Best Indian Kashmir Srinagar Pahalgam Gulmarg Sonamarg Dal Lake Amarnath Mughal Gardens Deep Paradise On Earth
Browse more guides: India travel | Asia destinations Best of Jammu and Kashmir, India: Srinagar Dal Lake, Pahalgam, Gulmarg, Sonamarg, Amarnath, Mughal Gardens & Kashmir Valley - A 2026 First-Person Guide Published 2026 by Saikiran for visitingplacesin.com. Independent travel notes, no sponsorship. 1. Why Kashmir Sits at the Top of My India List The first time I floated on Dal Lake at 5:47 a.m., the mist had not yet lifted off the chinar leaves, a single shikara was carving a slow V across the water, and the muezzin at Hazratbal was halfway through fajr. I was lying flat on a hand-knotted Kashmiri rug on the prow of a 1962 cedarwood houseboat, sipping kahwa tea poured from a samovar by a man named Bashir who had introduced himself the night before with a soft "Aadab." I had read for twenty years that the Mughal emperor Jahangir, on his deathbed, was asked what he wished for. The story, possibly apocryphal but stitched into every Kashmiri tourism brochure, says he a...