Adventure Travel Northern Pakistan

In the Himalayas in Northern Pakistan there are some of the biggest peaks in the world. Beneath these mighty peaks are civilizations that have been untouched by modern life. Northern Pakistan is a country of high mountains and hidden valleys. The mighty Indus river flows from the mighty Himalaya mountains down into the plains of Pakistan. Peshawar is a frontier city and that is what its name means - frontier town. It is a busy bustling city with grand bazaars. You can get anything in Peshawar - brass and bronze pots, guns, any type of farm produce. K2 and Nanga Parbat are two of the highest mountains in the world.

The country in the Himalayas is treacherous and dangerous. There is ice and snow, with deep crevasses and glaciers. Every foot step must be planned and every foot step could be your last. Nanga Parbat is very cold and the temperature get down below minus twenty degrees. People have been coming here looking for Shangri-La for centuries. Alexander the great went looking for the fountain of youth.

The Bomboret Valley is on the border of Afghanistan and is the home of the Khailash people. The dead are left scattered around the graveyard and they are an oppressed people by the Pakistan majority. Now, there are barely two and a half thousand Khailash people left in the Bomboret Valley. They say that some of Alexander the greats soldiers stayed at Bomboret and settled there. You can see European features in a lot of the Khailash people's faces.

In winter time the snows can come and cut you off in the mountains. Every spring in Chitral is a game with goat that is called bouzkashi. Chitral is in the north west of pakistan near the afghanistan border. The object of the buzkashi game is to grab the goat and race off with it on your horse and then other people try and get it off you. There are no rules and anything goes. Buzkashi started as practice for battle to get your buddies off the battle field when they are wounded.

There is only one road out of the Chitral Valley. The Lowari Pass is 2800 meters high but you just never know if you can get through to the Swat Valley. Sometimes the road is too narrow to pass and a traffic jam ensues until the snow gets dug off the road. It may take eight hours to travel fifty miles, so the going is slow. The Swat Valley is supposedly the birthplace of tantric Buddhism. There used to be heaps of Buddhist monasteries but now have all gone. Buddhist sculptures are defaced and stoned. In the sixties, the hippies flocked to the Swat Valley. The Swat has been a haven for foreigners and the british came here in the nineteenth century and put trout in the streams of the Swat Valley. The hippies are long gone.

Guns in the Swat valley are a way of life and intertribal conflicts and family feuds are resolved through deadly violence. Machine guns rifles and pistols are made in the Swat Valley as well as ammunition. They say nearly sixty percent of Pakistani men own a gun. The Kharakoram Highway links Pakistan and China. The trucks are highly decorated and gaudy. The paintings are spiritual and designed to protect the truck from the dangers of the road. The kharakoram Highway goes deep into the Himalayas and follows the Indus River deep into the mountains. Pathans are a warlike tribe that dominate the trucking industry in Pakistan. K2 mountain is over eight thousand meters and is in the Kharakoram Ranges. The locals believe that fairies live on the snowline and it is important to keep them happy. If someone gets possessed by a spirit the shaman is called in and juniper leaves are burnt and the shaman goes into a trance and dances around like crazy and screams madly. People here have a strong belief in the supernatural and can even die if they believe they have been cursed.

Gilgit is a town little known outside of Pakistan but is well known for Polo. You do not have to be rich to play polo in Gilgit but you have to be able to ride a horse. Hitting a polo is not easy on horse back. When the British Raj were here, the cavalry officers were captivated by polo and thus brought it to England and that is why it is now a western sport for rich people. The road to Skardu is in disputed land between Pakistan and India. It is a tourist resort reputed to be the lost valley of Shangri-La. Hidden deep in North Pakistan is Skardu. This remote town is a mecca for climbers who want to climb some of the highest mountains in the world. Cricket is played in the most remote towns in Pakistan and is a way of life to the Pakistanis. The fort and Skardu commands the whole valley and was the edge of the known world to the British Raj.

The Hunza Valley is on the other side of the mountains from Skardu and is accessible only by walking. The Hunza is legendary for its healthy old people. People up here regularly live past a hundred and older. At the head of the valley lies a Buddhist monastery that is perched high on a cliff.

Main places to visit in North Pakistan:
Peshawar
Hindu Kush Mountains
Swat Valley
Chitral
Bomboret
Gilgit
Nanga Parbat
Skardu
Hunza Valley

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