hello there horsies...
So I figured it would only be fair that before I left Pakistan I would grace your screens with a quick brain dump.
Unfortunately, all attempts to upload photos have proven unsuccessful, but I promise that as soon as I get to Calcutta, it will be my first priority.
I'm leaving Pakistan for India today. At the border to Amritsar I'll witness the border closing ceremony, which has occurred on a daily basis since Partition in the late '40s. It's a choreographed act of pomp and indigence whereby both sides stomp their feet marching to and fro in mock disgust at each other, slamming the border gate shut for the night. These theatricals started up after Partition and have been built on and dramatised since then, making it an occasion attended by crowds of cheering onlookers. On the Pakistani side, they shout 'Long live Pakistan' and similar hopes for longevity of the Indian State are expressed from the other side of the fence. I've embedded Michael Palin's coverage of this event below so you can see what I'm talking about.
I have a conflict of my own going on in my head as I move towards India. India was one of the main reasons that I chose this particular route. In my 'virtual agenda' I have dedicated more time to it than to any other country. Yet for the past month, travelers I have met coming from there, have not been very positive. I've heard stories of rip offs en masse, dirt, poverty, unfriendliness, an absolutely overwhelming lack of private space... the list goes on. However, I've also heard that these extremes are what make the rich thread of Indian life so appealing, so I'm going to try to keep my mind open and to 'go with the flow'.
Pakistan, a country I had planned to 'transit' through, on my way from Iran to India (maybe two weeks is what I was originally giving it), has turned out to be an absolute gem. The people express their authentic interest in an outgoing, relaxed, helpful and overwhelmingly friendly manner. The land is beautiful beyond my wildest expectations: From the Balochi plateau through the green valleys of Punjab to the jagged edges of the Northern Areas, I would never have dreamed of Pakistan as a tourist destination. Yet I am determined that I'm going to recruit some trekkers when I get home and will return here to see the K2 base camp, Chitral, Peshawar, the Kyber Pass and some other places that I have missed this time around. It is fair to say that if I wasn't meeting my friend in India I would have stayed here for two months at least.
So with this in mind, I'm going to up and go to the Indo-Pakistani border (literally as soon as I hit post on this) and we'll see what happens.
Signing off for the last time in Pakistan: Ur man in Lahore, C
Friday, October 31, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Alive and well
Just a quickie to say that I was nowhere near Quetta and did not die in the earthquake there (see story here)... I'm just off the 24 hour bus from Gilgit to Lahore and all is good!
C.
C.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Near Death Illegality
I've been procrastinating on the blog front for a while... a number of factors have influenced this:
1. Was trying to upload my photos so that you could marvel at these while my written commentary astounds you...
2. The Internet has either been unbelievably slow or not present at all
3. I've been doing too much shit and haven't been bothered.
However, you'll be glad to hear that I'm currently sitting in front of a computer with acceptably fast Internet and have therefore decided to grace your screens with a short monologue. Unfortunately I still can't upload photos so you'll have to wait a few days for these.
Last week, the five of us joined three other solo travellers and embarked on a climb to the base camp of Rakaposhi Mountain. I have to admit that it was the first thing that I've done in a while which has really put me out of my comfort zone.
On day 1 we started our trek with a leisurely stroll through Minapin village (and it's marijuana plants). The pace and incline belied what was to come and we were relaxed as we waved at the gawking kids we passed. After about half an hour, we came to a river and things started getting more challenging. For about an hour we walked zig-zag up a rocky pass which eventually opened up to a grassy plateau. The incline was still considerable and we slowly made our way up the plateau, stopping to have lunch with our donkeys. This was the last time that we were to see our donkeys and porters for some time as we set off ahead of them, the porters assuring us that they would follow closely.
Having left tardy (we had to wait for an extra donkey to come), it was getting quite late now and at about three o'clock in the afternoon, we moved off the plateau and up across a near vertical mountain face. For four hours we plodded one foot in front of the other following our guide. It was the most difficult walk that I've ever done. Not only was the incline very substantial but once the sun went behind the mountain, the wind turned icy cold. By six o'clock we had passed the snowline and were trudging through snow with darkness falling quickly. The majority of us had left our jackets with the donkeys assuming that things wouldn't get too cold but we were wrong. After several episodes of my legs seizing up, only being spurred on by the knowledge that to stay in one place would result in frostbite, we eventually arrived at the Rakaposhi base camp, each of us absolutely shattered.
However, what was to make the base camp; cold weather gear, tents, cookers, etc, hadn't actually arrived yet and was imprecisely located somewhere down the mountain behind us on our dangerously overladen donkeys. It was dark now and the cold was biting. We had no jackets, gloves or hats, some of us were only in t-shirts. We started a fire with a few pieces of wood left over by the last group of trekkers. Then suddenly one of the porters shouted something in Urdu from the darkness and our guide ran off, leaving the eight of us to battle the elements. This was about seven o'clock. Our fire was small and insufficient against the encroaching cold. Immediately one of the group, Alex, started showing signs of serious cold, which could have escalated to something worse. One of the guys, Alby, acted immediately; taking any spare clothing and anything that could possibly insulate, he wrapped him up, fed him some peanuts and biscuits, literally sat him on the fired and rubbed him up until the colour returned to his face. That was pretty scary and brought the reality of the situation home to us. The fire was slowly going out and we were taking turns to search for firewood, but it was difficult to stay away from the reducing fire for more than a few minutes. Given that we had no torches (they were on the donkeys) and the area was a rocky moraine, any attempts to locate firewood failed miserably. I was getting pretty worried since I couldn't stop shivering myself.
