Besham
And somehow, during my little holiday, I visit Besham.
I think my original aim was to get to the Pakistan - China border: the Khunjerab Pass.
The journey is exciting and eventful. After a long train ride to Rawalpindi, things begin to take off. In Murree, that all too accessible tourist winter and summer destination, I come across a troupe of teenage boys intent on taking photos of each other. (This was before the selfie craze). When I join them, it's photos of me - in combination with each one (there are five of them), then in various groupings of different numbers.I finally bid farewell to them taking 'action' pictures of themselves in various running poses.
The journey is exciting and eventful. After a long train ride to Rawalpindi, things begin to take off. In Murree, that all too accessible tourist winter and summer destination, I come across a troupe of teenage boys intent on taking photos of each other. (This was before the selfie craze). When I join them, it's photos of me - in combination with each one (there are five of them), then in various groupings of different numbers.I finally bid farewell to them taking 'action' pictures of themselves in various running poses.
Murree
At Balakot, I see the famous bridge but then turn away from Kaghan by a landslide. A rather morose hotel owner moons about wondering when the next tourists will come.
There are the Kalashnikov wielding young men of Dir, where I rescue a fair maiden of Australia in a cowboy bar and take her to book in at the PTDC motel. She wonders why she can't meet the locals so I take her to the local market to buy a salwar kameez. She buys a shocking pink outfit and the last I see of her is when she ascends a steep hill to meet the ladies in a hut.
Another not to be missed tourist attraction in Dir is the naked man. I am watching people in the vegetable market when he turns up. He has not a stitch on and jostles next to a woman in full burkah, pinches a carrot and runs off. No one takes a bit of notice, so he's obviously a regular customer.
Another not to be missed tourist attraction in Dir is the naked man. I am watching people in the vegetable market when he turns up. He has not a stitch on and jostles next to a woman in full burkah, pinches a carrot and runs off. No one takes a bit of notice, so he's obviously a regular customer.
In Chitral I meet the most pompous, arrogant, stuck up, opinionated Pakistani male I have ever come across. It's a rare phenomenon but distasteful and ugly when it does occur. He attempts to poke fun at me and my culture, at the British occupation and the colonial past. And all of this over dinner in a fairly posh restaurant in front of a fellow Brit - a pretty young girl in a sixties style flowy dress. He is, of course, wearing the full western suit and tie. I leave in a huff and have a more modest repast at the hotel with a group of boisterous local tourists. As we are in banter, the flowy girl returns and charges up to me.
"I think you are an utter f..........g bastard," she shouts at me in front of everyone then storms off to bed. I'm pretty used to this so I receive it with my usual notebook style. I stand firmly by my huff.
It's all very beautiful up here in the north of Pakistan. Besham is what is called in geography parlance a linear settlement. It's a ribbon of shacks and shops along a not so impressive stretch of the Karakoram Highway. Just what I like. And there are Chinese tourists in the little tea shop I stay at. Not neat little fellows, but swarthy, Mongol type rough riding men. The whole place had the feel of a Wild West town.
Chitral
It's all very beautiful up here in the north of Pakistan. Besham is what is called in geography parlance a linear settlement. It's a ribbon of shacks and shops along a not so impressive stretch of the Karakoram Highway. Just what I like. And there are Chinese tourists in the little tea shop I stay at. Not neat little fellows, but swarthy, Mongol type rough riding men. The whole place had the feel of a Wild West town.
My northern areas trip.
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