Pakistan, my love

8.16 - 9.15

The northern areas of Pakistan were absolutely lovely, everything was just so drastic and extreme. The road somehow adhered to the side of extremely steep mountains, it was best not to look down at certain points. Northern Pakistan actually reminded me of Alaska in that it was still very much geologically active. Just cycling the stretch from Sost to Gilgit, you knew that you were following the same path that a glacier had traveled while carving out the valley, only a few geological minutes before. Every now and then, you'd see this majestic white-caped monster in the distance, then the jaw would drop and the cycle would come to a stop.

From an engineering perspective, certain parts of the road were only temporarily held together, as the local and global slope stability were inevitably doomed for failure, the slopes were incredibly steep both above and below the road and as soon as the first decent rain fell, the road completely fell apart as did the friction between the scree and boulders that hung out above the road. I was lucky enough to experience both; local failures, where a part of the road would slide or the rocks above would block the road, and global failures where the entire road would wash away and have to be rebuilt. What a freakin nightmare to maintain, but then again, where else can you travel by road through such a amazing amphitheater of 7 and 8 thousand meter peaks? I never dared listen to music while cycling the KKH, my ear was always open for the slightest sound of a rock slide, which occurred more than once while cycling.

Building roads where they have no business being

The people that live in the northern areas of Pakistan are mostly Ismalis, just like the isolated Pamiri people of Tajikistan (I think Agha Khan has a thing for helping remote people...and making them praise him). The Ismalis of Pakistan are similar to those of Tajikistan in that they don't adhere to a strict and conservative way of life as the rest of the Muslim community does. The women can actually be seen(!) without head scarves, the men don't all wear the traditional dresses, there are no mosques blaring calls for prayer at 5 am, and most importantly they don't participate in the fast (Ramadan). Since I hadn't yet experienced the fast with the rest of the muslim community, I didn't fully appreciate this fact until I reached Islamabad. Another interesting fact about the people of northern Pakistan, they can't vote yet they're still governed by the laws from which they have no say, there is a big push for partial or full autonomy.

Hiding to take a drink of water
Ramadan was an interesting time to be in Pakistan

So Konup and I only cycled about 40 km each day, trying to take our sweet, sweet time, delaying the inevitable end of cycling on the KKH. We arrived in Hunza, the place the pajama boss asked me to take further motorized transportation, where we ended up spending 4 days in this beautiful place. The vibe was ever so pleasant, the views were spectacular, and this was our first internet since Kyrgyzstan (nearly 3 weeks ago). Rakaposhi, the 7,788 m (25,551 ft) giant was basically in our back yard.

Our back yard, Rakaposhi in white

After hearing tons of positive and safe reports from locals and fellow cyclists, I decided to continue cycling past Hunza until Gilgit, only about 100 km south. Everyone unanimously advised us against traveling further south from Gilgit, so this was where my wheels took their final turn on the KKH. Gilgit was my first real Pakistanie town, which was filled with hungry muslim men, counting down the hours until the sun would finally set, all in the same dresses. All the restaurants were closed save the one tourist guesthouse (Madina's guesthouse is awesome by the way). I really felt for the men who cooked our food, laboring all day surrounded by the delicious aromas of food, with their stomachs screaming for just a morsel.

Bloody visas! [as my 52 yr old German friend often bickered]. Visas are probably the most difficult, hectic and expensive aspect of traveling, especially when you're from America. Americans typically pay much more than the average traveler. I wanted to continue to Turkey via Iran, which is said to have absolutely beautiful landscapes and an extremely hospitable [yet highly misunderstood] culture. However after some brief research and a few emails, my hopes for crossing Iran were crushed. American's require a guide and a strict itinerary, which must be followed. I was quoted at 150 Euros per day for the guide service. So I decided that I would continue to India after Pakistan and cycle the northern India Himalayan loop that is quite popular with cyclist. But I needed an Indian visa first [ahhh the catch], which was said to take two weeks to obtain from Islamabad. First of all, bombs regularly rattle Islamabad, which is no place to spend two weeks dodging land mines secretly eating food from the quicke-mart, so the plan was to take a bus to Islamabad, apply for the Indian visa, return to Gilgit and cycle the Deosai plains, returning to Islamabad just in time to receive my visa, then I would have to race to the Pakistan tourist office and extend my visa on the same day (as my Pakistan visa would expire the day after I received my passport). Visas are a freakin logistical nightmare and most of the time I spend more money on the visa than I do for my entire duration of stay in the country. In addition to this madness, Central Asia countries require you to specify the start and end date of the visa, instead of the usual start the day I enter the country. Get with the program stan countries!
(Pakistan - $150 - 1 month)
(Tajikistan - $40 - 1 month)
(Kyrgyzstan - $70 - 1 month)
(China - $120 - double entry, 1 month each entry)
(India - $70 - 6 month)