Eventually at nine o'clock the guide, porters and donkeys appeared in the darkness. They were carrying bundles of firewood and had all our cold weather clothes, torches and food. The relief was thick in the air, everyone throwing on every layer of clothing that they had. The guides and porters set up our tents as we thawed out by the fire and after a late dinner jumped into our freezing tents and slept like babies.
The next day the group went on a trek across the Minapin glacier. Myself and two others then called it a day (not wanting to overstretch our aching muscles after the previous days antics) while the rest of the group continued up to a lake. That evening after dinner, it started snowing. At first it was quite light, but the snow got heavier and heavier until we couldn't really sit by the fire any longer. Unfortunately for Alby, Alex and I, we had drawn the short straw with the tents as ours was a summer tent without an outer sheet. By this stage it had a wall of snow creeping up its sides and we weren't going to be able to sleep in it without touching the edges. Ergo we weren't going to be able to sleep in it without getting very wet and cold. The guide had mentioned to us that there was a stone hut on the other side of the base camp. Alby and I decided to check it out and walked the 100ft across the base camp. It was a bit cold and breezy but it was going to keep us dry so we decided to relocate for the night. As soon as we got our stuff from the tent, the snow started to come down in droves and we could only look down and follow our footprints on our way across the base camp to the hut.
Eventually Alby and I arrived at the hut and he started setting up camp while I went back to help Alex find the way. I also grabbed some timber and took some embers from the fire to start our own fire in the hut. Unfortunately, having a fire in the hut meant having the door open to allow the smoke to escape... which was far too breezy, so we forgot about the fire and decided to go to sleep instead. As soon as we had settled down and things got quiet, a noise started to pour out of the walls on all sides... I turned my torch on to find that we were sharing the hut with at least three or four rats. Didn't sleep a wink for the first two hours fretting that I had rats nibbling at my toes, but then we all got too tired and slept for the rest of the night, occasionally waking up to rat noises which I learned to ignore and go back to sleep. It was a mad night altogether.
The next morning, after some brekkie of porridge and scrambled eggs we made our way back down the mountain. It took us a good four hours of fairly treacherous downhill walking to get back to the friendly town of Minapin where we had chips and coke before the jeep took us back to Karimabad.
Sooooo, back in Karimabad, we took it nice and easy for a few days. It's a lovely place. It's located in the Hunza Valley, a fantastic valley through which the Indus river flows. Currently, it's washed in autumnal colours, poplar trees demarcating the vegetation line against a backdrop of high snow-capped peaks over which the sun plays its daily light show. As soon as I can, I'll throw up some pics and you can see for yourselves.
Tom and Anna left our little group of five last week, meaning that it's only myself that's travelling with Alex and Alby now.
Three days ago, we continued up north to a little village called Passu. No phone reception, no Internet, about five people... that kind of place. Passu is the most north that we want to go on the KKH, with the next stop being the Chinese border and Kashgar. Along the route, we saw loads of Chinese workers, givin' it socks, blowing the living bejayzus out of the mountainside. The Chinese are extending and widening the KKH for the Pakistanis (mainly because they want to use it as a trade route).
Up in Passu we did two short treks. The first took about five hours and brought us over two very shaky suspension bridges where there was a wooden slat about every two to three feet and you had to jump from one to the next with the river flowing beneath you. The other trek brought us up to the Passu Glacier. We walked (perhaps quite perilously) right up to the mouth of the glacier, to an ice cave from where a river sprouted. There were huge ice boulders around everywhere and everything was quite unstable. It was just Alby and I and while we were taking pictures of each others in a variety of stupid poses, a huge ice boulder slid down about three feet from Alby's foot. That shocked the shit out of us and we got out of there quicksmart with ice debris falling away beneath our feet. That was the second and final out-of-comfort-zone situation for this particular posting (I'm sure my Mum won't be able to handle any more).
So now that we're back on terra-firma in Karimabad, I rang my mate Helen today. Helen was my flatmate/landlord before I set off on this journey and she's currently in India where we've decided to meet on Sunday (this day week). We're going to meet in Delhi and then jump on a train to Calcutta where she has to open some kind of foundation thingamajig (whatever, she has something to do there and I'm coming along for the ride). So I have to make my way to Delhi within a week and within ten days I'll be in Calcutta, on the other side of the Subcontinent beside Bangladesh. In the next ten days, I have to cover approximately as much ground as I covered in the first three months of the trip, so it's gonna be a lot of trains, buses and taxis for Conor.
I don't know if I've mentioned this yet, but I'm illegal in Pakistan. My visa was good for a journey up until the 20th of October, i.e. one week ago. I would have had my visa extended, which isn't particularly difficult, only I forgot my passport in Lahore. Aha, I hear you say... that's a pertinent fact which I have happily omitted for some time now. The fact is that I forgot my passport in the hostel I was staying in in Lahore. Lucky for me, that particular hostel is run by the best connected, most honest and trustworthy Pakistani around... Malek... who has assured me per telephone, that he has my passport, that it is safe and should I run into any authorities, I should just call him on his mobile and pass over the phone. The unfortunate side effect of all this, is that a visa cannot be extended without passport and not wanting to leave Pakistan prematurely, I'm in a predicament of the illegal immigrant nature.
I have, however, been told that the first fourteen days of overstaying are without penalty, so I should be good once I get to the border. However, if the border guards decide to act up and charge me the 20 Euros per day of overstay that are rumoured, then I'm going to find my budget for Pakistan being completely blown out of the water.
This post has turned into an essay and it's time for dinner. Dinner in our hostel is a communal affair, around a big table with a soup, curry with rice, an apple and a tea... and I've just been called for it... So take it easy and once I get back to Lahore, I promise to let you know if my passport is still there....
Ur man in Pakistan.
C.
