Return to Islamabad

After leaving Skardu we drove for a couple of hours before stopping for breakfast - chai and channa (chickpea curry) at a truck-stop.

They were quite amused to see tourists there.

Pakistani trucks always look great, the drivers are rightly proud of them and spend a lot of time keeping them clean. Our dirty car always looks a disgrace in comparison.

Many trucks are dangerous works of art, the detail is amazing. Apparently they are all decorated at significant expense in a particular place in the car market in Rawalpindi. If we weren't selling the Landcruiser then we would definitely get something done, as long as it was tough-looking of course, no love-hearts or flowers.

The driving is not always the best though, later we passed a truck whose wheel had gone over the edge. Mind you, if this was India they'd be plunging to their deaths left, right and centre.

As you near the KKH there is a view of the Nanga Parbat massif where we had been trekking a few days before.

Unfortunately, back on the KKH the 205km journey from Chilas to Besham turned into a marathon 14 hour drive into the night. This section of the KKH is in really bad condition. Broken concrete, road-works and potholes drive you a bit crazy, but the biggest problem was the mandatory police escorts.

All in all six escorts, apparently for our own safety. Ironically the police and military are the targets of choice so it probably has the opposite effect.

1. Stopped at a check-post outside Chilas seven hours into the drive. We have no spare seat and they had no means of transport. They refused to allow us to continue until a suitable vehicle passed that they could commandeer. After an hour waiting in the heat a suitable car came by. Seemed to be the sergeants mate.
2. The police jumped out of the car at the next town. His mate drove ahead of us at a good locals pace, waiting for us at some points, appeared to be an unofficial escort until the next police post.
3. Flagged down by two nice policemen washing their motorbike. It backfired a lot and stopped running altogether along an isolated piece of road. They got it going again and slowly took us towards the next town.
4. The police here appear to use radios as the next ones were waiting for us. Cant remember anything interesting about this one.
5. We drove by ourselves for a while making a good pace until annoyingly we were stopped just before Pattan. A huge military convoy was preparing to move supplies south to Islamabad. Looking unusually organised, soldiers were posted everywhere along the roadsides and on top of the trucks. Disconcertingly they looked on a high state of alert, guns trained up into the hills and down into the village. After twenty minutes of waiting our escort got bored and we were told to follow three men in a Hilux and an armed guy sitting in the back.
6. By now it was dark and they let us go saying there was a car ahead waiting for us. Driving at night on the KKH has the added excitement that when blinded by oncoming trucks you really cannot see where the roadside ends and the long drop to the river begins. Especially good in the many places where sections of the road have fallen away due to subsidence. We were hoping we could sneak past the next escort in the dark but they saw us on the bridge in the next town. This one took us all the way to the front steps of the PTDC hotel in Besham, complete with flashing lights to properly announce our arrival at 22:30pm.

Although our escorts sometimes wore cool shades, they usually only had one old Kalashnikov between them. Bizarrely we were unable to ascertain exactly what the threat to us was...

The hotel wouldn't give us much of a discount so we decided to camp in the grounds which still cost us 500 rupees, the price of a room normally. The PTDC is popular with NGOs and we met an interesting ex-special-forces British guy working as a security advisor for the Red Cross. He knew lots of interesting stuff about the current security situation, it didn't make us feel any safer.

The next day as we drove south to Islamabad the altitude fell and the temperature rose. The warm air is pungent with the sweet smell of cannabis that lines the roadsides.

We took a fellow travelers' advice to return via the Murree hills. The old British Punjabi administration would retreat up here during the hot summer months. It is easy to see why - at 2200m it is cool and fresh and forested. Nowadays the Pakistani middle class head there for holidays and the roads are lined with brightly coloured plastic gimmicks for sale, like umbrellas.

Carpets and shawls are also widely available. Benazir Bhutto is a popular person to have on your carpet.

