For once, reality lived up to the hype, and the Hunza valley in Northern Pakistan was indeed stunning, complete with a fast-running grey river and snowy peaks. We wound up spending two nights at Gulmit and three at Karimabad, waiting with some anxiety to understand what was happening in the outside world. The Marco Polo Inn at Gulmit had a pretty garden and a comfortable lounge, although the electricity and hot water were erratic -- rain, unusual here, upset the electric supply system. I felt a definite British influence, starting with the old-fashioned black light switches. Breakfast was suddenly western too -- cereal and milk, toast and jam, scrambled eggs. The only problem was alcohol -- forbidden in Muslim Pakistan. However, moonshine, known as Hunza valley spring water, magically appeared. It was certainly strong! This area is not "officially" part of Pakistan, being still in dispute with India as part of the Kashmiri mess. The people are mostly Ismaili Muslims, not a particularly fundamentalist group.
Dress is Pakistani, though, except that women are not heavily veiled. I eventually got used to seeing men in what looked at first sight like night clothes -- loose trousers covered by long (knee-length or longer) loose tunics, slit at the sides, with no collar and with buttons at the neck. They were in white or pastel colors, occasionally pale brown for men doing heavy work. The women wore shalwar kameez -- baggy trousers and long tunics, also slit at the sides but with no buttons. They were much more colorful than the men. Several of us bought material in Karimabad, and had a tailor make us shalwar kameez -- to wear in more conservative parts of Pakistan, and my case to wear in India. The three pieces -- shirt, trousers and scarf, are usually of different material, but coordinated -- when you pick the material for one the shop-owner will point out the pieces that match. Most Pakistanis need two and a half meters of material for each piece -- a couple of us needed three meters.
Karimabad was even more beautiful than Gulmit -- our hotel looked out over the town, whose steep streets climbed the side of a mountain towards the 13th century fort. The English-speaking guide at the fort was charming and informative, willing to discuss Buddhism, Islam, shamanism and moonshine.
Karimabad is where I had my first encounter with Himalayan suspension bridges -- in this case very long and with very wide gaps between the thin, uneven, wooden slats. I froze on the first -- I couldn't reach both handrails at the same time, and went over with the guide -- but managed the second OK. The injunction to look at the opposite shore, rather than down at the water, doesn't work when you have to look for the next slat to keep from treading on air. Right after we all crossed the second bridge we got to watch a couple of walking haystacks make it look easy.
I also had my first close encounter with a glacier -- Hoper -- near Karimabad. It wasn't very impressive, mostly black and covered with rocks and mud. But the jeep ride up was impressive, as were the marijuana plants growing rampant up in the hills -- used for firewood in the winter, our guide assured us. Traditional Hunza houses are basically one big room, with light provided by small skylights -- the next generation was conceived outdoors in the summer, we were told -- so anything to relieve the gloom would no doubt be welcome.
We had a further jeep ride up to Eagle's Nest at Duikar for dinner, although we didn't spend the night as had been planned. The track up the mountainside was precisely that -- a track -- sometimes not even that, with sheer drops and hairpin bends. Coming down in the dark was actually an improvement -- all we could see was what was immediately in front of us.
We caught the last day of a photographic display while we were in Karimabad. It had been organized by a woman who had been taking photographs in Karimabad for a doctorate at the University of North Carolina. Photographs taken 30 years earlier were displayed beside her contemporary photographs of the same sites, along with some shots of local people. The big changes, of course, are the result of tourism. Thirty years ago the people were self-sufficient, but now there is a street full of shops for tourists, and some people are building houses on farmland. The town would have a hard winter -- we were the clearly the last tourists through, and September and October are the height of the tourist season. Some of the old communal activities have largely died out too, including polo.
In Gulmit we found no TV and no English-language newspapers, but we did meet an Imaginative Traveler group going north to China. Their guide filled us in on details of the attacks on the U.S. that he had gleaned from the BBC World Service in Karimabad. We finally saw TV ourselves when we arrived in Karimabad on Sept. 15. Hearing the news piecemeal this way lessened the impact it must have had for those watching it on TV as it happened, but we were still horrified. Gradually we became aware that Pakistan might not be the best place to be. We were supposed to go up to Peshawar to visit the Khyber Pass, but after watching BBC News in Karimibad it was clear to me that that would be asking for trouble. At the best of times a government permit and an armed guard is needed to drive through the tribal areas beyond Peshawar, a town noted for a nearby arms bazaar (a great place for souvenirs if your taste runs to grenades or Kalashnikovs) and for extremist Muslim schools. Now the area would likely be full of Afghan refugees, and was a possible staging area for American troops.
After a sleepless night I resolved to go on to Islamabad by myself if the group went to Peshawar, but fortunately Cathryn finally announced that we would head straight for Rawalpindi (Islamabad's sister city). Instead of Peshawar we would spend an extra night in Karimabad, a night in Gilgit, where we would have 'net access, and an extra night in Rawalpindi. This held for about 24 hours, after which we were told that the Australian High Commission had advised its nationals to leave the country, and that President Bush had given the Taliban a three day ultimatum. We were to spend one day driving to Besham and a second driving to 'pindi, where we would change our airline tickets. This new plan meant no 'net access until 'pindi, although some of the group were able to make international phone calls from Karimabad.
