Halfway up the Gulmarg gondola, my younger one started crying.
Not the dramatic crying she does at home when her brother gets the last samosa. The quiet kind. Tears just kind of leaking out, while she stared at the white below us. I asked her what was wrong and she said, "Amma, I didn't know snow looked like this."
She had seen snow in cartoons. She had seen it as the fake cotton on Christmas display windows at Phoenix Mall. Eight years of her life. And the actual thing was so different from what she had imagined that she did not know what to do with her face.
I tell you this because I was about to write the Kashmir post the way everyone writes it. Day 1 Srinagar, Day 2 Pahalgam, Day 4 Gulmarg gondola, "ride is two phases, Phase 2 needs altitude tolerance," et cetera. I have read fifteen of those posts. They are useful. They are also why nobody books a trip from reading them.
What actually happened on our trip was this.
We landed in Srinagar in May. My husband had booked a houseboat on Nigeen Lake because someone at his office had told him Dal was too crowded. He was right about that. Nigeen has fewer boats, the water is cleaner, and the family that ran our houseboat had a daughter the same age as ours. By the second day, my daughter was eating her dinner on their kitchen mat instead of with us.
The houseboat had a small dressing-table mirror that swung when the boat moved. My elder one, who is eleven and too cool, spent forty-five minutes trying to brush his hair in it without falling sideways. I will remember that more than the gardens we visited that afternoon.
The gardens, by the way, are fine. Shalimar, Nishat, Chashma Shahi. They are the three you'll be told to see. Pick two. I am sorry, but they look identical after the first one if you are not a Mughal architecture enthusiast. The kids agreed loudly. We stopped at Nishat, bought ice cream from a man with a bicycle cart, and went back to the houseboat for tea.
This is the thing about Kashmir with children that nobody mentions: the drives are long, and the children's attention spans are not. The road from Srinagar to Pahalgam is three hours. It is gorgeous, all saffron fields and apple orchards, but a child stops noticing scenery after the first twenty minutes. By the third hour they will be either asleep or asking when the destination is. There is no middle.
We broke the drive at Avantipura, an old ruined Vishnu temple from the ninth century. The kids did not care about the temple. But they cared about climbing on the broken stones. Forty minutes of unstructured running around. Best stop of the day.
In Pahalgam, we did the ponies up to Aru Valley. Confirm the price before you sit on the horse. We didn't. The man who said "five hundred rupees, madam" at the start was at "thirteen hundred each, plus tip" by the end, and the argument took longer than the ride. My husband paid it. I'd have walked back, but my husband is the better person.
The view of the Lidder from Betaab, though. That justifies the pony fight. The water is the colour of mint and runs faster than you expect. My screen-addicted older one put his phone in his pocket without being asked, which is the Kashmir equivalent of a child saying "I love you."
We ate trout at a small place run by a Wazwan family. It was the first time my daughter ate fish without complaint. The waiter brought her a small piece of bread shaped like a heart because she said she liked the design on the plate. These are the things, you know.
Then Gulmarg. We drove from Pahalgam directly, four hours, and I would not do that drive again with kids. Break it in Srinagar for a night if you can. We did not, because we had a flight to catch.
The hotel near Gulmarg's gondola station has the world's slowest hot water. Worth knowing. We waited forty minutes for two buckets and shared.
The gondola ride was the moment I started this story with. After my daughter stopped crying, she put her cheek against the glass and watched the snow for the full eight minutes. At Kongdoori (that's Phase 1, the first stop), we walked into the snow in rented gum boots. The boots are sweaty and not clean, but you don't want to ruin your own shoes either.
I'll say this about the snow gear sellers there. They will follow you with cheap rented snow suits and demand you take a photo with them. Tip generously if you do. They make their living in the four months Gulmarg has snow.
We did not do Phase 2 (the higher stop). My son begged. I read about altitude headaches in children and chickened out. He sulked for an hour. He'll forgive me eventually.
On the way down in the gondola, my daughter fell asleep against my arm. She had stopped staring at the snow. I think her brain had run out of capacity to be impressed. Eight years old, first real snow.
The last day was the slow drive back to Srinagar, a long lunch at the hotel, and the evening flight. I tried to fit Sonmarg into that day. Don't. Six hours of driving for a view, with cranky children, is not what you remember a trip for.
What I remember:
The mirror on the houseboat. The bread shaped like a heart. My daughter's face in the gondola. The hot water that never came. The pony price argument. A child who, two weeks after we got back, told her school art teacher that her favourite colour was now "Kashmir blue, the one in the river."
Total cost for our family of four, five nights, direct flights from Bangalore via Delhi, was around Rs 1.4 lakhs. The houseboat was the main expense. You can do it cheaper. Most people will tell you to. I would not, because the houseboat is part of the memory.
If you have children under three, wait two years. They will not remember it. If they are five to fourteen, go. Now is fine, even if you've heard otherwise on the news. The valley is open, the security is visible without being oppressive, the people are kind.
And if you are in the gondola, and your kid starts crying, don't immediately ask what's wrong. Wait. Some things do not have a sentence for them yet.