Today I would be back on the road! WOOHOO!

Cities are all very well, and I had had a very nice time in Srinagar - the gardens, the monuments, the jungle, the food…and of course, the booze (finally) - but I was a rider on a riding trip…so I obviously wanted to be …riding!
The city of Srinagar itself is beautiful - and once you leave the city limits, the scenery becomes even more beautiful! A broad and beautiful green valley, with mountains all around and beautiful black roads in front of you like giant pythons basking in the sun.
Doodhpathri turned out to be a broad meadow with a small alpine river running through it. The riverbed is rocky (pathri), so the water froths and becomes milky white (doodh) - hence the name.
This area has been lately developed by the tourist department to showcase the natural beauty of the vast meadows and gentle rolling hills. They have built a narrow and sinuous road through the vast meadows till the river bed (which seems to be a most mysterious ‘road to nowhere’ when you ride on it for the first time! I kept checking my maps to ensure that I was on the right track. )
The place used to be just a grazing ground for the nomads to fatten their sheep, until some enterprising tourist guy got the idea to develop this as a tourist destination. It is fairly close to Srinagar and Gulmarg, so it gives the tourists a new thing to see, and also acts as a spillover catcher for excess tourists - and it’s a lovely spot!
Doodhpathri lies in a bowl shaped valley in the Pir Panjals -  an alpine valley covered with snow-clad mountains and meadows of pine, fir and deodar. The natural meadows, which are covered with snow in winter, allow the growth of wild flowers such as daisies, forget-me-nots, and buttercups during spring and summer. The lush green grasses over the vast meadows and silver-shining streams running over the large stones - Ah!
Gulmarg - as you may know - is one of the most famous places in Kashmir, and one of its main tourist draws. As you can probably tell from the name Gul = flower and Marg=meadow, it means a really romantic place - a meadow full of flowers.
I strolled around the bazaar - and gave a double-take when I saw a sign for a Cafe!

Burgers! Wraps! Sandwiches! WOOHOO!

I never thought that I will say this - but an uninterrupted diet of Kashmiri food was beginning to pall. No, scratch that - it had already palled. The thought of eating some modern western junk food was like the sight of the promised land!
Ah! That chicken wrap tasted so good! Yum yum yum!