India - May '08: Day 13

Today we took a break from ministry and refreshed ourselves with a bit of local sightseeing. None of the team had been in this region of India before, so I wasn’t the only one looking around with wide-eyed wonder.

The mountains are beautiful! The local people are definitely different from their countrymen in southern India. The cultural influences of Pakistan and the Middle East are very prevalent in the market places and villages. In the city of Srinagar, the mountains, an average winter snowfall of over six feet, combined with the multi-storied houses with sharply pitched roofs, gave the area a bit of a “Scandinavian” flavor.

Of course the constant military and security presence color the culture with a darker hue, but I think I have gotten used to it. Every 100 meters or so in the city, and every 500 meters in the rural areas is a heavily armed solider or machine-gun bunker. Ah, life in a terrorist-ridden area!

Tomorrow we conduct a medical camp in a Muslim community. That ought to be interesting!