1. Was trying to upload my photos so that you could marvel at these while my written commentary astounds you...
2. The Internet has either been unbelievably slow or not present at all
3. I've been doing too much shit and haven't been bothered.
However, you'll be glad to hear that I'm currently sitting in front of a computer with acceptably fast Internet and have therefore decided to grace your screens with a short monologue. Unfortunately I still can't upload photos so you'll have to wait a few days for these.
Last week, the five of us joined three other solo travellers and embarked on a climb to the base camp of Rakaposhi Mountain. I have to admit that it was the first thing that I've done in a while which has really put me out of my comfort zone.
On day 1 we started our trek with a leisurely stroll through Minapin village (and it's marijuana plants). The pace and incline belied what was to come and we were relaxed as we waved at the gawking kids we passed. After about half an hour, we came to a river and things started getting more challenging. For about an hour we walked zig-zag up a rocky pass which eventually opened up to a grassy plateau. The incline was still considerable and we slowly made our way up the plateau, stopping to have lunch with our donkeys. This was the last time that we were to see our donkeys and porters for some time as we set off ahead of them, the porters assuring us that they would follow closely.
Having left tardy (we had to wait for an extra donkey to come), it was getting quite late now and at about three o'clock in the afternoon, we moved off the plateau and up across a near vertical mountain face. For four hours we plodded one foot in front of the other following our guide. It was the most difficult walk that I've ever done. Not only was the incline very substantial but once the sun went behind the mountain, the wind turned icy cold. By six o'clock we had passed the snowline and were trudging through snow with darkness falling quickly. The majority of us had left our jackets with the donkeys assuming that things wouldn't get too cold but we were wrong. After several episodes of my legs seizing up, only being spurred on by the knowledge that to stay in one place would result in frostbite, we eventually arrived at the Rakaposhi base camp, each of us absolutely shattered.
However, what was to make the base camp; cold weather gear, tents, cookers, etc, hadn't actually arrived yet and was imprecisely located somewhere down the mountain behind us on our dangerously overladen donkeys. It was dark now and the cold was biting. We had no jackets, gloves or hats, some of us were only in t-shirts. We started a fire with a few pieces of wood left over by the last group of trekkers. Then suddenly one of the porters shouted something in Urdu from the darkness and our guide ran off, leaving the eight of us to battle the elements. This was about seven o'clock. Our fire was small and insufficient against the encroaching cold. Immediately one of the group, Alex, started showing signs of serious cold, which could have escalated to something worse. One of the guys, Alby, acted immediately; taking any spare clothing and anything that could possibly insulate, he wrapped him up, fed him some peanuts and biscuits, literally sat him on the fired and rubbed him up until the colour returned to his face. That was pretty scary and brought the reality of the situation home to us. The fire was slowly going out and we were taking turns to search for firewood, but it was difficult to stay away from the reducing fire for more than a few minutes. Given that we had no torches (they were on the donkeys) and the area was a rocky moraine, any attempts to locate firewood failed miserably. I was getting pretty worried since I couldn't stop shivering myself.
Eventually at nine o'clock the guide, porters and donkeys appeared in the darkness. They were carrying bundles of firewood and had all our cold weather clothes, torches and food. The relief was thick in the air, everyone throwing on every layer of clothing that they had. The guides and porters set up our tents as we thawed out by the fire and after a late dinner jumped into our freezing tents and slept like babies.
The next day the group went on a trek across the Minapin glacier. Myself and two others then called it a day (not wanting to overstretch our aching muscles after the previous days antics) while the rest of the group continued up to a lake. That evening after dinner, it started snowing. At first it was quite light, but the snow got heavier and heavier until we couldn't really sit by the fire any longer. Unfortunately for Alby, Alex and I, we had drawn the short straw with the tents as ours was a summer tent without an outer sheet. By this stage it had a wall of snow creeping up its sides and we weren't going to be able to sleep in it without touching the edges. Ergo we weren't going to be able to sleep in it without getting very wet and cold. The guide had mentioned to us that there was a stone hut on the other side of the base camp. Alby and I decided to check it out and walked the 100ft across the base camp. It was a bit cold and breezy but it was going to keep us dry so we decided to relocate for the night. As soon as we got our stuff from the tent, the snow started to come down in droves and we could only look down and follow our footprints on our way across the base camp to the hut.
Eventually Alby and I arrived at the hut and he started setting up camp while I went back to help Alex find the way. I also grabbed some timber and took some embers from the fire to start our own fire in the hut. Unfortunately, having a fire in the hut meant having the door open to allow the smoke to escape... which was far too breezy, so we forgot about the fire and decided to go to sleep instead. As soon as we had settled down and things got quiet, a noise started to pour out of the walls on all sides... I turned my torch on to find that we were sharing the hut with at least three or four rats. Didn't sleep a wink for the first two hours fretting that I had rats nibbling at my toes, but then we all got too tired and slept for the rest of the night, occasionally waking up to rat noises which I learned to ignore and go back to sleep. It was a mad night altogether.
The next morning, after some brekkie of porridge and scrambled eggs we made our way back down the mountain. It took us a good four hours of fairly treacherous downhill walking to get back to the friendly town of Minapin where we had chips and coke before the jeep took us back to Karimabad.
Sooooo, back in Karimabad, we took it nice and easy for a few days. It's a lovely place. It's located in the Hunza Valley, a fantastic valley through which the Indus river flows. Currently, it's washed in autumnal colours, poplar trees demarcating the vegetation line against a backdrop of high snow-capped peaks over which the sun plays its daily light show. As soon as I can, I'll throw up some pics and you can see for yourselves.
Tom and Anna left our little group of five last week, meaning that it's only myself that's travelling with Alex and Alby now.
