Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
#15 in this series having delivered us to Dal Lake’s floating market, this chapter’s photos convey what the market looks like in 2024.
I am reliably informed that, as both “key local vegetable market” and as “tourist attraction”, it has become much-diminished over the last several years.
It is, however, still fascinating.
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At 5.46 am on 06 May 2024, we were at Dal Lake’s floating market.
My photo is looking at two strangers – to us – but they were also satisfied customers of the lake’s “tea king”.
Over four days, we floated across parts of Dal Lake on at least eight occasions.
Aside from members of our own party, the pictured couple were the only “Westerners” we saw in a Shakira.
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As with the preceding post, this one’s two images show obviously-different kinds of tourists.
The featured image documents a family group.
The photo below shows a more “laddish” one
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From one “tourist” Shikara to another, the “vibe”/“age demographic”/demeanour can be very different.
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The man in sharp focus is almost certainly a “local”, commuting, at 5.38 pm on 04 May 2024.
His Shikara is modest, undecorated, and he is not trying to sell anything; presumably, therefore, he is not engaged in “the tourist trade”.
Behind, in soft-focus are the category of humans who – “in season”, at least – comprise the majority on Dal Lake.
Even in “soft-focus” the reality of most tourists’ behaviour in 2024 is sadly obvious – their lenses’ focus is not on the various delights of their “holiday destination”.
As you can see, they are taking “selfies”.
That is not the only thing which most Dal Lake tourists currently have in common.
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Most of the shopping on Dal Lake involves highly mobile “shops” – Shikaras (local boats) of varying sizes.
Some are elaborately decorated, others are not decorated at all.
However, some goods need more opportunity for both “display” and “shelter” than a Shikara can provide.
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As pictured above, at 5.37 am on 06 May 2024 the man we later dubbed “the tea king of Dal Lake” was zeroing in on his next “target”: us.
We and he were at the floating market.
”No thank you” – a phrase we had spoken several times by the time I took the photo – was clearly the “wrong” response, and not worthy of his acceptance.
Our hero insisted that we see and smell how evidently superb was his freshly-brewed Kashmiri tea.
I suspect that Dal Lake has no more forceful “marketer”; even in an inland sea of enthusiastic salesmanship (and, almost invariably, the sellers are males) this bloke stood out!
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“The Flower Man” billed himself as such on the side of his painted Shikara.
We encountered him repeatedly.
”The Flower Man” was softly-spoken, never “pushy”.
He well knew that attractive, well-displayed flowers would “sell themselves”.
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Over three days, we saw this post’s hero repeatedly, each day.
I am pretty sure that he has been “selling to tourists” for at least several decades.
He was unfailingly courteous, persistent, assiduous.
On any given day, he would call in on a great many of Dal Lake’s “better” houseboats, in addition to often happening along to wherever some of the more “deluxe” tourist-carrying Shikaras happened to be.
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Dal Lake is the “Alice’s Restaurant” of lakes.
As some of us are old enough to have heard when the relevant lyric was new, in 1967 a 20 year Arlo Guthrie delivered the following words:
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant
Excepting Alice
Imagine that you are out on Dal Lake – or relaxing, somewhere along its shoreline – at any daylight hour, on any fine day…
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