We never recommend Pahalgam's Baisaran to tourists: Kerala travel entrepreneur Geethu Mohandas

Malayali travel entrepreneur Geethu Mohandas, who runs the platform 'Lets Go For A Camp,' could hardly sleep last night. Her three batches of tourists — families consisting of five, eight and six members — are still at Kashmir's Pahalgam, where around 26 people, most of them tourists, died in a terrorist attack on Tuesday afternoon. Geethu is glad that all of them are safe in their accommodation facilities in Srinagar.

The region is now swarming with choppers and ambulances, and the once-tranquil atmosphere feels anything but touristy, says Geethu, who has travelled multiple times to Pahalgam.
"They had all just begun their Kashmir trips and will return in four days. I also have a few other tourists whose trips to Kashmir are lined up for next week. While no trips have been officially cancelled yet, fear is palpable, and many are now discussing whether it would be wise to go ahead with their plans or not," she says.

'Never recommended Baisaran'
Baisaran, where the terrorist attacks happened, is a spot that looks stunning in photos and reels. However, Geethu opines that her experience at Baisaran, whenever she visited the spot, wasn't great. She explains, "It has an extremely steep terrain, where tourists are pushed to hire horses to see the 'mini Switzerland.' However, the horses are extremely famished; we can see they are overworked and are treated very poorly. The pony handlers take too many tourists on the horses up the hill for quite a few kilometres.

"The ride downhill is also extremely scary. The situation worsens when it rains. Moreover, the spot is quite isolated and is surrounded by forests." Geethu says that unless tourists insist on adding Baisaran to their itinerary, she excludes it from the watch list. Instead, Aru, Betaab, and Chandan valleys, which are much more peaceful and scenic, are included in the trip. "In one of our trips in 2022, a trip coordinator fell from a horse and got injured. However, the pony handlers didn't even help us hospitalise the person, fearing police intervention," she recalls. 

'It wasn't unsafe, but...'
A few years ago, Geethu even undertook solo trips in the region, including some of its interior areas. She confesses that the local people, including the drivers and others, were extremely hospitable and warm. "When I expressed concern about staying in certain areas, the guides, drivers and others always assured me that nobody attacks tourists. 'They will attack me first, and you will be safe,' said those peace-loving people. It hurts me that the communal angle to the incident might lead to people treating them with hatred," she says. In the past few years, more tourists have been visiting Kashmir and 2025 has been one of its most crowded years, observes Geethu. 
'Pahalgam' has more than one million search volume on Google Trends over the past 19 hours.