As I’ve noted before, before coming to Pakistan I expected the road between Gilgit and Chitral to be metalled all the way, whereas in reality about half of the route is track, and some parts of that track are barely more than a jeep track; yet trucks and buses regularly make the route. However the large buses cannot get beyond Mastuj ( though they can get down  into Mastuj village) because just out of Mastuj towards Chitral the track steeply descends towards a narrow suspension bridge and it takes a sharp right-angled bend onto and off the bridge. The large buses cannot make it, though apparently/evidently lorries can, though with difficulty. The track, as it continues, is often very narrow and is just a ledge with big drop offs.

 

About 75km before Chitral extensive irrigation enables rice to be grown, and although the South of Pakistan is the country’s major rice growing area, the area around Chitral is important.

 

Literally 200yds before we changed from dirt track to metalled road we had our first and only puncture. It’s just as well we were so close to habitation as out wheel brace wouldn’t move the wheel nuts so Eidjan was sent to borrow a larger one. Having changed the wheel we drove the, literally, 300yds to a ‘tyre shop’ to have it repaired. No automatic machine here to separate the tyre from the rim – much whacking with a large hammer and jumping on it is employed. Once he had found the hole in the inner-tube, the gas burner was lit to heat-up the iron to vulcanise the patch. It’s all so manual and I suspect how things were done in England in the 1950’s. Anyway the repair cost all of 40 pence! It all seems so cheap to us but one forgets the difference in cost of living; one cannot help feeling though that if he charged the equivalent of 50 pence he would have a higher income and so standard if living. But that’s the way to inflation. 

 

About 20 miles out of Chitral we caught up with a convoy of wedding cars. They were complete maniacs. Ehsan got fed up with their antics after about 10 miles and, with a considerable effort, we went past them.

 

The Chitral mosque was built by the local Mir in the 1920’s. It’s not spectacular, but pleasant enough with minarets, an onion dome, and an open courtyard for the worshippers.  Around the courtyard are a series of rooms for instruction and for private prayer.

 

The mosque is next to the Chitral Fort which is built on a bluff by/overlooking the river. It is privately owned, but we were able to enter through a small door set into the main entry door. The fort is largely a semi-ruin, but it was the British garrison in the town, and there is a battery of guns remaining.

 

We had decided to upgrade to the Hindu Kush Heights which is on a hill overlooking the Chitral River and Chitral. As noted earlier, the hotel really is very nice, with antique rugs and artefacts; our room was very comfortable. The hotel is owned by the Prince (Mir) of Chitral - Siraj – and his with Ghazalla, who we met when we went to the reception area for some tea. Ghazalla was doing the menu “and I’m sure you would love apple crumble and cream for afters” – would we indeed! She insisted that we should not pay for the (green) tea, which was probably the best we had in Pakistan. We then met their daughter who was about twenty and who had been in London for two years  studying to be a Montessori teacher. She had returned to Chitral to be near to her aged grandparents but she spent much of her time on the computer/internet (dial-up at 56bps) and I suspect she missed London more than she owned up to. We met the whole family again at dinner when they had as their guests the Prince of Yasin and his family who were relatives. We had a chat about the Yasin valley and how beautiful it was, and they agreed that most tourists did not visit the valley, indeed, Ghazalla herself had never been there.