In 1999, at twenty-six, I was looking for somewhere to disappear. Instead, I bought a ticket to Kashmir.
“Would you go if you were me?” I asked the flight attendant at the Delhi airport, holding a one-way ticket to Kashmir.
I was twenty-six years old and on a three-month soul-searching trip through Asia — a journey born from burnout and the growing ache of a life that looked perfect on paper but felt hollow inside.
I had been working in London, travelling across Europe for a press agency and living what other people might have called a dream life.
But I felt like a stranger in my own story.
When I arrived in Delhi, what I wanted was quiet. Somewhere to reflect. Somewhere I could hear myself think again.
So when a travel agent with an easy smile suggested Kashmir — “the summer retreat of the British,” he told me, “peaceful, serene, with houseboats floating on Dal Lake and the Himalayas in the distance” — I said yes.
It sounded idyllic.
It was only later, sitting in my hotel room, that I turned on the television and realized what I had done.
I had bought a ticket to a warzone.
Kashmir — a place of astonishing beauty and a deeply complicated history — was at the centre of the conflict between India and Pakistan. It was 1999, the year of the Kargil War.
How could I have been so naïve?
The next morning, I marched back to the travel agent, ready to demand my money back.
He leaned back in his chair, fingers laced behind his head, and smiled.
“If I refund you, I have to charge you a $100 cancellation fee,” he said. “Same price as your ticket. You might as well go.”
And so I did.
The Space Between Fear and Wonder
At the airport, the doubt returned.
The mirror in the plane bathroom had been removed for security reasons. My water bottle and book were scanned. I looked around the cabin and realized I appeared to be the only solo Western woman onboard.
I found the flight attendant.
“Would you go if you were me?” I asked her again.
She looked at me steadily, head tilted in that familiar Indian gesture.
“Only you can make that decision.”
I wanted someone to tell me it would be okay.
Instead, I had to decide for myself.
When I landed, a driver who spoke very little English ushered me into a taxi, then onto a small boat, and then another.
As the gondola glided through the still waters of Dal Lake, I thought, What am I doing?
And then the landscape opened up.
Light shimmered across the water. Wooden houseboats appeared like relics from another era. Beyond them, the Himalayas rose into the distance.
It’s so beautiful, I thought.
And somewhere in that moment, my fear softened.
Maybe this was what adventure really looked like — the space between fear and wonder.
The Houseboat
My houseboat was called Khar Palace.
I was alone, except for a cook who appeared each evening with mutton and rice and a shy smile.
One night, he offered me hashish in exchange for a cigarette.
I said “sometimes,” not wanting to seem too eager.
He disappeared and returned hours later, clearly stoned, carrying my cigarette and a small joint.
Then, without saying a word, he began laying out a mattress in the middle of the room.
The absurdity of the situation finally got to me.
I laughed.
Then I slipped into my cabin, locked the door and whispered to myself:
“Relax. You’re safe. This is the adventure you asked for.”
That night, I slept deeply.
I woke to the call to prayer echoing across the lake as dawn painted the mountains pink.
Learning to Be Alone
Over the next few days, time slowed.
Merchants paddled up to my deck selling fruit and trinkets. I bought a small gemstone ring — a talisman I still have.
I visited a carpet maker and watched his hands move rhythmically through silk and wool.
But mostly, I sat on the deck and wrote.
I wrote about fear and freedom.
About being alone.
About purpose — the kind of purpose that can sometimes only be discovered when the familiar falls away.
There was still a faint hum of danger in the air.
But I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time.
Alive.
That trip became a turning point in my life.
Not because Kashmir taught me that nothing bad could happen if I was brave enough. It didn’t.
And not because I suddenly stopped being afraid.
Quite the opposite.
I learned that fear and wonder can exist in the same place.
That you can be frightened and curious at the same time.
That sometimes the life you are looking for begins just beyond the edge of what feels comfortable.
I went to Kashmir looking for somewhere quiet enough to hear myself again.
I didn’t know it then, but I was beginning to understand something that would follow me for the rest of my life:
I am an explorer at heart.
Not necessarily because I want to see more of the world.
But because I need to keep discovering what lies beyond the life I already know.
