Photo post: Thandiani

This weekend we had a lovely time with our friends Jimmy & Erin (who we met at the orientation conference) who came up to visit us. They had access to a car belonging to another family who are home for a few months, so we grabbed the opportunity to take a little trip up into the hills in search of some snow. We had an early start, leaving at 7am, then after picking up our wheels stopped at a roadside eatery for naan, omelettes and chai.

On the road out of the valley, each new twist brought a better view. This is looking back towards Abbottabad (the hazy bit in the centre of this pic - click to see full size version):










The steep valleys are amazingly populous, with plenty of houses like these built into the hillside:



















Getting the materials up there in the first place must be a mammoth task!

After a while the road became a bit more like this:



















Most of the traffic consists of little Suzukis like this one:



















We'd already had two attempts at getting up this particularly icy corner when this guy came charging down. Downhill is easier than up, and 4WD doesn't necessarily help much when all 4 W's are on patches of ice!



















Pakistani roadsigns don't always tell you what you need to know. We deciphered the Urdu sign at this junction that said Thandiani 3.5km, but couldn't tell from it which direction it lay in. So we carried on for a bit straight on (behind the photographer) until we found some more troublesome patches of ice and snow. After a few tense slippery minutes we decided to turn around and try the other fork up the hill, which had obviously been cleared. A few minutes along that road the direction didn't feel right, so we decided to come back again, park the beast just before the snow started in earnest, and start our hike from there. (The cleared road turned out to be the main road to Muzaffarabad, a place where we're not supposed to go without a special permit, so just as well...)

It was lovely and quiet up here, thoroughly vindicating the early start to the day. A couple of cars (and even a motorbike!) braved the snow, the locals obviously being more determined drivers than we.

The daily commute:





































Balancing on top of the world:





































The view from the top - around 2700m (click for full size version):






We were told we could see Nanga Parbat from here, but we have no idea which bit of the distant mountain range it might have been.

A beach hut? Here?



















Thandiani town centre:



















Thandiani (literally 'cold place') is one of the old hill stations from colonial times, where people would retreat to escape the high summer heat lower down. In winter it's pretty much closed down, with few people around. All their water is brought up in tanks from a kilometre or so down the road. We stopped for some chai in this little eating place:



















Having brought his gaiters all this way, there was no stopping Jimmy wearing them. When they're all the rage next year, remember you saw them here first!





























































Crazy road-building skills once again in evidence:



















Looking back up one of the valleys on the way down:

Lepidoptery 6

Another brilliant batch of beautiful butterflies (previous episodes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5):

A Blue Pansy - a different variant from the last one, I think - most of these pics are from a few weeks ago before it got cold, but there are still quite a few of these guys left hanging on even after most of the other species have died off or migrated somewhere warmer:



















A Dark Clouded Yellow:

























A Common Wall:



















A Lime Butterfly - these ones get up to a fairly impressive 10cm wingspan - there were dozens of them enjoying some big red-flowered bushes at a motorway service station on the way to Lahore:



















And another one dreaming wistfully of freedom. Or something. It could be an elegant poetic portrayal of the tragedy of locking up something so beautiful or somesuch, were it not for the fact that the other three sides of the room were open to the fresh air. Stoopid insect:



















A Plain Tiger at our conference in Lahore last month (well, not at the conference, but you know what I mean):



















And from just the other day, apparently still braving the coldness, the grandly titled Queen of Spain Fritillary:

Lepidoptery 5

The next instalment... (see also parts 1, 2, 3 & 4)

These were all taken 3 weeks or so ago in the gardens near our house. It's now cold enough that there are few left, the bigger ones dying off or migrating sooner than the small ones. This little chap is a Common Punch:



















This is a Common Grass Yellow:



















Back to the more outlandish names - this one is called The Pioneer:



















And this rather beautiful (and slightly muddy) fellow is a Blue Pansy - pretty common to see them resting in the grass.

Photo post: Mukshpuri

Last weekend we took a trip out into the Murree Hills and did a lovely walk up a 9000ft hill called Mukshpuri, passing through a wildlife park on the way down (separate post on that coming shortly).



















As you can see, the road up is fairly impressive on the way up there; from above it looks something like this.



















On the drive there we met a sizeable troupe of these fellows.

























Looking down from the side of the valley.



















Some of the local ladies collecting fuel. Etiquette reduces my National Geographic-wannabe shots to covert behind-a-tree-once-they-aren't-looking operations.

























