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.