Karakoram Highway

Driveway through the Sky

Return to Mango Grove

KKH in Lower Indus Valley

KKH / Northern Areas Photos:

Gilgit

Hunza

Gojal

Swat Valley:

Mingora

Udegram

Kass

Cities:

Peshawar

Islamabad

I travelled the KKH with Catherine, who was in Pakistan for the first time. How she let me talk her into riding this bus ride directly after the afternoon bus from Lahore, I'll never know. After four hours of afternoon bus, we bought our ticket for the 18 to 20 hour ride from Rawalpindi to Gilgit in the evening.

We got on the bus around 10 at night in Rawalpindi, grabbing comfortable seats and stowing our stuff on the roof of the bus. While bumpy, we dozed on and off in the initial hours of the ride. I think it was wise to get 6 hours on the road over before we realized how insane driving this road at night would be.

The only memory of the night-time ride was the first tea break four hours into the ride. We pull into a tea shop on the edge of a mountain, have a pot of tea bought for us by the guy across the bus aisle. It is amazing how many friends Urdu with bad grammar will get you.

The first stop of the morning is Besham, where there is a road connection to Swat Valley. We stopped in this town for tea and food, letting the driver get his nerves together for the Indus Gorge again. Besham is the last stop for six hours of drop offs of a few thousand feet to one side, cliffs and falling rocks to the other.

The next part of the trip goes through Kohistan, which is a particularly lawless area of Pakistan. There are stories of cars being stopped by rocks in the road ... when they stop to turn around or move them, armed men rob the car and disappear into the mountains.

The people who rode the bus and got off there were friendly, a few even invited us to visit on our way back down. Despite the skinny road, streams and waterfalls running across the road, and fallen rock areas, we were slowly getting there. Then, the bus just stops.

Morning stop in Besham

Stopped

Everyone started talking, the bus driver got out and opened the hood. He climbs back in and grabs a bottle of unknown fluid which he pours into the engine. We just sit there a while, just hanging out enjoying the lack of bumping and fright.

Got out and took a picture, in case it would be my last one. You can see the narrow road, on which buses fly past each other. I thought the drivers in the cities were crazy, but these guys took it to a new level. Our driver got us safe, and demonstrated either courage or insanity in his method of driving. I'm not sure which.

As we move along the KKH, huge peaks appear from behind the ridges. This area has extreme terrain, with ridges often obscuring the large peaks from the road. Much of Kohistan skirts Nanga Parbat, the western anchor of the Himalaya. This mountain, at 8124 meters [26,656 feet] ranks 9th in the world. While you skirt its edge for hours, one can only see the top when you are moving northward and past it.

The buses are the colorful, painted on the outside with scenes from movies or religious imagery. All over them are good luck symbols, religious sayings, and anything that will assure safe passage. They are a riot of color, jolting to the Western eye. Often their horns are slightly complex, playing little `melodic' lines repetitively. No one rode on top for this trip, unlike in the plains.

Rockfalls and accidents cause many deaths on the KKH. While we returned from Gilgit to Islamabad via helicopter, the same weekend one bus went off the road and another lost it's passengers while they traversed a rockslide on foot. Given the volume of traffic which goes up and down, it is no wonder.

This road explains the common response to the question, `Why do the bus drivers take so many drugs?' .... To make the roads look big enough to drive.

Inside the bus

This is near Chilas, on the northern end of the KKH's trip through Kohistan. Located here area incredible rock carvings detailing the travels of many Chinese monks who brought Buddhism from Pakistan and India up the Indus gorge and to their homelands.

We did not stop to look, we wanted to make Gilgit by nightfall. Already lacking in sleep, we were sad to pass it by.