My bus ride from Gilgit to Islamabad actually took somewhere around 17 crammed, sleepless hours. I sluggishly exited the bus, put on my slacks from China, then proceeded to the diplomatic enclave to apply for my Indian visa. Simply getting into the diplomatic area is a crazy process of paranoid bomb prevention, filled with pat downs, canine explosive sniffing and a war zone of armed guards pointing machine guns at you. I applied for my Indian visa and just as I was leaving the embassy, it started to lightly rain. I jumped on the bus back to Gilgit later that afternoon [this would be my encounter with both failures of the KKH]. I actually ran into two cycling friends in Islamabad, Dan and Krista (http://www.ridehimalaya.com) who jumped on a plane about the same time I jumped back on the bus back to Gilgit. They actually arrived back in Australia before I arrived back in Gilgit (seriously!) My 17 hour bus ride turned into a 33 hour nightmare, barricaded by rock slides and the road simply washing away.

This guy fell asleep on me

It took two days of stretching and relaxing to recover from that one. The rain continued and the road continued to wither away. I waited the rain out for 3 days and man...it was seriously coming down, constantly pouring for 3 days, creating one of the worst and unsafest conditions for the road. So I wisely decided not to continue cycling to the Deosai plains but instead wait a few extra days in Gilgit and return to the Indian embassy early in hopes that my visa would be ready.

The people! The people of Pakistan were possibly the friendliest I've encountered on this entire trip. People would stop you in the street, shake your hand, and ask if there was anything they could do for you. "You are a guest in my country, can I do anything for you?" It wasn't uncommon to have someone grab you by the hand, take you to a store, buy you a coke and a bag of chips, exchange a few kind words, then say goodbye. Everyone expressed a concern for an incorrect and menacing portrayal of the Muslim community as terrorists. The Taliban have received such international attention lately that almost everyone would express some sort of disapproval for the Taliban, saying things like 'they call themselves Muslims....these people are not Muslims!' There was a lot of animosity towards the Taliban and the media for bringing such a negative connotation to the Muslim community.

Guns! Guns were everywhere in Pakistan, I'm talking ubiquitous, everywhere. Walk into Pizza Hut and there's a guard with a sawed off shotgun to welcome you. Every ATM had an armed guard. The Chinese workers on the KKH all had armed guards watching over them. The second day in Pakistan, I saw a video from a cell phone of a Pakistanie guy shooting an anti-aircraft gun into the sky. Guns are just a part of everyday life in Pakistan. One day Konup and I were cycling through a tiny village and decided to stop for a soda, we sat on a bench sipping our sodas when two armed guards approached us and started to ask us how we were enjoying Pakistan, to which we replied...'no problem' [which eventually turned into our instinctive response to almost every question]. We asked if we could take pictures with these tough looking guys with such tough looking guns. They agreed and we posed beside them for a few shots, then out of nowhere, they handed the guns to us, gave us their hats and aviator glasses and took pictures of us.

One thing I realized in Pakistan was how fundamentally different Islam is from Christianity. Whereas most of our western churches only give us a rough guideline of how to live, where the ultimate decision is made within the person, Islam gives a distinct set of laws which must not be violated. In Islamic countries, for example, if someone is caught stealing they are taken to the state court and tried under it's laws. Adversely, if someone is caught drinking, they are taken to Islamic court (yeah...it's illegal for Pakistanie people to drink). There is a distinction between crimes against Islam and crimes against the state and each are treated differently. I found this interesting.

So with some persistence, a healthy smile and a pair of slacks from China, I was able to pick up my Indian visa 5 days early. I spent my remaining days in Pakistan having my mind blow away by the artistic, mystical and somewhat comical culture of Sufi muslims in Lahore (the most progressive city in Pakistan). Sufi's believe in using various alternative ways to reach higher levels of spiritual enlightenment, ranging anywhere from art to music to trance (shaking their heads uncontrollable for four hours to drums) to smoking hash to whipping themselves until blood is pouring down their own backs. Lahore is a crazy cool place, only 20 km from the Indian border, a place where Islamic mystics (if they deserve this term) are on display each Thursday night, a place where a subway is manned by a man with a shotgun, a place that actually just had three bombs explode last week.

So that closes the Pakistan book, what an absolutely beautiful country, amazingly rich culture, from north to south, I definitely didn't expect it to be this cool.

Here's some stats from the end of Pakistan:
Total Distance cycled - 7632 km (4,742 miles)
Total Elevation gained - 95,939 m (314,760 ft)
Total time on bike (butt on Brooks) - 480 hr - 52 min

I also uploaded most of my pictures from Pakistan here:
http://s191.photobucket.com/albums/z93/lineker119/Bicycle%20-%20Pakistan/?albumview=grid
And my pictures from China here:
http://s191.photobucket.com/albums/z93/lineker119/Bicycle%20-%20Pakistan/Bicycle%20-%20China%20part%202/?albumview=grid