Three days ago, we continued up north to a little village called Passu. No phone reception, no Internet, about five people... that kind of place. Passu is the most north that we want to go on the KKH, with the next stop being the Chinese border and Kashgar. Along the route, we saw loads of Chinese workers, givin' it socks, blowing the living bejayzus out of the mountainside. The Chinese are extending and widening the KKH for the Pakistanis (mainly because they want to use it as a trade route).
Up in Passu we did two short treks. The first took about five hours and brought us over two very shaky suspension bridges where there was a wooden slat about every two to three feet and you had to jump from one to the next with the river flowing beneath you. The other trek brought us up to the Passu Glacier. We walked (perhaps quite perilously) right up to the mouth of the glacier, to an ice cave from where a river sprouted. There were huge ice boulders around everywhere and everything was quite unstable. It was just Alby and I and while we were taking pictures of each others in a variety of stupid poses, a huge ice boulder slid down about three feet from Alby's foot. That shocked the shit out of us and we got out of there quicksmart with ice debris falling away beneath our feet. That was the second and final out-of-comfort-zone situation for this particular posting (I'm sure my Mum won't be able to handle any more).
So now that we're back on terra-firma in Karimabad, I rang my mate Helen today. Helen was my flatmate/landlord before I set off on this journey and she's currently in India where we've decided to meet on Sunday (this day week). We're going to meet in Delhi and then jump on a train to Calcutta where she has to open some kind of foundation thingamajig (whatever, she has something to do there and I'm coming along for the ride). So I have to make my way to Delhi within a week and within ten days I'll be in Calcutta, on the other side of the Subcontinent beside Bangladesh. In the next ten days, I have to cover approximately as much ground as I covered in the first three months of the trip, so it's gonna be a lot of trains, buses and taxis for Conor.
I don't know if I've mentioned this yet, but I'm illegal in Pakistan. My visa was good for a journey up until the 20th of October, i.e. one week ago. I would have had my visa extended, which isn't particularly difficult, only I forgot my passport in Lahore. Aha, I hear you say... that's a pertinent fact which I have happily omitted for some time now. The fact is that I forgot my passport in the hostel I was staying in in Lahore. Lucky for me, that particular hostel is run by the best connected, most honest and trustworthy Pakistani around... Malek... who has assured me per telephone, that he has my passport, that it is safe and should I run into any authorities, I should just call him on his mobile and pass over the phone. The unfortunate side effect of all this, is that a visa cannot be extended without passport and not wanting to leave Pakistan prematurely, I'm in a predicament of the illegal immigrant nature.
I have, however, been told that the first fourteen days of overstaying are without penalty, so I should be good once I get to the border. However, if the border guards decide to act up and charge me the 20 Euros per day of overstay that are rumoured, then I'm going to find my budget for Pakistan being completely blown out of the water.
This post has turned into an essay and it's time for dinner. Dinner in our hostel is a communal affair, around a big table with a soup, curry with rice, an apple and a tea... and I've just been called for it... So take it easy and once I get back to Lahore, I promise to let you know if my passport is still there....
Ur man in Pakistan.
C.
Friday, October 17, 2008
More trekking
We drove from Gilgit north to Karimabad today and already I've been roped into a trek starting at eight o'clock tomorrow morning leaving for the base camp of Rakaposhi, standing at 7788m in the Karakoram range, so a couple more days of radio silence are on the cards... three to be precise.
Apart from that, all is good. We spent a few days chilling out in Gilgit in the fantastically comfortable Madina Hostel. Last night we went for a chinese meal and then we got baked, watched Cannonball Run and rolled around the floor laughing... great flic!
I'll try to post some photos when I get back from tomorrow's trek.
L8r... C.
Apart from that, all is good. We spent a few days chilling out in Gilgit in the fantastically comfortable Madina Hostel. Last night we went for a chinese meal and then we got baked, watched Cannonball Run and rolled around the floor laughing... great flic!
I'll try to post some photos when I get back from tomorrow's trek.
L8r... C.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Killer mountain
Left the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi about five days ago, embarking on the Karakoram Highway (KKH) up to the Chinese border. We spent two days driving from Rawalpindi to Gilgit, a little town about halfway up the KKH wedged in the middle of the Karakoram range of mountains. Checked into a lovely little hostel from where we organised our first trek: a light three-day trek bringing us up to 3900m which would serve to acclimatise us for higher elevations. It was called Fairy Meadows (no jokes please!)
We left Gilgit on the morning of the first day and got a three hour jeep to Raikot Bridge where we changed into another jeep and embarked on the most terrifying journey that I have ever experienced. For only fifteen kilometres we drove on a road that had somehow been affixed to the side of mountains and was just about wide enough to get a jeep past. The driver really wasn't taking it easy and the five of us were absolutely shitting ourselves as we teetered on the cliff edge and looked down the sheer drop below. An hour later, with unfettered relief at having survived, we clambered out of the jeep and continued up the mountain face for another three hours until we reached the camp.
The camp was a collection of wooden huts on a mountain-top plain cut out of an apline-esque pine forest. It faced one of the most amazing views I have ever seen: Nanga Parbat mountain with the Raikot glacier flowing from it. Nanga Parbat is the eight highest mountain in the world and is in the Himilayan mountain range (where it meets the Karakoram range). It's also known as Killer mountain as it's ascent has claimed quite a few lives.
Given that the internet connection here is so amazingly shit, I can't upload any photos, so you're going to have wait for the usual crap shots that I grace you with every now and then. In the meantime, I've found an image on the internet which should show the same view. However, the internet is so slow here that I can't actually view pictures, so it's a bit of a gamble. The image on the left is supposed to be Nanga Parbat and the Raikot Glacier... if it's not then sorry!
On day two, we walked up to the snowline of Nanga Parbat for a better view of the mountain and glacier. That brought us from 3300m, where our camp was, to 3900m. Although these altitudes aren't significant, it's good acclimatisation for further treks, but you also notice a distinct change in how your body reacts to extertion (mine has never reacted very well to it).