The small towns here are quite interesting, full of Pakistani tourists. The big, hungry-looking holiday-maker below is waiting impatiently for his Chappli Kebab. This Pakistani favourite is a large, deep-fried burger slapped in a naan, it is good.

Unfortunately crawling up hills in second gear and sitting in tourist traffic jams meant we didn't get back to Islamabad until dark. At least most Pakistanis have manners and drive with consideration for other road users on the winding forest roads.

Back in Islamabad we found the tourist campsite unbearably hot and humid, and nearly empty. Freddy Mercury was pleased to see us, as were the mosquitoes. Freddy is famous amongst overlanders, he is the man in charge of the campsite and is a little unbalanced.

The only traveller there was some Swiss guy with a black Troopie and, irritatingly, an Iranian visa. He left the next day at 04:00 and later that morning we were at the cursed Iranian embassy with a letter to ask for the consul's help in getting a transit visa. We waited for ages only to be told there is nothing they can do to help us, and that we should drive through Afghanistan. Extremely frustrating. Nevermind that a few weeks before an upset German couple whose dog had been run-over got a transit visa in three days. I'd get a pet dog and drive over it myself if it would get us a visa.

Punctuated by monsoon downpours we had three nights of abject misery, soaked in sweat in the tent. With yet another case of bad-stomachs we were getting up throughout the night in the mosquitoes to use the filthy campsite squatter. It is amazing, five months in India and we had maybe one significant case each. Pakistan has been a constant cycle of bad guts - ciprofloxacin is your friend here.

Eventually we had to get out of there before we broke. We found a guesthouse with air-conditioning (expensive) and stayed there for two nights, getting some sleep and ourselves back in a more positive frame of mind. The new plan is to head to the Iranian embassy in Lahore and see if they are any more helpful. Not much of a plan really, but something to do at least.

Crossing the Deosai Plains to Skardu

It seems a lot longer than 3 weeks ago that we left Gilgit and headed back down the KKH. Our next destination: Astor and then Tarashing. Local directions left a lot to be desired so we we relied heavily on the GPS, and the surprisingly reasonable Lonely Planet maps. Road signs are either non-existent, or in Urdu. We travelled steadily on unsurfaced roads following winding gorges. The only incident of note was when we stopped to help a local guy, whose driver's spare wheel had 7 holes in it. After some time in the heat we managed to get the car drivable again by repairing the holes and pumping the tyre up again. I doubt they made it back to the KKH.

As we wound through a narrow valley the road snaked slowly south, then west towards the mighty Nanga Parbat. This, the western anchor of the Great Himalaya, stands 8125m high. It is, rather dramatically, known here as the 'Killer Mountain' because a large number of climbers apparently die on it each year. We passed an elderly local man trudging along the muddy jeep track. Our conscience persuaded us to reverse back and give him a lift. However we no longer have a spare seat due to the accumulated volume of our souvenirs and gifts, and being Pakistan he certainly could not sit next to a woman. So the old man gets the passenger seat, I get the 4 inch plastic console in the middle, and Amelia drives. Skirting boulders and mud holes we arrive in Tarashing in the early evening. It is the largest village before the south face of Nanga Parbat, which incidentally is the ninth highest mountain in the world.

At the guest-house we put up the roof-tent and had a pot of green tea. We ate very overpriced, but good, mixed vegetable curry with a couple of guys who'd done the trek to the southern Rupal face that day. 'Rupal' means straight/black, the face is so steep no snow sticks to it. Rising 4600m, accordingly it is the world's highest vertical mountain face. They said it took them from 9:30am till about 7pm to do the trek, and they were both very experienced and looked fit. Local police demand all tourists take a guide with them after a Japanese tourist (apparently) died of exposure up there. More likely it is local money making scheme. Our guide said the locals do the walk in 2.5 to 3 hours each way so that was the time to aim for.

We left at 8:30am and were back by 4:30pm with a break only to rest weary legs and to sit and enjoy the stunning views of glaciers, morains, mountains and golden marmots!

