Weekend away part 4 - stuck in the mud

For the next part of our adventure we decided to take a drive down this little jeep track descending into Gittidas - this large area of green pasture at the head of the valley.  As always, click the pics to view them full size - it's usually well worth it!

Looking down into Gittidas.

This little road was awesome, and driving down it was kinda hair-raising.  The
road-builders have obviously just rearranged the scree slope a bit, using the
stones they take from the left side to build up the right side like a dry-stane dyke.

Our borrowed Land Cruiser coped quite happily with rocks and streams...

...but was less happy when we discovered this bit was a little deeper and a little
more slippery than we had anticipated.  Jimmy and I did some experimental
attempts at going forward and back, and trying to get some flat stones under
the wheels.  Trouble was, we appeared to have driven off the edge of a sort of
ledge of harder ground, upon which our spare tyre and rear diff were grounded.
A couple of local guys turned up and we had a go at jacking up the back of
the car in another attempt at getting some stones under the wheels.  We gave
up and they wandered on.

This is where we started to wonder things like "how far back were the last
people we saw?" and "how many hours of daylight do we have left? and "how
cold do you think it gets here at night?"

Actually, there were a surprising number of people passing by.  We recalled
having seen a tractor working further back down the valley, so after a bite to
eat Jimmy (with his superior language skills) hiked off to find some locals.

In the meantime we weren't short of things to look at.  Several lone guys came
past at intervals, and enquired how we were doing.  Being the man, I had to do
the communicating guessing what they were saying and trying to explain that
yes we did have someone else with us and he'd gone down the valley to bring a
tractor.  One guy said we should get some wood to lever the back of the car up.

Suppressing my doubts about the likelihood of finding any wood in this tree-
less part of the valley, I followed him to some patches of scree where he thought
he might have seen some.  After a while of scrabbling around and moving rocks
back and forward, he declared/gestured that it probably under this patch of ice
and snow and would therefore be difficult to extract.  I thanked him for his help
and he shouldered his pack (which appeared to be full of animal dung for fuel)
and continued on his way.  Whether he had actually seen some there previous
time he was here, or whether he was just showing willingness to help, we'll
never know.

The rescue party.  After a bit of a hike, Jimmy came across these chaps, and
got chatting to them.  They told him some stories about all the people they'd
dug out:  "Oh yes, there was this doctor who got stuck and the jeep couldn't
get him out, and the tractor couldn't get him out, but then he paid us eleven
thousand rupees and we got him out!"

To which the reply was "I'm sorry, we don't have that kind of money".  After
settling on a flat rate of four thousand (just under £30) to get us out, they got
out their spade and walked back up with him.  (Jimmy had asked for more
than these four to help us essentially lift the car out, but that would have
meant sharing out the reward money between more people, so...)

Hard at work.  By this time it was getting kinda chilly for our summer clothes.

Free!

As we started our long journey back (5 hours including a stop for some
local chicken karahi at about 10pm - we'd lost 2-3 hours in the mud),
it started to get pretty.

Driving back down those roads in the dark was less hair-raising than you might
expect - a case of what's out of sight is easier to put out of your mind.  Further
down it had evidently rained a bit earlier, which made some sections a little
more exciting.

Last but not least, over the course of the day we had seen (and had to stop for) various flocks that the Gujjars were driving back up to the pastures.  But it became quickly apparent that they do much of their moving at night time - cooler and less traffic.  We'd just see a couple of little torch lights in the darkness ahead, then we'd be pulled over watching thousands of animals troop though our headlights.  In the video above, about 3/4 of the flock had already passed by the time I'd got my camera out.

There was some fairly amazing stargazing to be had up here too.  We made it back to Naran just before midnight, where the nightlife was still buzzing!

Weekend away part 3 - Babusar Pass

On Sunday we set out on a little expedition to the top of the valley, some 70km away.

