I took a taxi yesterday to my storage unit on Hanger Lane
with the more valuable contents of my shed.
I sat in the front next to the
driver and it turned out that he was of Pakistani origin. This swiftly led us into a conversation about
my recent trip to Pakistan. At the
traffic lights near BBC TV Centre, he insisted on shaking my hand – “respect”
for the fact that I had been to the Chitrali mountain range. He himself had been some ten years ago but on
his recent trip to Lahore this summer, he hadn’t made it past Murree. Too dangerous, man!
At the beginning of the summer, I needed a plan for
August that would amuse me post-Widcombe Grange and before spending a week at
Lakeside Road between tenants.
Everywhere seemed too far, too hot or frankly, likely to be full of
families away during the school hols. I needed to escape to somewhere a bit
random… which is how I ended up choosing a Wild Frontiers trip to Pakistan. It was all very last minute and in fact, I
only picked up my visa at 5pm on the evening before my 8.40am flight to
Islamabad.
Some people definitely questioned my sanity ahead of the
trip and many more after the fact. A few
others simply rolled their eyes. I had
to acquire some super-duper “non-FCO recommended country” travel insurance and
added on some extra terrorist cover for good measure. It is important to note that the FCO only
advise against all travel to four countries currently: Libya, Somalia, Syria
(darn shame) & Yemen. Anyway, my
trip was in the North West provinces of Pakistan, bordered mainly by
Afghanistan so surely all would be fine J. On a more serious note, when a well respected
travel company has their “signature trip” to Pakistan, I presume that they have
the clients’ safety under control.
The trip started well, arriving into Islamabad on time
and the weather was hot, but not too hot.
Our guide, Zafer, kept mentioning that he was monitoring our flight
for the next morning. Today’s flight to Chitral had left and the weather for tomorrow
looked good. The daily 1 hour flight
from Islamabad to Chitral is on a very small plane and gets cancelled not
infrequently. All looked good on
Saturday morning when we got up at 4am and after a light breakfast, headed to
the airport for our 7am flight. We
checked in our luggage and made our way to the departure gate. There were two planes on the tarmac and
only one of them matched the description of our small plane for Chitral. It was a little upsetting when it took off
for Gilgit…
It took until 7.30am before the departures board suddenly changed to
show “cancelled” for our flight.
Fortunately our minibus had stayed until the car park to wait until we
had taken off and so by 7.50am we had collected our luggage and were setting
off on the 12-ish hour journey to Ayun, near Chitral. As we were travelling during Ramadan and food
can be hard to come by during daylight hours, Zafer stopped to pick up some
snacks and fortuitously to make a set of photocopies of the list of our
passport and visa details (4 Brits, 1 Canadian, 2 Aussies & 2 Americans).
We passed uneventfully through the Swat valley but then
progress slowed when we had to stop at an army check point in the Dir
province. Sitting opposite a Chitrali Scouts barracks,
we waited for an hour whilst Zafer negotiated with the army to allow our
passage. The army had decided that we
lacked a “No Objection Certificate” (a relatively new invention). A few times,
it seemed that Zafer had collected his document folder and was on his way back
to the minibus when suddenly the army chief would suddenly call him back and he
would sit down for some further discussions. A lot of phone calls were made.
Finally, it was agreed that we could continue and the
army chief would call ahead to all the check points that we would pass over the
coming week and inform them that we should be allowed swift passage. Unfortunately this message did not reach the
next check point up the road. We enjoyed
the questioning of an enthusiastic army officer who was concerned that we had
been kidnapped by our guide and driver.
I wonder if it was almost a disappointment that we hadn’t and that
boringly, we were exactly who we said we were – tourists.
The subsequent few hours passed in a blur, nibbling on
almonds and biscuits and occasionally having to close the curtains on the
minibus to avoid the attention of unwelcoming locals. Late afternoon, we arrived at the PTDC Hotel in Dir
and were thrilled to be served tea and meet our jeep drivers (Mufti, Nasir and
Daman) who had come from Chitral to collect us (a slightly longer journey than
if we had arrived into Chitral airport).
By 5pm, Liz, Ken and I were settling into our jeep with driver Nasir,
looking forward to arriving at Old Masoud Fort in 3-4 hours time. The journey would take us up the Lowari pass
and somewhere near the top, we would leave the Dir region and enter the Chitral
area. As Nasir repeatedly said “Dir –
bad people, Chitral – good people”.
As we approached the Lowari pass, we requested permission
to use the Lowari tunnel but we were refused on the grounds that it was too
dangerous for foreigners. It is
debatable whether this related to the potential of what could happen within the
tunnel or simply due to the state of the road on the other side. We had no choice but to head up the pass
itself at the onset of dusk. The problem
was that since our drivers had driven over the pass at 1pm, there had been
heavy rain causing many landslides… Our skilled jeep drivers handled these landslides
with aplomb despite being bemused at how the road could have changed so much during such a short time. “No problem”, Nasir would
tell us with a grin.
