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I am sitting in Jet Airways flight from Delhi to Bengaluru and returning from my 10 day vacation at Jammu-Kashmir.
When I told my reporting manager that I would be climbing a mountain upto 13 kms, he had told me it is not vacation but lot of work.
Since Saturday 15th March 2014, I have been travelling in J & K state, the northernmost state of India.
I left Bangalore by morning flight of Jet Airways and reached Delhi by mid-morning to catch the next flight to Srinagar, the capital city of Jammu-Kashmir. I had done a transit check-in of my baggage and did not have to collect it at Delhi Airport.
My mobile was not detecting the network signal as I had forgotten to enable roaming facility.
Anyway, I lent a police officer's mobile, called my travel agent and informed him that I had reached Srinagar and he told me that the driver was there with a card displaying my name.
I met the driver Niyaz and went to the taxi. It had snowed at Srinagar and it was the first time I was seeing snow.
The driver clicked a photo of mine in front of the Srinagar Airport and then we proceeded to the hotel Dar-E-Salam.
We could not go the local market because a curfew had been imposed in Srinagar.
I was also very tired and told the driver to leave as I had decided to stay in the hotel for the rest of the day.
I slept like a log and got up late night when the room attendant knocked the door and told me dinner was ready. The food at Dar-E-Salam was excellent with a greens preparation, rotis and lot of dal and rice.
Just like Kannadigas, Kashmiris also eat rice unlike wheat eaten in many regions of India.