The first challenge was getting out of the car park.  The guys at the guest house
apparently only built it a couple of weeks ago, and are milking this little money-
spinner for all its worth by packing up all the available space.  Even though we'd
told them we'd be leaving early, they still had to go and wake some poor guy up.

There are many side valleys branching off the main one, each one would be
an adventure all by itself.

A view back down the valley, sometime after we stopped at a roadside eatery
for breakfast parathas and omelettes.

One of the better bridges.  At every river crossing there were concrete supports
waiting for a permanent structure to be (re)built, a diversion to a little temporary
structure like this one, and in some cases a little way down the river the twisted
remains of the previous one.  On most, the planks rattle and bounce as you cross,
on one the plates were misaligned meaning you had to slalom across it, but the
best was a tiny one about the width of the car, which you had to drive both on
and off at an angle.  Fun.

You know, parts of this look a lot like Scotland.  Only somewhat... magnified.

Looking up towards the pass.  After a while you get used to roads with no edges.

There are lots these settlements huddled in the base of the valley:  some of them
seemingly abandoned, others being re-inhabited by the nomadic Gujjar peoples
bringing their flocks (mainly goats, sometimes with a few horses/donkeys/mules
thrown in) back up to the summer pastures.  Some of them walk for two months
each way to/from wherever they spend summer.  The richer ones hire a truck.

Keep your thumbs out - the rocks make the steering wheel really kick.

Looking down the other side of the Babusar pass towards Chilas.  There were
a surprising number of tourists up here, in/on a surprising array of vehicles.  I
would not have liked to take a motorbike up those steep twisty gravelly rocky
roads.  It hailed.

The ground up here is festooned with all sorts of tiny little wild flowers - pink,
yellow, blue, purple, white, and even dark red, contrasting with bright orange
and green lichens on the rocks.

Cairns.  I think hills everywhere have these, but I've never come across such
geometrical ones.

Looking down from just below the Babusar Pass into the Gittidas pastures.
Click to view full size.

Weekend away part 1 - Naran (again)

This weekend we took another trip up the Kaghan Valley to visit a couple of friends who are spending a few weeks volunteering at a school in Naran.  (We would have happily taken a week, but that would have left the hospital even more short-staffed...)

A view down the lower part of the valley.

And up the way.  I'm still amazed how populous these steep hills are.

Driving close to the edge.

Since we were last here, a little progress has been made with this landslide.
The two temporary bridges have seemingly been pressed into service elsewhere,
leaving the traffic to fight its way along the side where the road used to be.

A new addition since last time is the beekeepers.  Every half a mile or so we
passed a few hundred of these little beehives, usually with a tent or two nearby
for the keepers.  We must have passed tens of thousands of hives on our trip -
do they get packed away to hibernate in the winter?  Or are they packed into
trucks and forcibly migrated to somewhere warmer?

Most of these places also have a little stall where you can buy the produce.
It comes in unmarked recycled containers, from old jars to 2-litre coke bottles.

No problems getting past the glacier this time, as thousands of people have
apparently already discovered.  Naran has been transformed by the tourist
season:  a huge tent village has sprung up on all the available flat land,
catering for tourists using tents bearing the logos of countless different aid
agencies; all those broken down building have been fixed up, painted, and
filled with things that tourists might like to part with their cash for.

We even had the thought that Naran might be the Pakistani equivalent of
somewhere like Ibiza (minus the drinking/clubbing) - bustling until the small
hours with young trendy tourists from the big cities, throbbing music, rowdy
social gatherings, even a big searchlight-type thing sweeping the night sky.

And of course no Pakistani street scene is complete without one of these -
and this is a particularly fine example.  Next part tomorrow...

Holidays part 5 - Naran & Lake Saiful Muluk

Continued from parts 1, 2, 3 and 4.

One of the main highlights was this expedition up to Lake Saiful Muluk. In summertime you can take a jeep part of all of the way, but since the jeep track was buried under several feet of snow, we'd be walking the whole way.

