KERAN, India – Barbed wire fencing, growling guard dogs, intimidating gun-toting soldiers and a large sign that reads “Respect All Suspect All” – these hardly seem like an ideal start to a holiday.

But it is through this Indian Army checkpoint that a soldier ushers me into Keran, an unlikely travel destination that has popped up at the heart of a decades-old conflict zone between two nuclear-armed neighbours – but not before he retains my government-issued identity card as a security measure.