October 2011 - Another Valley
I'm sitting on the deck of a houseboat in the early morning mist, looking at life on Dal Lake in the Vale of Kashmir.
The surrounding mountains are just making their presence felt through the lifting mist.
A blue kingfisher cocks his head at us as he sits on the brow of the boat and a golden eagle circles effortlessly overhead. Shikaras, small gondola like boats, are gliding silently across the lake, propelled by heart shaped paddles.
At this time of the morning the scene has an ethereal quality as the silhouetted boats seem to be driven by a silent, unseen force.
Some are taking the children, dressed neatly in shirts and ties or head scarves, to school, their chattering voices the only sounds drifting across the lake.
Their elders are on their way to work, the soft colours of the women's saris reflected in the still waters that begin to shimmer in the first rays of the sun. The lake suddenly becomes alive with colour.
First comes the flower seller, his small boat laden with brilliantly coloured blooms.
A shikara laden with lily pads drifts past, another piled high with aubergines, tomatoes, lettuce and onions.
Our houseboy has just returned from the floating market with eggs for our breakfast.
In the evening we are enticed by the aroma of the shish kebab seller as he glides past.
There is a whole floating world here, the markets with general stores, tailors, the latest in saris and shalwar kameez, a post office, carpet shops, workshops of every kind, everything the locals and tourists could need. They all visit us showing off their wares, everything from fake, crudely made pieces to the most exquisitely crafted pashminas and jewellery.
The houseboat owners and their families live on mounds of land that have been built up behind the boats.
There are 500 of them here on the lakes in Srinigar, the capital of Kashmir, varying in degrees of comfort, but most of them with the beautiful ornate walnut carved panelling that is so famous here.
The scene could not be more peaceful, yet it could be illusory. As with the placid waters of the lake, much is hidden below the surface.
This small corner of India, up in the Himalayas and squeezed against the Pakistan border, has been fought over since 1989.
Originally an independent state, it was taken over by a Maharaja of India and then by the British, who decided at the time of Partition between India and Pakistan in 1949, that it should be part of India.
In 1989 there was an uprising, with the people again wanting independence and the Hindu population was driven out, so that the country is now almost 100% Muslim.
But then fundamentalists returning from wars in Afghanistan became violent and repressive and the war became a three way battle amongst India, Pakistan and the fundamentalists. It was a violent war lasting nearly twenty years.
Tourism, the life blood of the country, dried up completely as Kashmir was closed to all outsiders and the people faced starvation.
Now that peace has largely returned the Western tourists are gradually trickling back, although the burgeoning economy in the rest of India has meant that there has been an upsurge in domestic tourism.
However, there was another burst of violence in 2008 and the Indian military presence is everywhere.
Driving down the mountain passes that lead from Ladakh, we saw soldiers armed with machine guns in the fields and villages; here in the capital they are behind razor wire cages.
Even on the lake there are dozens of police boats and barbed wire lookouts. The people still want independence; they want India out but they don't want to be part of Pakistan.
We have spent three weeks travelling to this idyllic valley, most of the time in the high Himalayas, driving through the Spiti Valley up near the Tibetan border and then Ladakh, both areas stark and dessicated but awesome in their forbidding beauty and the sheer size and scale of the mountain landscape.
We have been travelling through remote valleys, over passes as high as 17,000 feet, until we wound down the final mountain pass into this fertile, lush green valley, looking far more like a corner of the European Alps than the Himalayan desert we had been experiencing. We have passed from Hindu, to Buddhist to Muslim worlds.
Here, where there used to be a relaxed fusion between Hindu and Muslim, the heavy hand of fundamentalism that caused so much disruption during the uprising hopefully appears to be fading away.
Here on the lake the troubles of the last two decades seem far away.
The houseboat owners and the traders are all smiling; they are hopeful about their future.
In this serene corner of a large and sprawling city, it is easy to forget the harsh landscape and violent politics that loom so very close.
The Kashmiris are a proud but essentially peace loving people.
Hopefully it is that that will prevail in the future.