There are a startling number of lightning-struck trees, but that's understandable given the standard of lightning storms in this part of the world...














(click on pics for larger versions...)

At the top we emerge from the trees onto this plateau or alpine meadow - it almost doesn't feel like the top of a mountain somehow. This is the quietest place we have been, night or day, since we arrived - no bustling bazaars, no truck horns, no shouty loudspeakers... aah.



















Some big mountains are just about visible to the north-west. We're told that on a clear day you can see all the way to Nanga Parbat - maybe that's it, who knows?



















We stop at an open air barbecue restaurant on the way home, where we have possibly the best curry so far (a ginger chicken dish with soft fresh naan - spicy without being too hot to taste the ingredients!). Here is one of the views from our table. It's amazing where people manage to build their houses. And it gives us some understanding of why so many of pregnant patients at the hospital don't make it to their antenatal appointments!



















Some alternative transport - I'm not sure I like the look of that commute, even though it would probably cut an hour off the journey from one side of the valley to the other.

Lepidoptery 3 - Striped Tiger

Lepidoptery 2

It's high time Herbert was demoted from the top of the blog in favour of more beautiful creatures...

(click the images to see larger versions)

This one's an Indian Cabbage White - there are loads of these.

And this fine fellow is an Indian Fritillary.

EDIT: Actually, no he's not; she's a Painted Lady. (Mistook page 31 for fig. 31 in my book. Oops.)

I'm much better pleased with these pictures than my previous attempts; partly aided by the fact that these ones do occasionally pause (and actually land rather than hover), partly by better light, but mostly because I finally found the manual focus mode on my camera. Its macro mode has an unfortunate habit of focussing on entirely the wrong part of the picture, so while manual can be slightly more hit-or-miss, it's worth it when they come out right. I think I need a proper SLR.

I love the way you can see her tongue going right down into the depths of the flower. Which brings us to what I think is my favourite of all my photos from this trip so far:

Also, the other day we saw a large dark one, similar in shape and size to the Common Peacocks, but entirely black, and I think with slightly different shaped wings. I haven't managed to track down his identity anywhere. Maybe he's some kind of nefarious butterfly anti-hero.

Photo post: a walk and a look at the local scenery

(click to see bigger versions)

Last week we had our first proper outing in the local area, and it was nice to see a bit of what surrounds where we live. We took a suzuki (taxi) up out of the village with a couple of our colleagues, then walked a few miles back down to another point on the KKH to catch another home again.

Here is a brilliant little cable car, apparently made from the top half of a suzuki suspended from a couple of cables on little wheels. We didn't have time to stop and have a go unfortunately - hopefully next time.

I generally associate cable cars with tourist attractions or ski resorts, but this is a perfectly serious everyday method of transport.

A view over part of one of the villages.

Jenny with two of our hospital colleagues. This is a typical inter-village road. Some of the main ones are tarmac-ed, others are just gravel. The landscape is very hilly, with deep sheer valleys cutting through everything, so the roads are never direct. Hence the cable car above.

The other day I went to visit one of the workshop employees houses - the hospital puts some funds into helping its employees with their house repairs/improvements now and again, so we went to see what could be done at this guy's. The journey there was quite an adventure, involving a suzuki ride (other vehicles are too big to fit) along a riverbed complete with flowing stream, tracks tilting at crazy angles above steep valleys, and a memorable uphill section which required a run-up, followed by most of us hopping out, pushing, then walking up to catch up with our driver. The chap and his family live in 3 rooms perched on the edge of a valley, one breeze-block, the other two mud-brick, with bits of old corrugated iron sheeting for a roof - quite an eye-opener.

Looking out across the main valley - the hospital is somewhere down behind and to the left of the ridge with the village on it.

My photo-stitching program (Hugin) produces some fairly excellent results, but the power lines seem to have defeated it!

Lollipop tree.

Blue pansies (the blue part's on the inside of their wings - perhaps a photo another day!). There were lots of amazing (but fast-moving) butterflies which I entirely failed to get anywhere near with the camera, and it was only when we got back to the hospital that I got the ones in the previous post.

Corn is one of the main crops, grown in fields, and wherever there's a free patch of ground. The locals will often stop to greet you and chat, but are a bit bemused by the concept of walking for pleasure or to enjoy the scenery!

Stairway to heaven? Buildings are built wherever there's a moderately flat piece of ground. Often the land is owned by absentee landlords from whom the local people rent their plots.

Looking down one of the valleys back towards the KKH.

10-foot grass.