The region known as the Kashmir Valley is an area about the size of Yorkshire. It's a "valley", in that it is centred on the Jhelum River as it carves a dramatic course through the Pir Panjal range of the Himalayas.
More or less in the middle, the city of Srinagar and its surroundings have been a staggeringly beautiful holiday resort since at least the times of the great Mughal emperors in the 16th and 17th centuries. With elephant-borne harems and great trails of attendants, they would arrive here from the heat of Agra and Delhi, enjoying the lush landscape and creating sublime gardens, several of which are still thriving today.
Then came the British, also trying to escape scorching temperatures elsewhere in India. The local maharaja would not allow them to buy land and build houses, so they adapted traditional doonga boats instead. Complete with interiors of intricately carved deodar wood (a type of cedar), Kashmiri houseboats became an intrinsic part of a uniquely glamorous playground.
And that was the Kashmir I first knew a very long time ago. In the 1960s my family lived in Chanakyapuri, the diplomatic enclave of New Delhi. One day, we packed up our Austin 1800 - my parents in the front, three small children in the back - and set off for Kashmir, 875km north-west.
We had a terrible journey lasting days and involving punctures, mechanical failure, floods and other near disasters. Just before reaching the Kashmir Valley, our final challenge was a dauntingly long tunnel in which there was a danger our car would break down again. We emerged from the Banihal Tunnel (Bunny Hole to us kids) to find ourselves suddenly in what seemed a land of milk and honey, with dazzlingly green pastures grazed by bucolic-looking cows and sheep.
For two weeks, home was a glorious houseboat on Nagin Lake just beyond central Srinagar. The charming owners were our hosts, taking us (when little legs would allow) walking, pony trekking, fishing; cooking us meals gently infused with Kashmiri saffron and other spices; brewing us deliciously aromatic kahwa, Kashmiri-style green tea flavoured with cardamom and cinnamon. It was one of the most halcyon holidays of my childhood. And I was wonderfully surprised to find many vestiges of that Kashmir on my recent return.
I spent the first couple of days almost entirely on water. Srinagar's two lakes, Dal and Nagin, are both peppered with houseboats, at the moment mainly catering for the domestic market, which has seen a surge in the past few years. However, Butt's Clermont Houseboats is a slight world apart on the western side of Dal Lake. Set in its own exclusive haven just off Nasim Bagh (literally "Garden of Bliss" - and one of the earliest such Mughal creations), this collection of five elegant boats has attracted celebrity guests from the late George Harrison to US Senator John McCain (in 2011).
It was entrancing to slip back into the sort of lake life I'd enjoyed as a child. You explore the waterworld in shikaras, little gondola-like boats whose heart-shaped paddles are modelled on the bulbs of the lotus flowers that grow abundantly here. You get up remarkably early to the echoing call of the muezzin and visit the floating vegetable market held at dawn, watching long-tailed boats filled with onions, aubergines, tomatoes and more, in a sort of gentle dodgems of trading. And, of course, you spend hours simply sitting on the porch of your houseboat gazing at the views and the antics of kingfishers and cormorants.
For all the romance of houseboat living, however, there are greater comforts on land. I moved on from Butt's Clermont to the new Vivanta by Taj hotel, which offers a staggering panorama over Dal Lake from its hilltop vantage point on the eastern fringes of Srinagar. This state-of-the-art property opened in 2011 with 82 spacious bedrooms, an excellent restaurant with ample terrace and a beautifully sited pool.
There is a host of trips to make from here. I spent a day taking in Mughal sights: the tranquil gardens of Shalimar Bagh and Nishat Bagh with gorgeous fountains and terraces; the ruins of Pari Mahal, a 17th-century palace and observatory built in the Zabarwan Hills just outside the city. I also headed up to the spectacular, pine-clad hill station of Gulmarg which offers summer hiking and pony trekking and skiing in winter.
Back in Srinagar I enjoyed an absorbing morning tour around the venerably tumble-down city. My guide was a designer, Renuka Savasere, who has been documenting the heritage of pashmina weaving. As we visited mosques and browsed markets, she explained how craftmanship is inherent in Kashmiri culture. Kashmir was on the Silk Road and trading also appears to be in its very DNA. Everyone, it seems, has a shop: in town, by the water, on the water in a boat.
The myriad shopping opportunities and gorgeous goods - soft, embroidered leatherware, never-ending varieties of fine woollen fabrics, beautiful bowls and boxes - were familiar from my childhood.
The quirky names, too. Suffering Moses was our favourite shop in the 1960s. Set on The Bund in central Srinagar, it is still producing exquisite hand-painted papier mch goods today. The lakes are still plied by Mr Wonderful, a flower merchant whose boat is emblazoned with the name. And then there's a Mr Delicious selling waterborne chocolates too.
I encountered them on Nagin Lake, on a quest to see if I could find the houseboat I had stayed on as a child. That proved a wonderfully easy mission. I simply asked a shikara boatman if he knew a houseboat Monarch, and he took me straight there, across the lake. The current Monarch is a gracious reincarnation of the vessel I had known; the owners are the same family and they gave me a touching welcome.
Would I return for lunch some time, they asked. So on my last day I did. We sat on the porch and, as I gazed at the beautiful outlook, I heard their story. During the height of the militancy their business all but closed, during which time they were harrassed, as many locals were, both by activists and by the army, often brutally so. So, like many Kashmiris, they packed up their pashminas and other fabrics and left, trading around India and as far afield as Thailand. They had been able to resume their houseboat business about six years ago.
Like everyone they knew, they just wanted peace. Enduring peace.
- Independent
