OnTheRoad

The roads have been rough indeed since my last update, in the physical sense at least. The travel experience has been great :) From Madyan, Swat, where I last updated, I have travelled many a poor road indeed.

From Madyan I went to Chitral, via Mingoara, Timaghara and Dir. The roads grew worse from place to place, with the Lowari Pass between Dir and Chitral marking a particularly poor piece of road, one that would be 4WD only in NZ; nonetheless, we made it through in a van, packed full of around twice as many people should be in a van. We only needed to be towed out of one ford, which is pretty impressive given that parts of the road are literally carved through a glacier, with streams running through. I wasn't sure whether the nighttime travel was a blessing or a curse as we traversed innumerable switchbacks over drops I could only estimate from the distance to the lights of other vehicles on switchbacks below. It would have been great to see the scenery; on the other hand, maybe I was more comfortable without!

From Chitral, the road doubled back to the Kalasha valley of Rumbur, where I took far too many photos. Those you see in the Rumbur Valley photo collection are but a sample of the many taken. Rumbur was awesome, by the way, something of a relief from the pervading Islamic culture. I don't notice it most of the time, but suddenly I was able to interact with women again, I was talking to, shaking hands with, drinking tea with them! I can imagine how young men from these countries feel when they arrive in a Western country...

That aspect aside, the valleys are beautiful also. The Kalasha people live in a way relatively unchanged by modern technology; telephones haven't made it into Rumbur yet, although there is electricity for some people. Steep valley walls are filled with irrigation channels, terraced fields and goats. Houses climb on top of one another up the slopes. Fir trees and glaciers crowd the side valleys and roaring streams and rivers occupy the centre of any gully.

I could have stayed there much longer, but there was much more to see. Up at half past five, I dragged myself away from Ingineer Khan's excellent guesthouse and made my way back through Ayun to Chitral. After doing the essentials (finding peanut butter on a tip passed on by fellow Kiwi travellers, accessing the hordes of email that piles up after five days away - mainly work related, unfortunately - email me people!) I found a place on a cargo jeep to Mastuj. I couldn't find a better transport, unfortunately, as it took six hours for the four hour trip. Bear in mind, that this is only 100km folks, but involved some of the worst road on this trip so far, between Buni and Mastuj. Still, the views from my seat on top of a couple of tons of tinned goods and tea were beautiful indeed, the company was friendly and I was deposited outside the Foreigner Tourist Paradise in Mastuj at half past ten. I was greeted, once I had woken the staff, with a pot of good green tea (a relief from the excessively sweet, excessively milky dut chai normally drunk in Pakistan) and was asleep almost instantly.

Up for breakfast before six and out the door before sever, I hiked with Aki to the road junction, 3 km away, where we hoped to catch a lift to the Shandur Pass or further. I'd ran into Aki as we left the Kalasha valley's (he from Bomboret, I from Rumbur) and we'd went to Chitral together. I managed to catch him again in Mastuj, although his transport sounded much more comfortable than mine...

After a few hours waiting we were picked up by a very comfortable jeep for a trip over the Shandur Pass. Crossing over 3,800 meters, we were about the height of Mt Aoraki (Mt Cook), the highest yet I've travelled without being in a plane. The road was surprisingly decent most of the way, although a couple of strategically placed large boulders apparently blocked things for larger transport options like the NATCO busses.

After a few stops for some trout fishing (a sport enjoyed by our drivers) we arrived in Phander for the night. Super basic accommodation, but with friendly staff and tasty curry, there wasn't a lot to do there. We walked about looking for some lake, but just got rained on a lot and met a lot of locals instead. Ismaili Muslims are now my favourite of the lot, they're vastly more colourful than most and the women a lot less repressed. As per usual, we were invited in for tea many times and much appreciated it was, the warm milky sweetness doing wonders for our cold, wet bodies.

A third early start, four in the morning this time, got us on a bus towards Gilgit. The road from this point on was the best I'd seen in a couple of weeks; it had tarseal on it. And almost no potholes! A quick change in some-town-the-name-of-which-I-can't-recall had us in Gilgit before midday.

And so here you find me, my friends, finally I've made it across to the famed Karakorum Highway, which runs north from here to China (about seven hours) and south almost to Rawalpindi (much longer). There's plenty of hiking to be done, mountains to climb, and it's not hot here. So I'm pretty much in Paradise :)