Staying in the lodge was great fun as well. We watched a chick chick gets it's neck cut halal-style for our dinner. (Halal is the Muslim way of preparing food: chick chick needs to be facing a certain direction when it gets the chop and the chopper needs to mutter stuff in Arabic). We also drank lassi, which is what's left over when butter is made out of goats milk. (We all pretended to love it, but it was fucking terrible, terrible stuff). In the evenings, we had a big campfire which we sat around listening to the locals lads singin' away and your correspondant even graced the Pakistani wilderness with a woeful rendition of the Green Fields of France.
It was pretty cold as well. When the sun was out, all was good as long as you were walking, but as soon as it went down, it got really really cold and we slept under three duvets each in our little wooden huts.
So we're back in Gilgit now, relaxing and recovering while we consider what trek is going to be graced by our blistered feet next.
Take it easy folks... C.
We left Gilgit on the morning of the first day and got a three hour jeep to Raikot Bridge where we changed into another jeep and embarked on the most terrifying journey that I have ever experienced. For only fifteen kilometres we drove on a road that had somehow been affixed to the side of mountains and was just about wide enough to get a jeep past. The driver really wasn't taking it easy and the five of us were absolutely shitting ourselves as we teetered on the cliff edge and looked down the sheer drop below. An hour later, with unfettered relief at having survived, we clambered out of the jeep and continued up the mountain face for another three hours until we reached the camp.
The camp was a collection of wooden huts on a mountain-top plain cut out of an apline-esque pine forest. It faced one of the most amazing views I have ever seen: Nanga Parbat mountain with the Raikot glacier flowing from it. Nanga Parbat is the eight highest mountain in the world and is in the Himilayan mountain range (where it meets the Karakoram range). It's also known as Killer mountain as it's ascent has claimed quite a few lives.
Given that the internet connection here is so amazingly shit, I can't upload any photos, so you're going to have wait for the usual crap shots that I grace you with every now and then. In the meantime, I've found an image on the internet which should show the same view. However, the internet is so slow here that I can't actually view pictures, so it's a bit of a gamble. The image on the left is supposed to be Nanga Parbat and the Raikot Glacier... if it's not then sorry!
On day two, we walked up to the snowline of Nanga Parbat for a better view of the mountain and glacier. That brought us from 3300m, where our camp was, to 3900m. Although these altitudes aren't significant, it's good acclimatisation for further treks, but you also notice a distinct change in how your body reacts to extertion (mine has never reacted very well to it).
Staying in the lodge was great fun as well. We watched a chick chick gets it's neck cut halal-style for our dinner. (Halal is the Muslim way of preparing food: chick chick needs to be facing a certain direction when it gets the chop and the chopper needs to mutter stuff in Arabic). We also drank lassi, which is what's left over when butter is made out of goats milk. (We all pretended to love it, but it was fucking terrible, terrible stuff). In the evenings, we had a big campfire which we sat around listening to the locals lads singin' away and your correspondant even graced the Pakistani wilderness with a woeful rendition of the Green Fields of France.
It was pretty cold as well. When the sun was out, all was good as long as you were walking, but as soon as it went down, it got really really cold and we slept under three duvets each in our little wooden huts.
So we're back in Gilgit now, relaxing and recovering while we consider what trek is going to be graced by our blistered feet next.
Take it easy folks... C.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Eid in Lahore
so, continuing my chronology (not for ever, just during the crazy times)...
Wednesday, 1st of October
Apparently the moon was in the right place and the right shape last night, so Ramadan was officially declared over and as such, Eid, the equivalent of Christmas, begun.
Malek arranged for us to go to an Eid festival which was one of the most surreal things I have ever witnessed in my life. When we arrived we were immediately throbbed by people and brought to see horse dancing. Having being received by the event organiser, seats were brought for us and the horses were made to dance right in front of us, bring them right up over us... It was freaky stuff. Next was a Kabaddi match where groups of half naked men wrestled in mud and bitch-slapped each other... Twas great craic altogether.
When it started getting dark, we were brought to the rooftop of a nearby building for dinner with the Kabaddi players. Many of them were international and had played in India, the UK and around the world.
After dinner we were brought back into the melee of the carnival, being ushered through tents with lady boys, actual ladies (without headscarves), motorbike stunts, dancing shows etc. etc. etc. Eventually, the night culminated in a concert where about 7000 onlookers cheered their little hearts out as we were brought up on stage. We sat on stage for the entire show, getting fabrics (of respect) draped around our necks. One of the English lads, Alby, looks 'a bit alternative' (long hair, beard, nose ring etc.) and he was invited up on stage to dance with one of the singers. He gave it a good fifteen minutes of cringy 80's moves (he even threw in the ol' drawing the V-fingers across his eyes number). The crowd were going absolutely mental and when he went to go off stage they all surged forward and were cheering like crazy mofo's... it was unbe-frickin'-lievable.
We finally managed to drag ourselves away from the place at about three o'clock in the morning and came back to the hotel on an absolute high...
Thursday, 2nd of October
Thursday's in Lahore are famous. It's the 'Sufi night' where Sufi's or practitioners of Sufism, a mystic strain of Islam, get down and jiggy with it at the shrine of Shah Jamal. This is by far the most interesting cultural event I have ever been to. I've embedded a video of it below. This isn't mine, I just found it on the Internet, but I took no photos on this night (it was a night not to be interrupted by camera clicks).
Basically, there were two drummers with large drums hanging around their necks. They beat these in differing tempos and a group of young men (or dervishes) danced maniacally to the beat. The dancing mainly involved shaking their heads at frantic speeds and a lot of swirling around. The idea is to lull themselves into trance like states whereby they can get closer to God through the music.
