VARIOUS EXPEDITIONS 47
which, though unmetalled, is in dry weather quite good. I have left Srinagar in a motor car at 8.45, have spent over an hour going round Islamabad, have eaten lunch under the glorious chenar trees at Bijbehara, and have been home again at Srinagar by 8.15 the same afternoon.
Down the river are equally delightful tours to be made. At Shadipur, at the junction of the Sind River with the Jhelum River, there is a charming grassy camping-ground under chenar trees. Ganderbal is a few miles higher up the Sind River, and forms the base for expeditions to (1) the Wangat ruins and the Gangarbal Lake, an exquisite torquoise-coloured sheet of water repos- ing immediately beneath the great cliff and glaciers of the Haramokh mountain ; and (2) the beautiful Sind valley with its grand mountain scenery, and the charming camping-ground of Sonamarg (the golden meadow) also under towering mountain masses and close to glaciers. Up this valley lies the road to the Zoji-La Pass, on the far side of which branch off roads to Baltistan, on the one hand, with its fine ibex-shooting ground, immense glacier region, and K?, the second highest mountain in the world; .and on the other to Ladak with its Buddhist monasteries perched on any rocky
