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.
Friday, October 17, 2008
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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