The shrine was full of people that night and it was pretty clear that opium and hash is used in vast (vast, vast, vast) quantities so as to ease people into trances. I've never seen anything like it before.
After that Thursday, things started to calm down a bit... Eid drew to a close with only the occasional round of celebratory gunshots cracking through Lahore's heavy evenings and we retreated to hostel, watched some DVD's and took it easy.
Unfortunately on Saturday night, my gut started acting up and I spent Saturday night and all day Sunday on the toilet. I won't go into any more detail on that particular incident. Suffice to say that I was happy when things started staying in my stomach on Monday morning again.
So now I've left Lahore and am in Islamabad. We had to get tires for the jeep here and tomorrow morning, we're going to set off on a tour of the Karakoram highway. This is a roadway blown through the foothills of the Himilayas. It's a joint Pakistani and Chinese project back in the day and is supposed to be great for trekking...
So that's all for right now... will update from the KKH (that's what the cool cats call it)...
Also, a big word up for the McNamara's girls who have finally figured out how to use the comments function....
Ur man in Islamabad. C...
Wednesday, 1st of October
Apparently the moon was in the right place and the right shape last night, so Ramadan was officially declared over and as such, Eid, the equivalent of Christmas, begun.
Malek arranged for us to go to an Eid festival which was one of the most surreal things I have ever witnessed in my life. When we arrived we were immediately throbbed by people and brought to see horse dancing. Having being received by the event organiser, seats were brought for us and the horses were made to dance right in front of us, bring them right up over us... It was freaky stuff. Next was a Kabaddi match where groups of half naked men wrestled in mud and bitch-slapped each other... Twas great craic altogether.
When it started getting dark, we were brought to the rooftop of a nearby building for dinner with the Kabaddi players. Many of them were international and had played in India, the UK and around the world.
After dinner we were brought back into the melee of the carnival, being ushered through tents with lady boys, actual ladies (without headscarves), motorbike stunts, dancing shows etc. etc. etc. Eventually, the night culminated in a concert where about 7000 onlookers cheered their little hearts out as we were brought up on stage. We sat on stage for the entire show, getting fabrics (of respect) draped around our necks. One of the English lads, Alby, looks 'a bit alternative' (long hair, beard, nose ring etc.) and he was invited up on stage to dance with one of the singers. He gave it a good fifteen minutes of cringy 80's moves (he even threw in the ol' drawing the V-fingers across his eyes number). The crowd were going absolutely mental and when he went to go off stage they all surged forward and were cheering like crazy mofo's... it was unbe-frickin'-lievable.
We finally managed to drag ourselves away from the place at about three o'clock in the morning and came back to the hotel on an absolute high...
Thursday, 2nd of October
Thursday's in Lahore are famous. It's the 'Sufi night' where Sufi's or practitioners of Sufism, a mystic strain of Islam, get down and jiggy with it at the shrine of Shah Jamal. This is by far the most interesting cultural event I have ever been to. I've embedded a video of it below. This isn't mine, I just found it on the Internet, but I took no photos on this night (it was a night not to be interrupted by camera clicks).
Basically, there were two drummers with large drums hanging around their necks. They beat these in differing tempos and a group of young men (or dervishes) danced maniacally to the beat. The dancing mainly involved shaking their heads at frantic speeds and a lot of swirling around. The idea is to lull themselves into trance like states whereby they can get closer to God through the music.
The shrine was full of people that night and it was pretty clear that opium and hash is used in vast (vast, vast, vast) quantities so as to ease people into trances. I've never seen anything like it before.
After that Thursday, things started to calm down a bit... Eid drew to a close with only the occasional round of celebratory gunshots cracking through Lahore's heavy evenings and we retreated to hostel, watched some DVD's and took it easy.
Unfortunately on Saturday night, my gut started acting up and I spent Saturday night and all day Sunday on the toilet. I won't go into any more detail on that particular incident. Suffice to say that I was happy when things started staying in my stomach on Monday morning again.
So now I've left Lahore and am in Islamabad. We had to get tires for the jeep here and tomorrow morning, we're going to set off on a tour of the Karakoram highway. This is a roadway blown through the foothills of the Himilayas. It's a joint Pakistani and Chinese project back in the day and is supposed to be great for trekking...
So that's all for right now... will update from the KKH (that's what the cool cats call it)...
Also, a big word up for the McNamara's girls who have finally figured out how to use the comments function....
Ur man in Islamabad. C...
Friday, October 3, 2008
Welcome to the Subcontinent
I've been procrastinating... those of you who know me will no doubt find this an absolutely shocking admission, but it's true! I've been putting off updating my blog for the simple reason that too much has happened and I don't know if I have the ability to do it all written justice.
I've decided to simplify things for this posting with a chronology outlining what I did on different days. This is the only way I can kick my brain into action and provide some insight as to what Pakistan has been like for the past eight days.
Thursday, 25th of September
Arrived in Quetta as outlined in previous posting. Quetta is the capital of the province of Baluchistan, a fairly unruly province of Pakistan whose cultural borders extend into Southern Afghanistan (it's only a hop, skip and jump to Kandahar) and Eastern Iran. Balochistan is generally considered ungovernable due to its sparse population, extreme conditions and diverse peoples. So it's kind of wild-west out here!
Look at the photos below and you'll see what I mean. There's a fair few turbans bobbing around and it's the kind of place where you might expect to bump into Osama Bin Laden around any corner. (We tried to find him, but apparantly he's not on facebook, so we couldn't).
Friday, 26th of September
In the hostel in Quetta, I bumped into four Brits whom I had met in Esfahan and again in Yadz in Iran. Alby & Alex left the UK in a converted landrover (Stumpy - a machine for pushing planes around airports) and somewhere en route, they were joined by Anna Rose and Tom.