A couple of km in, and well into the snow.  The group ahead dropped behind us,
and at some stage disappeared altogether.

Don't look now, but you're being followed by half a pirate.

Bashir goes ahead, kicking out steps for the rest of us -
in his loafers.

A long way up...

Made it! - 4 hours, 10km and 2600ft of snow from Naran.

Lake Saiful Muluk - somewhere under that lot!  (click for large version)
The big lumpy peak left-of-centre with the hanging glacier is Malika Parbat.

Lunch consisted of the day's second set of parathas with omelettes inside.

At this point Bashir handed Jenny a blanket and pointed down
the slope.  Jo's plastic bag was somewhat faster, leading to a
high-speed snowy somersault or two - like in a cartoon but
thankfully minus the giant snowball part.

The descent took just over half the time of the ascent.

The slidey-trails go back a long way up!

Next day we went for a gentler and flatter walk a little way up the main valley.
Here's the next wee village, currently deserted.

After a pause for a drink, we decided to go and see what what was round the corner
before heading back - this was what we found.  (click for large version)

An executive decision to leave on the Thursday evening instead of Friday
morning proved to be a fortuitous choice, as a storm chased us down the valley.
Had we stayed the extra night we would have had to hike over landslides to get
my parents to the airport on time!

Halfway through this glacier we met a stuck minibus.

One more reminder of the flood's toll on the road.

Holidays part 4 - Glaciers

Continued from parts 1, 2 and 3.

The next day we continued on up the valley.  I was planning that this be the last holiday post, but as the journey was almost as spectacular as the destinations (and the glacier stuff was just so cool!), I decided this part deserved an extended post of its own.

This is a road which will never be finished.  Up and down the valley is evidence
of great forces at work, the annual cycles of freeze/melt/erode dwarfed by the
effects of 2005's earthquake and 2010's floods.  In this stretch 1/4 of a mile of
road  was under scree (left side of pic), and rather than dig it out, it was simpler to
build two bridges and drive along the opposite bank.  For some idea of scale,
compare the size of the boulder on the left bank with the truck on the right.

A quick leg-stretch and photo stop.

The guidebook advises tourists that the stretch of road up to Naran is "blocked by
4 or 5 small glaciers in the early season".  This problem is solved by digging a
trench like this.  One or two of them also have a small river flowing under the
glacier and across the road, before plunging into a gaping hole under the ice on
the other side. The word on the street was that the road would be open imminently.

Our first glimpse of Naran.  At this point, halfway through a glacier, there was an
impromptu car park with a selection of jeeps awaiting the clearing of the next bit.

Another jeep-load of optimistic travellers joins the party.

I used to have a Playmobil one of these when I was smaller.

Just beyond the bulldozer is a 20ft+ cliff of snow, below which
another digger removes the snow it pushes over the edge.

It was looking like another day or two's work, so we hike
the last half mile or so into Naran.

After yesterday's exertions, today we content ourselves with a very gentle
stroll up to a viewpoint,  before sampling Naran's entertainment options...

...which, seeing as the road isn't open yet, consist of one hotel (which is opened, and a couple of rooms hastily vacuumed, at the request of our guide, Bashir) and one small kitchen which appears to be serving the entire population of the town (all of whom Bashir knows personally).  The food is simple, but pretty good, and over our three days we have every dish on the menu - chicken karahi, channa dal (like chickpeas), subzee (potato/peas/chilli) - most of them twice.

As the road gradually gets closer to openness over the next couple of days, the town ever-so-slowly starts to transform:  a few more tourists trickle in (some have driven all the way from Karachi!), doubling the population; one or two little shops are persuaded by Bashir to open their shelves to customers on an ad hoc basis; several of the broken down wooden buildings have walls repaired and new roofs erected.  In one way at least, this is a great time to be here - it must be heaving in summer when all the 100+ hotels are filled.

More expeditions to follow in the final post soon.