Stay on a Houseboat

A houseboat (different from a boathouse, which is a shed for storing boats (though I wouldn't mind staying in that either)) is a boat that has been designed or modified to be used primarily as a home.

In India, houseboats have become a popular form of accommodation for tourists, particularly in Kashmir and Kerala. Unlike in Kerala, where houseboats can take you on overnight cruises in the backwaters and out to sea, houseboats in Kashmir are stationary. The tourist houseboats are usually attached by wooden planks to the owners' family houseboats. This allows them to easily attend to the guests, do the housekeeping and deliver food.

Some of these houseboats have been around for over 100 years. They are made of very durable wood and usually have intricately carved wood panelings. The houseboat people like these intricate patterns so much that almost every surface on the houseboat is covered with them--from the walls to the ceiling to the curtains and the upholstery--giving you a major sensory overload (just like everything else in India).

In the living room

At the balcony

There are hundreds of houseboats on Dal Lake to choose from, some boasting a 5-star quality (with matching price tags). On our visit to Kashmir last month, we stayed for three nights with the Snowgoose Group of Houseboats. The manager wasn't around during our visit, so instead, we were entertained by a man named Jaz who took us to his father's houseboat.

Jaz is a gregarious 30-year-old man (married, with one kid), who lives in Delhi but comes to visit every few months. Behind his father's back, he smoked one joint after another, sharing it with his friend cum our driver. My partner and I don't smoke but we generally tolerate people who do. However, Jaz thought it was fun to blow the smoke in our faces and laugh at our 'cute reaction'. When we didn't find it as amusing as he did, he simply did it again, and again, saying, "Sorry, it's my habit."

Our room on the houseboat

Our houseboat had four rooms (each with an en-suite bathroom), a kitchen and a living room. Every bathroom had  a Western-style toilet, a bathtub and hot water. Because we were the only guests at that time, we got the biggest room with two beds--one double and one single.

Jaz offered the room as part of a package that was supposed to include free shikara rides, a full-day tour around Srinagar, a two-night camping trip in Naranag with meals and transportation, bus tickets from Srinagar to Delhi, a full-day tour in Delhi and an airport transfer. As it turned out, our Srinagar tour took only a few hours because the weather was 'too hot' for him. We also ended up having to pay for his lunch at an expensive restaurant he recommended. 

The day before our camping trip, he told us he was going to the market to buy our food supply (chicken and beef for barbecue, eggs, a loaf of bread, biscuits, several cans of beer for me, large bottles of soft drinks for my partner who's a non-drinker, and lots of fruits). However, we only had meat (chicken) on our first night. The rest of our meals only consisted of rice with potatoes, onion and dhal, which in itself wouldn't have been a problem (we're not picky eaters), but we felt cheated because of all his empty promises. There was no beef or bread or biscuits or large bottles of soft drinks as promised. The only things he bought were chicken, eggs, some banana, and a small bottle of Mountain Dew which he drank half of. Later in the night he bought another small bottle of Coke, half of which he offered to my partner, while the other half was used as a mixer for his rum.

We found out that the rest of the money had been spent on his cigarettes, hash and alcoholic drinks to get me drunk enough to sleep with him. He himself got drunk and kept trying to touch me, even after I repeatedly told him not to. He apologized for this the next morning, saying it was a one-off thing, that he never got drunk on the job before, that he didn't know what happened to him last night, that he lost control because I was so beautiful and he was having problems with his wife, blah blah blah--all the typical stuff men like him would say--and then did the exact same thing the next night. He even confessed to buying a box of condoms to bring on the trip.

Our bus to Delhi was cancelled because of a riot that caused the government to cancel all interstate bus services. So we had to fork out more money to pay for a shared taxi to Jammu, followed by a sleeper bus from Jammu to Delhi.

As if that wasn't enough, Jaz cancelled our Delhi tour and airport transfer because it would be 'troublesome to arrange to meet with the driver' since we didn't have a local simcard or wifi connection. Instead he gave us two metro cards, which he said had sufficient balance to get us around Delhi and to the airport. It turned out one of the cards was expired and the other had only 28 rupees (USD 0.40) on it. We contacted him to complain about this, and he promised to refund us the money for both the Delhi bus and the city tour through our bank accounts later in the week (yah, right).
[Edit: Three months later, he still hasn't refunded our money, making excuses after excuses. BUT, he had the cheek to invite me to come to Goa, offering to pay for my tickets and expenses as long as I come alone and share a room with him and 'be romantic' with him. What a joke!]

Despite the annoyances we experienced with Jaz, I still wrote a good review for the houseboat, solely because of the father, the kindly old man who treated us like his own children, and who was unaware of what his son was up to.

With the father (owner of the houseboat), whom we called Baba

Staying on a houseboat is definitely a unique way to experience Kashmir. The only downside is that you can't come and go as easily as you'd like. You're going to have to call a shikara (water taxi) to take you to dry land. Your houseboat owner might have a small sampan of their own that you can rent or borrow, but this may not always be available, especially if there are other guests on that houseboat. Alternatively, you can get a houseboat that is moored right by the banks, where you can get on land as soon as you step out of your door, although if you're doing this, maybe you should ask yourself why you wanted to stay on a houseboat in the first place.