Jon and Bec do Asia: A Kashmir Nightmare!

Well, as you know, me and Jon never do things by halves. We had just completed 2 days in Delhi, been shopping and done a tour of the city. Our next move was a 2 day tip to the Himalayas.Basically, we were totally mis-sold the trip, the tourist office told us we were going to the Hichmal Pradesh which is in North India, but is still covered by the normal laws as the rest of India. Anyway, these tourist guys were complete con-artists, they didnt give us our flight tickets until the mornign of the flight, even then it was only a flight going out, not a return. now alarm bells should have started ringing by that stage, even more so when we looked at the ticket and it was going to Srinagar, which is in bl00dy KASHMIR!! I had initial doubts about going, but we'd paid 200quid already for the trip, and we didnt want to lose our money. We asked several guides and workers at the airport, who told us "yeah that area is fine now, you dont have to worry", so we hopped on the plane up to the Himalayas.When we arrived, it was like we'd just landed in Baghdad. It was a dark, cold, rainy day (we were told it would be warm), the streets were dirty, crowded, everyone looked depressed and it was very intimidating. We had a car pick us up from the airport, and we were staying about 40mins away. As we drove through the towns, we could see army guards with guns on every corner, peering into cars to see who we were. Not a very pleasant experience for any trvaller let alone two newbies who only left Watford 2 days ago hahaha.Anyway we arrived, we were stayhing on a houseboat on Lake Nageen. The place looked intimidating from the start, dark, gloomy, totally out in the sticks with no other buildings around. We went in to be greeting by the manager "hello madam/sir!!! welcome! welcome!" Everything seemed ok at first, we had some breakfast, some Kashmir tea, we chatted and agreed to make the best of it and have a relaxing couple of days. Then the manager comes back in... "ok so lets talk about the tours you are going to do".. errr No we haven't booked any tours?! Plus we couldnt afford anything extra so we told him this straight away. This did not go down well. "STUPID F.CKING ENGLISH!!! You think 200 pound will get you a flight and a stay up here? You buy the tours!! Basically he was trying to force us to pay him more than a thousand pounds to book up a month tour of India after this trip. We were as polite as we could be, explaining we had only come up here for a relaxing couple of days and didnt want to pay anymore. He then threatened us with our flight home.. "Either you pay me now or you will not be leavign Kashmir. I know everyone here, the police, the army, you will have much trouble if you do not cooperate". OH SH1T!! We were thinking, it was like the film "Hostel" where the two backpackers slowly realise they are being held hostage and things are not workign out as they seem. I could see us being chopped up into little pieces and thrown into the lake that night.The manager became more and more irate as we pleaded with him that we just wanted our return flight and to leave there and then. He threw his credit and ID cards at us and said "Dont you know who I am?!! I am a big name round here, if you cross me I will call the police in here right now and there will be a lot of trouble". He then threatened Jon with "I will smash you in" and he was a big guy with lots of other men otuside. We were getting really scared at this point, I was almost in tears, we were shaking. There seemed to be no way out. We finally agreed to pay him another 16000 rupees (about another 200 quid) for two tours over the next couple of days in kashmir. This seemed to calm him and he gave us his word that he would give us our flight tickets when we paid him that night.Cue a very scared Bec and Jon, shivering in the freezing cold, sitting in a houseboat on a lake in Kashmir thinking to ourselves "what the hell have we got ourselves into". We knew this could turn serious, it's one thing getting into trouble in London, its another totally different thing when you are stuck in the middle of the Himalayas. (type in Kashmir and trouble in Google and you will see how bad the situation is out there).We spent the night wide awake scared out of our wits incase anything else happened. The next morning we met more tourists also staying there. We managed to whisper to them about our problems and it seemed they had all had the same thing. They had all been told they were going somewhere else, and somehow ended up here. They had all been forced to sign up to the India tour, paying another 1000-2000 pounds to the manager.Yesterday (19th Nov) we went on the tour that we had paid for. It was to see a mountain village called Sonomarg, high up in the Himalaya range. I can't deny that this was amazing, we saw some beautiful sights, met the local village people, rode on a horse up into the mountains, and had lunch in a gypsy house. BUT... this enjoyment was all marred by the fact that we had been forced to do these tours in such intimidating and expensive circumstances.We arrived back at the boats later that night, some of the other staff were trying to convince us to stay another night (NO WAY - not if you paid us). Luckily we had our plane tickets by this point so we told them our friend was picking us up(Darsh I told them it was your brother!). Thankfully the manager did not bother with us anymore (he must have realised we were sh1t scared and penniless so couldnt get anymore out of us. This morning we woke up, praying that everythign went smoothly. We crept around until 10am then asked for a lift to the airport. Once again they tried to deter us "oh just stay a while, your lift will be here soon". NO we told them, we want it now! Thankfully they gave in and a car took us to the airport, where we had to endue the most rigourous security checks I've ever seen. The place was filled with army, they were very intimidating and me and Jon finally gave sighs of relief when the plane took off.We met another couple on our flight who had stayed at the same place. They had not been given their return tickets until they had paid another thousand pounds for more tours. They literally were being told they couldnt leave until they had agreed to it. So, in the grand scale of things, me and Jon got off lightly, we lost a few hundred pounds and had a very scary experience, but money is nothing when you think about how bad it could have beenI cant really explain in words how scared we were, it was like being in a film. Several tourists in the past had been abducted and never found in Kashmir, and we were both having terrifying thoughts about us going the same way. It seems we were just the victims of a ring of corrupt tour agents who use intimidation to get money out of innocent touirists, but at the time it felt like our lives were in danger.Anyhow... everything is fine now. Thankfully the plane took off and landed in Delhi an hour later. We are now sitting in the main tourist part of Delhi, near the train station. Our hotel is a dump, it is dirty and with no aircon, but I was the happiest girl on earth when we finally checked into our own room. We have booked a train to Agra at 6am tomorrow morning, then we check into the 5* Murghal Sheraton resort (cant wait) for a day and a night for Jon's birthday. Then we have another day of sightseeing round Agra before getting another train to Jaipur in Rajasthan on the 23rd.Even though the last couple of days have been terrifying, we were scared sh1tless... everything is back on track now. We are with lots of other backpackers so we're more at ease. We smell though, haven't had a proper shower in a week almost. Looking forward to a day of luxury tomorrow.It would be easy for people to think "how on earth did they end up in such a mess"... but the Tourism company was listed in Lonely Planet, plus we asked loads of people about Kashmir now and they said it was safe. My advice is to always check your embassy online, we done this after we had arrived and it had warnings about travelling there. Still, you live and learn hey?! The only good thing to come out of the whole trip was that we got some amazing photos when we went up to Sonomarg in the Himalayan Mountains, some of which I've copied below: