Memorable Tours of Pakistan at surprisingly low cost
Pakistan Tour: John Shears
Islamabad to Taxila, Balakot, Mansehra, Kaghan Valley, Naran
Taxila is the site of an important technical university and historical remains dating from the 2nd centaury BC onwards, In the 1930’s the British built a museum to house the discovered artifacts.
Islamabad – Naran
Despite a fairly poor night’s sleep due to a combination of jet-lag and painful back, we were up for breakfast at 08.30hrs. We settled on toast butter and jam, green tea and (very sweet) orange juice. Toast is an understood concept in Pakistan; it’s just that their concept is different to ours! The Pakistani concept of toast is really warmed slices of bread with maybe a bit of crispness if you are lucky. As we were a bit put off by the concept of boiling the milk up with the tea and milky tea coming out of the teapot, we became experts on green tea. At breakfast we met a strange German postman who was just off a plane, and who was off (with some others I think) to go climbing in the Himalayas. I don’t think it was just my lack of German and his lack of English, but it was not at all clear to me how he was going to get to the Himalayas and what he was going to use for climbing gear. Oh well!
Another battered yellow taxi was waiting to take us and our baggage to meet the others in Rawalpindi, or Pindi as all the locals call it. The cases were tied onto the tiny roof rack. It’s surprising what you ultimately get used to and accept as ‘normal’ and ‘it’ll work, don’t worry’, but we were petrified the whole way that the cases were going to fall off – of course they didn’t!
Pindi is exactly what you expect of a Pakistan city – small shops and workshops, a maze of roads both wide and narrow, masses of people, colourful vans and lorries, and traffic chaos; in some ways it was quite a refreshing change from Islamabad.
We quickly discovered that there certain unwritten, but clearly agreed and understood rules to driving in Pakistan:-
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Never ever give way to another vehicle.
Since by definition this would give rise to accidents, the second rule is:-
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Never ever actually hit another vehicle or pedestrian
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Sound your horn as often as possible, especially when you are about to overtake, are actually overtaking, or if there is a pedestrian in the road (you will note that in a city, sounding your horn is thus a constant enterprise)
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Wearing your seat belt or a crash helmet immediately marks you out as a complete sissy and should be avoided at all costs
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The same applies to any motorcyclist carrying less than two passengers
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Never obey the signals of a policeman as to do so would almost certainly make the traffic jam worse
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Always ignore lane markings – if there is the remote possibility that another lane can be created, or you can squeeze into a gap, you must do so
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A one-way street sign is merely advisory, and is to be strictly ignored by cycles and motorcycles
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Outside towns always assume that you can overtake and do not let incidentals such as blind bends or vehicles coming in the opposite direction deter you
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If there is no room to overtake on the right (Pakistan drives on the same side of the road as the UK) then overtake on the left
The great thing though is that it all seems to work and the traffic is actually much less frenetic than in the UK!
The taxi took us to the Regent Hotel in Rawalpindi to meet the others, who hadn’t actually arrived yet as the BA flight was late. The Regent is only about a couple of hundred yards from the spot where Benazir Bhutto was killed. Literally just outside the hotel a group of men were mending a car – welding kit and all. Nazim had had Margaret’s shalwar kamises altered late on Sunday night by the tailor and they now fitted. I was already togged-up in mine. Gordon and Carol and Hillary finally arrived and we set off to get their shalwar kamises and to change some money into rupees. As a result, it was around midday before we finally set off from Rawalpindi.
In Pakistan the M1 goes from Rawalpindi to Peshawar, though coming our of Rawalpindi it is not quite clear where the motorway actually starts as there is a long section of dual carriageway, for which we either had to pay a fee or a bribe, leading up to the formal toll booth. I guess the difference is that the motorway section does not (normally) have as many buildings alongside it.
At mid afternoon in a temperature approaching 40 degrees we turned off the motorway ad up a very bumpy road to Taxila. Taxila is the site of an important technical university and historical remains dating from the 2nd centaury BC onwards, Greek, Iranian etc. In the 1930’s the British built a really well done museum to house the discovered artefacts. We met a family group from Bradford who were visiting their relatives and who were quite surprised to see us, particularly in our shalwar kamises. In the museum we met a chap who, for a small ‘fee’ showed us around and lamented the passing of the British who he reckoned ran Pakistan much better than the Pakistanis.
There was a lot of traffic on the road north to Balakot but this did not seem to overly worry Eidjan who was thoroughly versed in the ‘rules’ for driving in Pakistan (see above)!
It was about 17.00hrs by the time we got to Balakot, the town which was the epicentre of the 2005 earthquake which killed around 80,000 people, 16,000 of them in the town of Balakot alone; it really is most sobering. Balakot was largely destroyed in the earthquake, and there is much re-building still going on and some people are still living in tents three years after the event. You can tell the new buildings as they all have blue roofs.
Clearly the road (largely unmade track!) from Balakot to Naran had not been good at the best of times, but the earthquake had destroyed/damaged/cut about 90% of the 60km between the two towns, and about half of the distance was affected by road works. This was our first introduction to the fact that in Northern Pakistan you define distance in terms of hours rather than in terms of km. When we first asked Nizam it seemed difficult to believe that a ‘mere’ 60km would take around four hours; by the time we got to Naran we understood the concept and the reasons for it much better! Before it got dark our jeep broke down – actually the clutch linkage came apart, thankfully on a metalled stretch. Ishaq got underneath and diagnosed the problem. A box of miscellaneous ‘bits and bobs’ was then produced and a matching nut and bolt were found which seemed to do the job and we were off again in about ½ hour – none of the Pakistanis seemed at all perturbed. Whether it was better to travel a large part of the track in the dark (it got dark around 20.15hrs) so that we could not see how bad the road actually was and how far the drop-offs were and so did not worry about it so much, or whether that merely served to increase the anxiety is a moot point. For the final 10-15km it absolutely ‘chucked it down’ with rain as well; we did at this point wonder whether ‘adventurous’ had become ‘foolhardy’. The fact is that Eidjan was used to these conditions even if we weren’t and drove very carefully and competently. We had a four wheel drive jeep (though in fact we stayed in two wheel drive) but we came across normal cars negotiating the route; I honestly do not think that I would have driven a 4x4 along that track in daylight, let alone in the dark, let alone in the dark and rain, let alone in a normal car!!!
As it was 22.05hrs by the time we got to the Naran hotel we declined joining the others for dinner and just had toast/warm bread and jam. It had been a really long day (though fascinating, sobering, interesting and adventurous) made longer by the fact that we did not leave Rawalpindi till past midday – it would be much better if everyone arrived the day before like we did
