journey towards Pahalgam from the authorities and it was nearly after we travelled about 60 kms, when we realised at a stop, that we were going in the completely wrong direction. We were on our way to Sonmarg… We were evidently baffled at the situation and we had to go all the way back to Srinagar and then take a different route to travel to Pahalgam… Whilst we should have been half way into our journey by then, we realised that it would be nearly nightfall, before we finally reach Aru Valley.
The journey to Aru took us through the windy roads towards Pahalgam. Another wonderful tourist spot, known for a lot of valley trips, especially Betaab Valley. With tall coniferous trees densely strewn across the towering mountains, giving the valley a verdant hue, interlaced with white clouds floating through the trees. The Lidder river, flowing by the side of the road. It’s milky white flow, snaking through the boulders, weathered by years of erosion, making them shimmer in the evening sun. The sun was already setting in the horizon, brightening up the sky in a deep orange splendour. As we finally arrived at our destination, drained by the unprecedented long journey, the site of this small village, took us completely by surprise. We ended the day waiting to see the village in its complete glory the next day morning.
The next morning was a gloomy start amidst thunderstorm and rain, which made it difficult for us to begin our journey towards our destination. For a trekker, who is itching to start a trek and climb mountains over a period of 6 days, staying put is the most difficult thing to do. And we were 11 of us, feeling the same way.
We eventually decided to go up to a point adjacent to Aru Village called Green Top, with another
team, stuck like us who were originally headed for the Tarsar Marsar Trek. Little did we know that the Green Top was located at 10800 ft and as we started climbing, we realised that it was as good as a one day return hike. The trail was beautiful, green rolling meadows, speckled with gorgeous little flowers. Tall coniferous trees lined up in front of us and some of them sheltering Gujjar huts. The climb was quite taxing from the midway and both, the climb and the scenery just took our breathes away. We as a group climbed together, coaxing each other to keep walking. Encouraging the ones falling behind, even the ones from the other group.
We reached upto 10500 feet and were asked to stop and have our lunch. We really wanted to climb to the top, but as we were savouring our packed veg biriyani, we could see a thick fog starting to form and the air starting to get a bit chilly. We sat there for sometime in merriment and started descending slowly. As we reached the rolling meadows which were at an easier gradient, we turned into little kids and started running down the meadows, laughing our hearts out at the amusement of sheer joy and fun. We took a different route going down, as we encircled our steps around the hill that housed Greentop and we were welcomed by the well maintained grass fields by the local agricultural department till we reached back to our guest house.
Greentop was truly a good experience to warm us up physically and prepare us mentally, because what transpired over the course of next 5 days required us to be fit in both criteria. Aru can be visited by any tourists, whether a trekker or not and you can spend a few days going around the surrounding areas. The locals here are very friendly and accommodating. If you are looking to disconnect, quite literally, just head to this place and discover yourself a little more.
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Heaven on earth.