INBOX

Our favourite letters and messages this month

I’m a 60-something woman recently back from a monthlong trip to India. My friend and I did two treks: one guided in Sikkim [on the border of Tibet]; the other a self-guided Markha Valley trek in desert-like Ladakh, descending into Kashmir via the infamous Zoji La pass. Then we spent five idyllic days on a beautiful, historic houseboat in Srinagar.

One experience that stands out was a trip to a market. At 4am we climbed onto Mohammed’s canopied shikara [boat] and paddled off over an inky black, star-studded surface, to the sound of myriad imams’ prayers broadcast through loudspeakers and further amplified across Nigeen Lake. We passed water lilies and rows of floating vegetable gardens, under low bridges and along narrow channels covered with minute, green duckweed.

It took over an hour to get there. Morning had broken and we stopped among a melee of low boats, in each a tradesman carrying the hope of a sale. One by one they pulled up next to our shikara and delighted us with conversation and sticks of the sweetest cinnamon, fresh green cardamom, fragrant cumin and special masala. They also had paper cups of sweet walnut tea, honey macaroons, tins of saffron, 11-spice Kashmiri tea, fur hats and embroidered slippers.

We eventually headed back to our houseboat. Over a mirror we paddled, while the silver sun rose over hazy grey mountains. The only sounds were the early birdsong of rooster, cuckoo and coot and Mohammad’s gentle song asking Allah to keep his boat straight.

– Vivien Connell, Cape Town