Friday, June 30, 1995

Again Heading North

Travel Month:


June 1995

Country:

Pakistan

Area:

Chitral, Swat, Kaghan, Karakorum Highway

Attractions:

Mountains, Rivers and Valleys

Total Distance Covered:

5000 km

Total Days

15


Travelogue:
This was a trip of strange complexity in terms of the people I traveled with and also in terms of the areas and terrain we covered in one single trip although it was not intended at the first place. It started off with a fresh idea of visiting Chitral Valley on bikes yet another time but this time we didnt plan to cover a lot of area rather we decided to just stay in the Kalash Vallies for a few days and after exploring Chitral we will head back.

We were four people in this trip including myself Tariq, Waseem and Doc. Tariq and myself drove on bike to Gujrat from where our trip was officially starting. We did this two hours drive towards the evening and it was already dark when we made it to Waseem's place who was excited about going to the north. There has been an interesting experience whenever Waseems involved in any of our trips and that is his preference for luxury travel but calling it an adventure trip on the face of it. I had my doubts even for this trip as I was not sure how he could agree for a bike trip. Anyhow we had our dinner with traditional desi food cooked by his loving Mom. We talked and were making a plan for leaving the next day and suddenly Waseem threw this idea that we could probably go by air to Chitral and will hire a jeep for the rest of the trip. This was put forward under the shelter of his bike giving some trouble and he knew that we would not leave him back if the reason was not having a healthy wife. He played his cards well and convinced us to do it his way. Booking a ticket to Chitral during summer months has always been a big issue but this was resolve because of my uncle stationed at Peshawar airport.

Finally, instead of leaving the next morning we left for Peshawar mid-night to reach there before the first flight leaves for Chitral. The journey took us about 7 hours and we were standing at the ticket counter trying to use our resource to get the tickets. There are always few tickets kept for Army, VIPs, Government officials and we were lucky to get four tickets from that quota. The flight was a couple of hours later. The timing of our arrival and arrangements of the tickets was perfectly in time so far. The only worry was the flight reaching its destination not because of any risk rather because of the rapid changes in the weather conditions in the mountain area. Flights could be delayed for days and days due to bad weather. Today the weather was clear in Peshawar and the skies were sunny and bright keeping our hopes high. We boarded the plain without any problems, it was a small propeller plane with two seats on each side providing chances to all to have good views of the mountains. There were hardly ten rows on each side. The luggage was loaded and the plane left the strip with a lot sound and trembling. We were served with drinks and stuff. This flight is not long as the aerial distance is not long. We were already very close to Chitral and did see some stunning views of the rugged mountain terrain underneath us. We saw some snow covered peaks on the horizon and some rivers snaking out of the valleys into the open flat lands.

The landing was very interesting as it seemed that the plane is going to land in the river. The airport is very close to the river and the plane dipped sharply to get proper elevation to remain in the course of the landing strip. It was a hot day as we came out of the plane. The airport is little away from the main town, we took a jeep and came to the city to find some appropriate place for the night.

More information about Chitral could be found in the following link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitral


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