Chitral to Lahore

Today has been another amazing day in Pakistan. I set off from Chitral on the morning of Eid, the day that marked the end of the months fasting of Ramadan. The roads were empty as I set off back the same way I came through the valley villages and heading to the mountain pass over 3500m above sea level. Before I started the climb I stopped to re-adjust the straps on my baggage and was quickly surrounded by villagers and before long was invited into the home of one prominent man for breakfast and tea. They were very simple poor farmers and I was unsure if they could really afford to be feeding a complete stranger cake, biscuits, rice and chicken curry, but they would not take anything in payment telling me it was their duty to provide visitors with their hospitality. After staying for about an hour I made my polite goodbyes to the waving village of very shy boys and this time even some young girls. Today was Eid as I have already mentioned and the girls too young to marry yet were dressed in colourful dressed with lots of makeup, the married ones were nowhere to be seen or waring full burka dress. With my belly full I climbed up the mountain road towards to highest point driving through 45 switchback turns before reaching the police check point. Because the fasting is now over I was given tea and I stopped to let my engine cool for 30mins. I was hoping to make it back down to the point were I no longer needed a police escort before sundown. Because the escort slowed me down so much on the way here I cruised past all checkpoints unnoticed and managed to make it 90% of the way before lack of light pointed me to a small town. On arriving and after asking where I could stay 2 local boys walked with me for over 2km to show me a good hotel. They really went out of their way. I crossed the street to call my mum and dad from a pay-point. Even here they refused to take the full payment and gave me back 50Rs. Then across the street I bought some water and some apple juice, the owner refused to take any money. I was beginning to feel like royalty. Still in shock as I left the shop I was "jumped" by 12-15 young boys who saw me come in on my bike and wanted to play cricket with me in the hotel court yard. I was put to shame by them for they knew every cricketer on the planet naming all the present players for Lancashire. I was bowled out for a duck by managed to recover some pride as I started knocking some 6s around the hotel. Soon a chair was brought and I was sat down ready for the "interview" to start. A quick fire round of questions on everything you can think of and of course all the usual questions. Food was brought for me, which I had to refuse, there is only so much you can eat in one day, I was in danger of being fed to death on hospitality. After giving mobile and email details to the older boys and after the younger ones teaching me "bad" words in the local language I tried to make my escape, after all it was about 10hrs of riding and I needed a shower and to lay down and rest. Luckily this coincided with the call to evening prayer and as they all disappeared I made my escape only after I had promised to play cricket with them the next morning before I set off for Islamabad. The people in the North Western Frontier of Pakistan have very pale skin in comparison to the rest of Pakistan and the Indian Subcontinent. There are also an unusually large number of people with blue and green eyes. When I inquired about this I was told that after Alexander the Great pulled out of the Afghanistan mountains most (or a lot) of his troops stayed and settled and intermixed with the locals.
The ride to Islamabad was pretty good I made it in good time way before it went dark. I stopped to have my bike looked at again. I feared that my back bearings were going again due to the extreme bad conditions of the roads I had been riding. The bearings were fine but they were not sitting right and after some purposeful hammer and screwdriver hitting inside the bearing hole to make a rough service they fitted nice and tight and my chain is now keeping it's tension and not in danger of coming lose time and time again. Not bad for the whole job being about 30p. I should point out again that during this visit to the mechanic I gave out my email and address to another 3 people, so mum and dad if you get a knock on the door and a man with a beard is looking for a bed it could be anyone of the 20 Pakistanis or 12 Afghani friends I gave your address to. Sorry. Along all the main roads so far there are as many Natural Gas filling stations as there are petrol stations, it appears that the Pakistani government is leagues ahead of the Western government on reducing pollution. I stopped for lunch at around 2pm and after eating 2 rotti 3 small bean and cauliflower curries and two cokes I went to pay only to find that yet again the owner wanted nothing for my meal, saying it was his duty and pleasure to give it to a stranger. Now I know in some of my past entries I have been comparing Pakistan to India and perhaps swinging in Pakistan favor. I should point out here that the bad points of India, like cheating and rudeness is mainly reserved to the cities and big tourist areas where they are set up for an scramble for the tourist dollar. I have traveled to more rural area in India were I was the only foreigner and it's not so bad, also it's important to point out that in Pakistan there is nowhere near as many foreigners and hardly a tourist industry. That's just in case I was gonna get an ear bashing from any of those sweet pro-India people out there, which of course I'm one of.
Islamabad is very much the same as the pre-planned India city of Chandigarh. Long wide boulevards, tree lined, clean and organized. Its hard to find and indeed I don't think there is really a centre to the city. Instead there are zones dedicated to function, like diplomatic and business areas. It's pretty soulless from what I can see so far, and it's bloody expensive. I've also just found out that I scrapped my visit to Gilgit so I could get to Islamabad to chase up my VISAS only to find out that the Embassies don't open for another day because Eid is going on for several days. So perhaps the excitement of tomorrow will revolve around updating my blog and visiting the post office.

My visit to Islamabad ended up being a complete and total waste of time. I spent 3 days twiddling my thumbs and watching TV in my hotel room (which was very expensive) because Eid went on for ages and there was no web connection. To make it worse when I finally get to Iranian consulate they can not do very much for my application for I have already applied via an agent in Tehran. Anyway, if I had had an Internet connection from the start I would have found out that my VISA had already been approved 2 days before (after an 11week wait) and all I needed to do now was get my arse back to Lahore to collect it. YIPEEEEEE finally, I'm so glad for I was a bit nervous about the alternative of going through Afghanistan. So now I am back in Lahore and after deciding to stop giving my mum and dad address and phone number out to Pakistanis and Afghanis my new story is that I have sold my house and only have an email address for them to connect me on. Again when I stopped for breakfast I found it impossible to pay for my meal and drink. I was however a bit miffed when I had to pay for my lunch, setting me back 12p. Everyone from the hotel in Lahore has gone to the Sufi mystical Islamic dancing tonight so I am on my own, using up the Internet bandwidth to make some phone calls and load this new blog entry.
So after my Iranian VISA it's off to the city of Multan and heading further west in the direction on Iran.


Here is a little 2min video of my 2 day search through the mountains trying to find the Kalash people of the Rumbour Valley. Hope you enjoy.