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" people were calling not to check in, but to cancel "
In April, when the tourist season in the Kashmiri township of Pahalgam had just begun to warm— apple blossoms opening, small chai dhabas dusting off plastic chairs, pony men jogging their horses along the riverside— a group of visitors was attacked while returning from a day walk. It was one of the deadliest assaults on civilians in the valley in years, and among the victims were honeymooners, photographers, and whose backpacks were still filled with apricot kernels and souvenirs carved from walnut wood.
In Srinagar, a guesthouse owner named Naeem, who has run a three-room homestay for two decades, remembers the exact moment the news broke.
“ The phone rang and it didn’ t stop ringing for two hours,” he said, seated on the veranda where tourists used to drink kehwa while watching the sun reflect off Dal Lake.“ People were calling not to check in, but to cancel.”
Within a day he had lost his entire May and June bookings. He still keeps the cancellation emails in a folder called“ 2025,” as though labelling the year might keep its weight contained.
For travellers visiting the subcontinent in early 2025, the region had seemed poised for something else entirely. India was preparing for a bumper tourist season, riding on a surge of post-pandemic travel and renewed interest in heritage circuits, Himalayan trekking routes, and culinary-focused itineraries. Pakistan, too, was enjoying a modest revival, buoyed by glowing international coverage of mountain tourism in Gilgit-Baltistan, expanded flight routes into Islamabad and Lahore, and a series of highprofile cultural festivals meant to signal openness and stability. In January, tour operators were celebrating forward bookings that exceeded even the optimistic forecasts. By June, those same operators were texting each other not about itineraries and hotel allocations, but about evacuation plans, insurance lapses, and the grim logistics of getting stranded clients home.
Buddhi Singh, of Motorcycle Expeditions, had a unique bike-based expedition in place, a ride on the famed
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