We started for Besham early Tuesday morning. The scenery initially resembled a moonscape, no doubt the residue of a lake that had filled the valley for a few years around 1841 behind a natural dam, several villages and an army detachment were swept away when the dam finally broke. In the afternoon we entered Indus Kohistan (the Gilgit had joined the Indus during the morning), a deep gorge with the road clinging precariously to the mountainside well above the rushing river. This was forbidding country with few dwellings. The two towns we passed through were full of men walking purposefully down the streets -- we learned later that a provincial election was in progress. (It seemed that the franchise did not extend to women.) We attracted rather more attention than felt altogether comfortable. Finally, we arrived in Besham at dusk, to be greeted by a volley of gunfire. Happily, it was merely a celebration of our hotel owner's success in the election.
The next day it quickly became clear that we had left the mountains behind us. The last stretch of the Karakoram Highway runs among rolling hills and lush vegetation. Again, we saw virtually no women on the streets of the towns, a strange, eerie sight. Always a feminist, I could feel myself becoming more militant by the mile.
Once in 'pindi, efforts to change our reservations did not go smoothly. Instead of driving us to the airline offices in Islamabad, Cathryn directed us to a travel agency "round the corner" in the Pearl Continental Hotel. They claimed that Cathay Pacific could not find my reservation, and I wound up with tentative reservations to fly out of Lahore the next night on Thai International.
Thursday morning the three of us with Cathay tickets took a taxi into Islamabad -- a long 15 kilometers away. The Cathay people couldn't have been nicer. One man escorted Liz and Sheryl round the corner to the Pakistani International office to get their tickets to Karachi. After I came up with the confirmation number, changing my tickets was easy. A puzzled frown on the clerk's face turned out to be only concern about my seat assignment. Unfortunately, to be sure of making the connection in Karachi we couldn't leave until Friday -- killing my thoughts of a side trip to Angkor Wat and delaying our departure from a possible war zone.
Robyn and Doug were also stuck for the extra day, so we decided to make the most of our time. Late afternoon we headed back into Islamabad for a quick tour. Despite our drivers' reservations we started at the "folk" museum (Lok Virsa) -- which turned out to be wonderful. It had reproductions of the houses used by people from the different regions of Pakistan, along with examples of their crafts. Intricate, lacy woodwork, shared space with excellent textiles and metal work. We tried to convince the drivers to add it to their tours. A visit to a viewpoint of Islamabad -- much greener than we expected -- was a success; the rose garden -- with tall spindly plants -- less so. We finished at the enormous Faisal Mosque -- its minarets enclosing a crescent moon as we left. Said to be the largest mosque in Asia, with room for 100,000 people, it certainly had the largest chandelier I ever expect to see.
Our faithful taxi drivers waited two hours for us outside the Australian High Commission's sports club, where we were a significant part of the regular Thursday night party -- most of the westerners had already left. Steak and chips, gin and tonic, even popcorn, made a welcome change of pace.
The flight to Karachi was packed. I sat next to a Pakistani businessman who lived in Hong Kong, and who had cut short his visit to Pakistan. He told me that things were not the same in Hong Kong since the British left. I was amused to notice that he changed from Pakistani to Western dress after reaching Karachi airport. With nearly ten hours to kill, we were unhappy to discover that the only place we were allowed to wait was the cafeteria on the seventh floor of the terminal building. It was a long afternoon. Fortunately, the call for a general strike was ignored by the airport staff, although the McDonald's that sits directly across the access road from the terminal building closed down after noon prayers. (You'd think they could find somewhere a little less provocative.) It was only after we cleared the first stage of airport security, and Liz and I had had our bags searched, that we found out that our flight had been delayed by 14 hours. Again, the Cathay Pacific people were wonderful -- vouchers for hotel, dinner and breakfast appeared almost before I asked. It had never been part of my planning to spend time in Karachi proper, certainly not on the day three (or four, the BBC was inconsistent) people were killed in a riot. But a city of 14 million people is a big place, and we saw nothing out of the ordinary. Instead of an uncomfortable night on the plane, I slept well in a big bed in an old but elegant hotel.
My bag was searched again the next morning, but at least we spent the time waiting for the plane in the departure lounge -- with 'net access. When the plane left, with a mere 50 people in the economy cabin, we felt like cheering. Instead I toasted Sheryl's birthday with a gin and tonic.
As in Karachi, we saw no signs of disturbance in Islamabad, although perhaps the streets near the Parliament Building were unnaturally empty. The people we mingled with at the viewpoint seemed cosmopolitan -- the women wore light or no veils and tailored tunics. Even at the mosque at evening prayers we felt no hostility. We all loved northern Pakistan, and the people there, and want to go back. However, there was unquestionably anti-Western, or at least anti-US, feeling in Pakistan. It wasn't clear whether pro or anti-government groups were in the majority. Some people had weird ideas: an opinion poll found 24% thought that Israel was behind the attacks on the US, and one man I talked with, a graduate with family in the US, told me that Muhammad had told his followers to hate the Jews -- directly contrary to the Koran. A belief that the US is totally supportive of Israel, and dismissive of Palestinian rights was behind some of the anti-US sentiment. There was also much concern that a US attack on Afghanistan would have a disastrous impact on Pakistan -- just the threat had killed the tourist industry -- and there were already big Afghan refugee camps in the north. Musharraf was walking a tightrope.
Not all those who were at best reluctant supporters of the government policy have odd ideas. We talked with one well-dressed man in Karimabad who held forth at length about the US's responsibility for the Taliban -- the result of US support of the mujahadeen, followed by complete disinterest after Russia pulled out. This view was also expressed in Time Asia. A quotation from the Economist may be relevant: "... nowhere in the developing world, where wars and natural disasters frequently kill thousands almost unnoticed elsewhere, have there been the outpouring of sympathy seen in Europe."
Site design and content Copyright 2001 - 2010, Wilhelm's Words
Contact: wilhelmswords.com
Home