Our today’s plan was to visit Pahalgam which is located 104 km from Srinagar and can be reached in 2 hrs. It is mainly associated with the annual Amarnath Yatra. Chandanwari, 16 km from Pahalgam, is the starting point of the yatra that takes place every year in the month of Sawan (July to August). As mentioned earlier, we were travelling like the locals, so we took a rickshaw from Dal Lake to Batmola. We then took a shared taxi to Anantnag and another shared taxi to Pahalgam (Rs. 130 per person for both the taxis). When we reached Pahalgam, it was raining but it stopped after few minutes. We had early lunch at Nathu’s, best food in Kashmir, the chole bature were awesome. In pahalgam, you have to take the local taxi to visit the sightseeing points. We took a taxi for Rs. 400 to Betaab Valley, spent 1 hour at the scenic valley. This was also a very beautiful place and a very known location for hindi movies. There are also other places at Pahalgam to visit, but due to time constraint, we had leave again for Srinagar and we took the return taxi. We would recommend atleast one night stay at Pahalgam to visit all its locations.
