Diary | KJTI

Holidays in Pakistan mountain views, meeting, eating living with village people, detailed day to day Diary

Pakistan Tour
John Shears

The scenery of Northern Pakistan is truly magnificent with incredible jeep tracks; an adventurous nature to go on this trip meeting the smiling friendliness of photogenic people, particularly but not solely, the Kalash

Prologue

Our friends are quite used to us visiting strange, unusual and remote parts of the world.

“This time you really are mad; you’ll either get blow-up, shot, or kidnapped and you’ll get some unmentionable disease”

That was the universal view of all our friends at the announcement that were going to Pakistan for the best-part of a month. The view was that this trip was definitely the “foolhardy side of adventurous”. The more knowing also ventured that we would probably get hit by an earthquake; though whether this was an alternative to the above or simply an additional risk was never quite clear!

We responded that Mahmood, the organiser and owner of KJTI, had advised us that we would be perfectly safe and that he definitely knew what he was talking about. We did get worried though when, just before we left these shores, we looked up Pakistan on the Foreign Office website, as their advice was not to go anywhere near Pakistan unless you absolutely had to (whatever that means), and certainly not to go anywhere near North-West Frontier Province. As far as we could see, we were only going through ‘a bit’ of NWFP, and Mahmood again assured us we would not be going anywhere near any trouble spots. I think that the real answer is not to look at the FO web site! We also consoled ourselves that we would be having a rest from any danger at Kashgar in China; then a week before we left the UK, twenty policemen got killed in an attack in Kashgar……

We did take the ‘disease’ thing seriously though and had just about every vaccination and vaccination top-up known to man, including Rabies (not funny for someone who hates injections), and taking Malaria prophylactics with us.

That NONE of our friends concerns actually transpired is evidenced by the writing of this travelogue.

Epilogue

Well, it’s clear that we had a safe and absolutely wonderful trip, and we are so pleased that we ignored all the doomsayers.

A few summary points and highlights can be noted:

The scenery of Northern Pakistan is truly magnificent. There are the mountains you learn of in Geography like Nanga Parbit and Rakaposhi; all those snow-capped mountains at around the magic 8,000 meter mark; the Indus and other gorges.
The names:- Himalaya, Karakorum, Hindu Kush, Pamirs, Karakoram Highway.
The beautiful valleys with their small farms, wheat fields and apricot/cherry/apple orchards.
The spectacular roads. The KKH is a true engineering/construction marvel both in its original construction and in its upkeep. The KKH and other roads in the area are constantly bombarded by landslides and flash floods that make any journey along them an adventure.
The incredible jeep tracks, some of which are more like mountaineering than a track. It is an amazing sight to see a brightly decorated lorry driven up one of these tracks.
The friendliness of the people. Only in Dir did we feel any anxiety at all, for the remainder of the trip we met nothing but friendly people, whether locals or ‘tourists’ from elsewhere in Pakistan. People really wanted you to see and have the best they had to offer, and to get a favourable opinion of Pakistan.
The colourful and photogenic people, particularly but not solely, the Kalash.
The wonderful little shops full of items and ways of presentation you do not see in the UK any more.
We didn’t get ill (just a day of light stomach problems each)

It is equally clear, particularly after the trip, that you need a knowledgeable tour operator and knowledgeable people on the ground in Pakistan. We could not have done better than KJTI, and Ehsan and Eidjan in Pakistan.

Mahmood clearly knows his business, the area and his clientele, and is very reassuring; even his pre-trip write-up mentions the downsides like most people get a touch of stomach trouble. In Pakistan, nothing was too much trouble for Ehsan and Eidjan. Eidjan proved to be a very safe and reliable driver. Ehsan was amazing both in his knowledge of the area and the fact that he had good friends and/or relatives in absolutely every town and village we went through.

Clearly you need to be of an adventurous nature to go on this trip – you need to be able to accept delays, changes, and a few ‘depravations’ such as the lack of water and/or electricity, but that is part of the adventure, the magic.

We are so pleased that we went, and would thoroughly recommend the trip to anyone of an adventurous nature.