Suddenly at 8pm, we met our match. “Problem”, said Nasir, “Go back”. Liz gave him all her snacks so that he could
break Ramadan. We set off back down the mountain, my front seat affording me a
great view of mountain pass, even in the pitch black. At the bottom of the pass, the army again
refused us permission to travel through the tunnel but promised that they would
allow us to travel through the following morning. Back to the PTDC at Dir then… As there was no mobile signal, they were not
expecting us and the chef had gone home for the night. Rooms were found for us and our jeep drivers
headed off to find us a “takeaway” which we devoured at 11.30pm.
We were granted a late start the next morning (and boy
did we sleep well) and headed back to the pass.
I don’t think very many foreigners have travelled through the Lowari
pass tunnel and definitely we were the first Wild Frontiers group to do
so. It took a bit more negotiating but
eventually we set off in convoy followed by a variety of Bedford trucks carrying live
chickens. My jeep led the 30 minute
drive through the dark wet tunnel. No Taliban
jumped out along the way.
When we arrived at the other side, it was clear that we
wouldn’t be going anywhere any time soon.
The heavy rains had washed the road into the dry river bed. Zafer was convinced that there was a route through for the jeeps but Mufti just laughed. In the end we left our main luggage with the jeeps and scrambled over to the other side. The jeeps would follow us later in the day once the army had restored some form of "road" over the river bed. The plan was to walk until some taxis could be found to take us the rest of the way. In the end, an enterprising minibus driver was found and he drove us to Ayun. With the state of the roads, this took another four hours: ouch. Old Masoud Fort could hardly have scored more highly as a picturesque destination. A cup of tea, late lunch and a hot shower later and all was well with the world again.
The journey may have been long but everyone remained pretty relaxed and in good humour throughout. Zafer remained calm at all times but as days at the office go, these were two fairly stressful ones! Those photocopies proved invaluable - every check point seemed to want one. You could even go so far as to say that this itinerary was an improvement on the original as it took us much deeper into Pakistan and gave us a better insight to the troubled regions.
That evening, a controversial announcement was made to Zafer. For the next five days, we would be supplied with a police escort to ensure that we were safe. This meant that wherever we went, we were accompanied by five police officers, including a local chief. All the Pakistanis we met were furious and convinced that this was officiousness. However, a little googling since I returned suggests that this has become standard since October 2010. The police joined us for the drive to the Kalash Valley and as we were in the front jeep, we were able to laugh at their inability to take the corners properly. Relations relaxed a lot once the chief of police discovered that he & Zafer were both Ismaili and from the Hunza Valley. Suddenly the police were all smiles and we could be trusted!
Whilst it was a little annoying have a continual police presence, they were generally charming and keen that we were enjoying out stay in Pakistan. When we trekked up to 3,800m (much of which was scrambling), they carried our rucksacks and waters and were always ready with a helping hand. Following our schedule did mean that they ended up doing a lot more exercise than normal! The negatives obviously are that when you visit a village, the locals associate the arrival of foreigners with police and also, you are never free to just wander. Our guesthouse owners were also obliged to provide lodgings and food for the policemen. Clearly if a police escort is to become standard practice, then it should be the tourists or the police covering the costs and not the local guesthouse owners. The times when the police put their flashing lights on to get us through traffic was mortifying and wholly unnecessary.
Where we ever in any danger? Probably not, but then I'm no foreign policy expert. In the Kalash Valley, we were a day and a half walk from the Afghan border but the locals didn't feel there was any issue. For the Pakistani authorities however, we were a potential PR disaster and so ultimately it is their decision.
The rest of the trip was fairly straightforward! We loved our three days in the Kalash Valley and the walks to the various villages & hardcore trek up to 3,800m. In our simple guesthouse, we chatted with the owner Saifullah and enjoyed mulberry gin instead of Kalash fruity wine (last year's grape harvest failed). I stayed in Michael Palin's "room" and if you'd like to know more about the Kalash then "Palin's Travels" provides a far more succinct description than I could achieve.
From the Kalash Valley, we travelled to Chitral, Mastuj, the Shandur Pass, Phander, Gilgit, the Hunza Valley (where we saw Rakaposhi and Ladyfinger), ending up at Shigar Fort after 14 hours of being bumped along jeep track. The people of the Kalash & Hunza Valleys shone out as the most welcoming. Elsewhere we were largely ignored. It was a long way from the continual waving in Africa earlier in the year. Our return flight to Islamabad from Skardu did leave on time which saved us a two day drive back to Islamabad. I'm not sure we'd have all managed the same sang-froid as we had at the beginning of the trip! Pakistan is a beautiful country with a lot to offer the tourist but I fear that it will be a while yet before it becomes a main stream destination again.
·
We advise
against all travel to Swat, Buner, and Lower Dir, including travel on the
Peshawar to Chitral road via the Lowari Pass. In these areas there are ongoing
reports of military or militant activity. Localised curfews may be
imposed at short notice.
·
We advise
against all but essential travel to the Kalesh Valley, the Bamoboret Valley and
Arandu District to the south and west of Chitral in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. These
areas have seen an increase in militant activity recently which has included
abductions, violent armed robbery and murder.
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