We crossed a rocky glacier, steep paths over lateral moraines, and soggy green meadows where farmers (i.e the women) tend their crops.

After six months sitting in the car we are about as fit as a fat London cabbie.

There were lots of children trekking on the same route in the morning, only they were in uniform and on their way to school.

Some of the older girls were quite inquisitive, and the boys as always gave us big smiles and replied to our 'asalaam aleikum' (hello). 3 hours there, 3 hours back, but we paid for it and walking was painful the next day. Trekking always seems to result in pain, I am not sure why it is so popular.

The summit is often hidden by clouds, but we were lucky enough to catch a glimpse. It was pretty impressive.

Equally so was the immense convergence of two huge glaciers at the base of the mountain. We lay around in the grass on a lateral moraine, high above the ice, admiring the view. As we lay there the silence was punctuated by the sound of ice and rocks falling, echoing through the valley.

It's always a bit of a gamble trying to obtain information about whether seasonal roads are open. We were told the rickety bridge on the Deosai Plains is not up yet, and then that it was up but the road was not clear, then we were told it was open and had been for days. The plains comprise an immense, uninhabited grassy plateau, which borders Indian-administered Kashmir. They're only accessible for about 4 months of the year.

We had a bit of fun at the river crossing, where the depth and rocky bottom required 4 wheel drive. On the other side we waited to see if any of the Pakistani tourists got stuck or washed away, one guy forgot to lock his hubbs but he just made it and disappointingly there was no entertainment.

After the river crossing we reached the famous cable bridge that is featured in a poster seen in many guest houses in the area. It looked a little more stable than in the photo, and we were in time to witness a couple of other vehicles cross over the Shyok River. They were smaller local jeeps with no load however, and no-one seemed absolutely sure that our 3.5 tonnes would make it safely across. Official advise was to carry no load heavier than 480kg. In what? Useless.

Opting to leave all our luggage in the car and go for it, the drive over the creaking planks in low range was really very tense. Even the locals all looked on with interest to see if we made it. Thankfully the four supporting wire cables were up the job and we were across and on our way to Skardu.

With many birds, colourful flowers, incredible views and huge golden Marmots, the Deosai jeep track was possibly worth the risk of losing the car in a river.

At six that evening we pulled into a guest house that rivalled any we'd stayed in so far in Pakistan. Satellite TV to watch the Ashes, an extensive menu in a recommended restaurant, and a good nights sleep. We did a spot of shopping at the local bakery in the morning to get supplies for the days drive, and purchased another small gift and a carpet runner for the hallway in the house we don't yet own. We headed north towards the KKH again, along the Indus river. All along the valley apricots were drying on rocks in the sun.

The high road provided excellent views on cliff edges dropping hundreds of feet to the raging brown torrent below. Just this week a bus went over the edge and all 34 people were drowned. No surprise when you see how they drive round blind corners.

We had left it quite late in leaving Skardu, and so we had to stop fairly early about 50km before the KKH at a PTDC (Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation) guest house. Here a hilux dual-cab carrying World Bank people also stopped with a damaged radiator. Shoddy Pakistani construction meant the bad roads had shaken loose the AC heat-exchanger which had holed the radiator in three places. Our tools, a bolt, some plastic tubing and expoxy-resin and they were off, towards Gilgit in the dark. We never found out if they made it or not.

We stayed long enough to get a good nights sleep and headed off bright and early the next day, hoping to make up some kilometers. Back on the potholed bloody awful KKH and disappointingly the weather was starting to get hot again. We needed to reach Islamabad before Thursday as the Iranian embassy is closed Friday-Sunday. Hopefully this would be our last visit there. We were expecting to be allowed to apply for a transit visa with no problems. We also had a few jobs to do at the Toyota garage and a visit to the car market in Rawalpindi (the bustling 'sister city' of Islamabad, 18kms away).