We decided that we were going to get down and dirty with the local fashions so we marched off to buy ourselves chalwar & kameez, which is a loose, long shirt and even looser pants that they wear here. We went to the smartest tailor in town and spent 1000 rupees (a tenner) on some groovy clothes.
We also walked around Quetta for quite a bit and got our first taste of the subcontinental curiosity. Foreigners obviously don't pass through here so often and when we walked down the street, pretty much everyone on the street stops what they're doing and looks at you. This can be quite disconcerting when the streets are packed with people. Especially when you have a women in your group (you hardly see any women on the street here, it's almost only men), things can get pretty heavy. You can't really afford to stop... as soon as you do, people start to gather around you and within a minute you'll be absolutely surrounded by people staring. It's not that intrusive, only very few people would actually harangue you in any way but having that many people surrounding you and staring is a little bit weird.
Saturday, 27th of September
Having made the nightmare crossing from Iran, we had fallen on our feet with a nice hostel in Quetta and were quite happy to spend a few nights there, before continuing north towards Lahore.
Ramazan was coming close to its end and people were preparing for Eid, the Islamic equivalent of Christmas, which goes on for four or five days after Ramazan. Unfortunately this meant that everyone was going home for Eid and the trains to Lahore were all booked out. Luckily, the Brits decided to save me and invited me to come along with them. They were planning a three-day drive to Lahore, over the lesser worn mountain route due east.
We also bumped into the Bufards, a French family who had been travelling around the world in their camping van for the past year. They had three daughters of 16, 14 and 10 and a dog... the picture perfect family, although slightly bizarre bumping into them in Balochistan. We went for a meal with them before heading off the next morning. (They were going to come convoy with us, but the French embassy suggested that our itinerary mightn't be suitable for younger girls... some advice that turned out to be very good indeed).
Sunday, 28th of September
We got up at cockcrow and started driving towards the Balochi village of Loreili. It was a six hour drive, but the roads were dirt roads so we couldn't open the back door for fear of being covered in dust and it was very warm in the truck. The terrain was mountainous and plateau. It was high, but at least it was dry (something we would appreciate when we got to the lower-lying Punjab).
When we arrived into Loreili that afternoon, we went to the police station to register ourselves. After shaking hands with everyone in the police station, we were brought to the Captain, who wasn't quite as friendly. He demanded to know what we were doing there and asked to see our permit (something we didn't have). He got quite aggressive and insisted that we shouldn't be there. Luckily, Alby had a got a letter from the Pakistani authorities in Quetta saying that we were tourists passing through. When he read this, his demeanour changed immediately and he became ueber friendly. He even offered to let us stay in the barracks and gave us an armed escort.
So once we had bedded down in the barracks we decided to go for a walk around the village. We tried to persuade the armed escort that we didn't need them but they insisted on coming with us. In retrospect, I'm happy they came, as the sheer volume of people who started surrounding us would have been a lot more daunting without the knowledge of an AK47 watching over us.
We cooked egg fried rice in the barracks that night, and one of the eggs we broke into it had a baby chick in it, so we were all a bit grossed out. Despite that and the onslaught of a trizillion mosquitos, we slept quite well.
Monday, 29th of September
Knowing that it would be a long journey to Multan, our next port of call, we got started at 7am. Again, we shook hands with everyone in the barracks before we left. (I'm not too happy about all this handshaking malarky as rumour has it, that the Pakistani's... ehh... clean themselves... after the toilet like... with their... ehh... hands... ). Anyway, accompanied by our armed escort, we set off for Multan.
The drive took about twelve hours and we decended from the high Balochi plateaux down through some incredible mountain scenery into the irrigated plains of Punjab and the Indus valley. Historically, the Indus river was seen as the western frontier of the Indian Subcontinent.
Decending into Punjab, we also got our first taste of the humidity for which this region is known. We arrived in Multan that night, checked into the cockroach infested shithole that passed for a hotel, showered and washed and went for some dinner. Then we each tried our best to sleep in rooms that would pass as saunas in Ireland.
Tuesday, 30th of September
The next morning we got on the road early and drove the six hours to Lahore. Multan is on the backbone of Pakistan, with the Indus plains acting as a conduit all the way from Karachi in the South, so luckily the road was good.
Although we did have a minor incidedent whereby we nearly creamed a tuc-tuc (autorickshaw). We were speeding along the motorway at about 55 mph when a tuc-tuc wtih about twenty people in it (a common sight) coming towards us decided to do a U-Turn in front of us. Alby swerved to miss it but it swerved in the same direction, so he swerved the other way and we sped past it clipping the rear corner. It nearly fell over but somehow didn't and just rocked from one side to the other... I'll never forget the faces of the women who were sitting in the back of it as they saw us coming... I'm pretty sure that they thought they were gonners.
After our near death experience, we arrived in Lahore that evening and checked into the Regale Internet Inn, where Malek, the head honcho here, had organised a Qawwali Music concert that evening. So we got ourselves some beers from the local five-star hotel and settled down for the night.
Right, that's all for now... I have much more to report on but I have no more time... I'll try to update with the rest in the next day or two... See photos and map below...
Ur man in Pakistan... Conor
View Larger Map
I've decided to simplify things for this posting with a chronology outlining what I did on different days. This is the only way I can kick my brain into action and provide some insight as to what Pakistan has been like for the past eight days.
Thursday, 25th of September
Arrived in Quetta as outlined in previous posting. Quetta is the capital of the province of Baluchistan, a fairly unruly province of Pakistan whose cultural borders extend into Southern Afghanistan (it's only a hop, skip and jump to Kandahar) and Eastern Iran. Balochistan is generally considered ungovernable due to its sparse population, extreme conditions and diverse peoples. So it's kind of wild-west out here!
