I would do the land-based tourist trip - the magnificent Mughal gardens of Srinagar!
​I rode off to the biggest of them all - the Shalimar gardens!
The Mughals were great gardeners right from Babur’s times - and I found it rather touching that people living in stark and bleak Central Asia should be such keen gardeners. One can understand Englishmen loving gardening - it rains so much there that growing stuff must be a breeze. But somehow the image of bloodthirsty nomads who spent their time riding around and killing and looting  and burning cities and raising mountains of skulls - and then being keen gardeners and snipping leaves and spraying bugs and hoeing flower beds and debating the best kind of manure -  is rather funny.
And it seems to be a big thing for Muslims too - the concept of the Islamic garden, representative of paradise. Which is also rather strange - coming from a creed which was born in the burning sands of the Arabian desert and preached and practiced by roving merchants and desert nomads - who wouldn’t be likely to have a nice garden to potter around in. While rainy and fertile India no doubt knew about flowers and stuff  -  there doesn’t seem to be any formal gardening culture in pre-islamic India.  The first documented records of gardening and its techniques are found in the Muslim history of India, which were first introduced from Central Asia and Persia, taking root under various Muslim rulers who ruled the land. They improved the existing styles of gardens and developed their own, which culminated in the beautiful gardens built by the Mughal rulers of India.
The Emperor Jahangir and his wife Nur Jahan lavished almost all their attention on Kashmir and Lahore, the northern cities of the Mughal Empire. Nur Jahan his wife had made Kashmir the summer quarters of their court, and filled the city with awesome gardens.

One of the biggest of these gardens was this Shalimar bagh - where I was now.
The Emperor Jahangir  himself had it laid out 1619 - as his Royal Residence during his stay in Kashmir! He probably didn’t want to stay in stuffy palaces and mahals - he probably had enough of marble and stones and dust in Delhi and Agra. He wanted to stay in what was effectively a giant and permanent picnic!
He dreamt of a lovely garden with streams running through it and its pathways overshadowed with large Chinar trees.  The garden was divided into three parts. One part was the Diwan E aam - it  was accessible to the ‘aam’ or common people who come to see the big boss and do salaam and beg for favours or bring complaints etc. Then you had the Diwan E khaas - which was restricted to the ‘khaas’ - the nobility and hotshots, who could interact with the boss without having to rub shoulders with the hoi polloi. And then you had the core private area - the Zenana, where the harem lived and the emperor could retire there for privacy and kinky R&R with the ladies - but probably just ended up getting nagged by all the women!
All these gardens need a lot of upkeep, else they would go to seed very fast - and so it was lucky for us that the rulers after the Mughals also liked the gardens. Shalimar became the pleasure garden of the Sikhs -  and during the rule of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the marble pavilion was the guest house for European visitors.
It was well-maintained after Independence and even through the horrible terrorist times - and here I was today to enjoy it myself!
WOOHOO!
What a lovely place! What a lovely setting! What a lovely garden!
After the advent of Muslim rule, especially under the Mughals, Chinar became a major garden and landscape tree, and dominates many historic gardens. It is a living heritage of Kashmir and is seen as a symbol for the region
There was a charming sign put up by the garden authorities  on one of the trees, where it introduced itself.
The black pavilion in the top terrace of the Shalimar Bagh which was built during the early part of Jahangir's reign, has the famous inscription in Persian - a couplet by a Persian poet - which says:

Agar Firdaus bar rōy-e zamin ast, hamin ast-o hamin ast-o hamin ast.
(If there is a paradise on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here.)
Dachigam National Park is a national park located quite close to my hotel.
It was initially created to ensure a supply of clean drinking water for Srinagar - and then was upgraded and declared a National Park in 1981. It’s a fairly mountainous terrain - with mountains rising above 4000 mtrs!  Due to this vast variation, the park has all kinds of habitat - ranging from gently sloping grasslands to sharp rocky outcrops and cliffs.
‘Come, let’s go into jungle! You have a motorcycle? Awesome - it will save us a long walk. Cars are not allowed inside, but bikes are OK.’


WOOHOO! WHAT FUN! RIDING INSIDE A JUNGLE!


This was total bucket-list stuff! Riding my Royal Enfield inside a jungle in the evening! What a feeling! The air was cool and the crickets had started their concert in full swing. It was a surreal experience to see the dense forest zoom by as we rode through the narrow paths.
Langoors are handsome monkeys - they look like sophisticated elderly gentlemen with their long white hair and long sinuous tails and dark black faces. Even the small kiddos jumping all the over the place and roughhousing and hanging on to their elders tails look elderly and sophisticated!
‘The langoors hang out here because there are lots of acorns here.’ He explained. ‘The bears will come where the langoors are, because they know that there will be lots of acorns around for them.’
We sat in silence for a long long time. The day waned and turned into the darkling evening, and the air became cool and refreshing.
And finally the guide stiffened and clutched my arm!
‘See there!’ he whispered.
The big boys had come at last!
After a few minutes, the guide motioned to me to leave. We had had a fine sighting, and it was time to leave them alone to their wandering and not overstay our welcome.

‘Exeunt, Pursued by a Bear’, as Shakespeare would have said.