Jammu & Kashmir

Srinagar is a city that decided, centuries ago, to be partly liquid. The Jhelum loops through its old town under medieval wooden bridges; the Dal and Nigeen lakes hold whole floating districts, houseboats, floating gardens, vegetable plots anchored on reed mats, water lanes with addresses. I stayed, as one must at least once, on a houseboat: carved cedar, crewel-work curtains, a name (mine was inevitably grand) painted in circus letters, and an owner, Bashir sahib, whose family has kept boats since his great-grandfather's time. The houseboats themselves are a colonial loophole turned heritage, the Dogra maharajas barred Europeans from owning Kashmiri land, so the British built their residences on water, and the valley kept the beautiful workaround long after it outlived the rule. Evenings,

Bashir sahib's brother paddled me out in the shikara through the lake's inner lanes: kingfishers on the willow snags, lotus gardens, floating shops selling everything from saffron to photographs of you buying saffron, and the mountain light doing its slow expensive things to the water. 'Other cities have traffic,' he said, resting the paddle to let a kettle of tea pass between two boats mid-lake. 'We have current.'