Look at the photos below and you'll see what I mean. There's a fair few turbans bobbing around and it's the kind of place where you might expect to bump into Osama Bin Laden around any corner. (We tried to find him, but apparantly he's not on facebook, so we couldn't).
Friday, 26th of September
In the hostel in Quetta, I bumped into four Brits whom I had met in Esfahan and again in Yadz in Iran. Alby & Alex left the UK in a converted landrover (Stumpy - a machine for pushing planes around airports) and somewhere en route, they were joined by Anna Rose and Tom.
We decided that we were going to get down and dirty with the local fashions so we marched off to buy ourselves chalwar & kameez, which is a loose, long shirt and even looser pants that they wear here. We went to the smartest tailor in town and spent 1000 rupees (a tenner) on some groovy clothes.
We also walked around Quetta for quite a bit and got our first taste of the subcontinental curiosity. Foreigners obviously don't pass through here so often and when we walked down the street, pretty much everyone on the street stops what they're doing and looks at you. This can be quite disconcerting when the streets are packed with people. Especially when you have a women in your group (you hardly see any women on the street here, it's almost only men), things can get pretty heavy. You can't really afford to stop... as soon as you do, people start to gather around you and within a minute you'll be absolutely surrounded by people staring. It's not that intrusive, only very few people would actually harangue you in any way but having that many people surrounding you and staring is a little bit weird.
Saturday, 27th of September
Having made the nightmare crossing from Iran, we had fallen on our feet with a nice hostel in Quetta and were quite happy to spend a few nights there, before continuing north towards Lahore.
Ramazan was coming close to its end and people were preparing for Eid, the Islamic equivalent of Christmas, which goes on for four or five days after Ramazan. Unfortunately this meant that everyone was going home for Eid and the trains to Lahore were all booked out. Luckily, the Brits decided to save me and invited me to come along with them. They were planning a three-day drive to Lahore, over the lesser worn mountain route due east.
We also bumped into the Bufards, a French family who had been travelling around the world in their camping van for the past year. They had three daughters of 16, 14 and 10 and a dog... the picture perfect family, although slightly bizarre bumping into them in Balochistan. We went for a meal with them before heading off the next morning. (They were going to come convoy with us, but the French embassy suggested that our itinerary mightn't be suitable for younger girls... some advice that turned out to be very good indeed).
Sunday, 28th of September
We got up at cockcrow and started driving towards the Balochi village of Loreili. It was a six hour drive, but the roads were dirt roads so we couldn't open the back door for fear of being covered in dust and it was very warm in the truck. The terrain was mountainous and plateau. It was high, but at least it was dry (something we would appreciate when we got to the lower-lying Punjab).
When we arrived into Loreili that afternoon, we went to the police station to register ourselves. After shaking hands with everyone in the police station, we were brought to the Captain, who wasn't quite as friendly. He demanded to know what we were doing there and asked to see our permit (something we didn't have). He got quite aggressive and insisted that we shouldn't be there. Luckily, Alby had a got a letter from the Pakistani authorities in Quetta saying that we were tourists passing through. When he read this, his demeanour changed immediately and he became ueber friendly. He even offered to let us stay in the barracks and gave us an armed escort.
So once we had bedded down in the barracks we decided to go for a walk around the village. We tried to persuade the armed escort that we didn't need them but they insisted on coming with us. In retrospect, I'm happy they came, as the sheer volume of people who started surrounding us would have been a lot more daunting without the knowledge of an AK47 watching over us.
We cooked egg fried rice in the barracks that night, and one of the eggs we broke into it had a baby chick in it, so we were all a bit grossed out. Despite that and the onslaught of a trizillion mosquitos, we slept quite well.
Monday, 29th of September
Knowing that it would be a long journey to Multan, our next port of call, we got started at 7am. Again, we shook hands with everyone in the barracks before we left. (I'm not too happy about all this handshaking malarky as rumour has it, that the Pakistani's... ehh... clean themselves... after the toilet like... with their... ehh... hands... ). Anyway, accompanied by our armed escort, we set off for Multan.
The drive took about twelve hours and we decended from the high Balochi plateaux down through some incredible mountain scenery into the irrigated plains of Punjab and the Indus valley. Historically, the Indus river was seen as the western frontier of the Indian Subcontinent.
Decending into Punjab, we also got our first taste of the humidity for which this region is known. We arrived in Multan that night, checked into the cockroach infested shithole that passed for a hotel, showered and washed and went for some dinner. Then we each tried our best to sleep in rooms that would pass as saunas in Ireland.
Tuesday, 30th of September
The next morning we got on the road early and drove the six hours to Lahore. Multan is on the backbone of Pakistan, with the Indus plains acting as a conduit all the way from Karachi in the South, so luckily the road was good.
Although we did have a minor incidedent whereby we nearly creamed a tuc-tuc (autorickshaw). We were speeding along the motorway at about 55 mph when a tuc-tuc wtih about twenty people in it (a common sight) coming towards us decided to do a U-Turn in front of us. Alby swerved to miss it but it swerved in the same direction, so he swerved the other way and we sped past it clipping the rear corner. It nearly fell over but somehow didn't and just rocked from one side to the other... I'll never forget the faces of the women who were sitting in the back of it as they saw us coming... I'm pretty sure that they thought they were gonners.
After our near death experience, we arrived in Lahore that evening and checked into the Regale Internet Inn, where Malek, the head honcho here, had organised a Qawwali Music concert that evening. So we got ourselves some beers from the local five-star hotel and settled down for the night.
Right, that's all for now... I have much more to report on but I have no more time... I'll try to update with the rest in the next day or two... See photos and map below...
Ur man in Pakistan... Conor
View Larger Map
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