The World Off Road Pt 4

On Top Of The

World
after we cross the Karakoram Highway andsurvive the nwFP in Pakistan, we climb thehighest roads in the world from disputed
Kashmir to ladakh, the so-called ‘Indian Tibet’.
words by Akis Temperidis Photos by Vula Netu and Akis Temperidis

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OVERLANDER FeB.10

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The World Off Road Pt 4

T

here are two borders worldwide
where you smile in front of a webcam
to get your passport stamped: theUSA and Pakistan. Apart fromthis bureaucratic procedure, there
is no other similarity between thetwo countries. When you enter
Pakistan, you enter the third worldof Islam. Villages are dusty. Sewage
systems are open. Roads are dominated by dazzlingly
painted, overloaded old Bedford trucks. Men have long beards
and they all wear loose ‘shalwar kameez’ combined with‘cafsons’—rounded woollen hats. You will likely see no one on
the roads from Quetta all the way to Islamabad, an endlesstrip of 2,000km through the notorious Bolan Pass and the hot
state of Sindh. This was a route we had to follow in order to
get to India and, believe me, it wasn’t an easy choice given thenotoriety of the place.
Balochistan is a major opium route and we were warned
by the Greek embassy in Tehran to skip it because of several
kidnappings that occurred there during the last year. At thefirst police control, towards Quetta, we were asked two things
by the black-uniformed policeman: one was if we needed a
police escort. The second was if we could take a picture ofhim. We said “No, thanks,” to the optional escort service andwe responded happily to the request for a photo. The officer
was delighted to see his face on the camera’s screen. That
moment, we learned two basic things about Pakistan: thatpolicemen are super-friendly; and that you, the traveller, areconsidered a celebrity here. Which means things can get either
very good or very nasty.
Quetta was like a war zone, six months after the clashes
that followed the murder of Benazir Bhutto in December
2007. After one night and a great walk in the busy market, we
decided to hit the road to the north. We were warned again
by locals: “Don’t think about travelling next to the border ofAfghanistan. You better follow theez rod!”‘Theez’ meant a huge loop through the Bolan Pass, a route
suitable more for a trip to Karachi, at the south end of thecountry, than to Islamabad, which is to the north. We obeyed,of course. When we entered Bolan Pass, we were stopped bypolice again. This time, we were obliged to wait for an escortteam. Up to Jacobabad, we were accompanied by fully armed

Going shopping with armed
police escorts in Jacobabad.

Men holding hands on the roadis a common gesture in the
Muslim world. This is by no means
homosexual behavior.

May I have an espresso please?

Balochistan isa major opium
route so wewere warned
by the Greek
embassy in
Tehran to skip it.

Vula dressed as Kalasha. This
tribe—considered to be descendantsof Alexander the Great’s army—kept
their habits and polytheistic religion
hidden for centuries in the valleysof the Hindu Kush, the core offundamentalist Islam.

Classic Pakistani truck!

Trip ID

Vehicle: Land Rover
Discovery3 TDV6
Crew: Akis Temperidis,
Vula Netou
When: 9/5/2008– 30/8/2008
Days: 112
Countries: Pakistan,
Kashmir, Ladakh (India)
Total distance: 14,051km
Border crossings: 2
Refuellings: 32

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The World Off Road Pt 4

policemen loaded on pick-up trucks andChinese motorbikes. Every time we changed
district, we had to wait for the next team toarrive; if we kept going, we obliged them tomake a U-turn to get in front of us. They
seemed delighted to protect a fancy Land
Rover carrying two crazy Greeks.
In Jacobabad, they took us to a hotel
for the night. “We don’t want to pay
for a hotel,” we said. “Whear doo yoo
wont to slip, Sir?”“At the police station,” I replied.
Lesson no. 3: if you don’t finda bed or a camp in Pakistan, ask
for accommodation in a police
station. It is the safest place
to camp, unless an Al Qaeda
suicide bomber decides to visit it.
That was an unforgettable night. We had threepolicemen for company all night. They bought us kebabs,
sweets, cokes and a traditional scarf for Vula. I was evenoffered a hashish joint by the big guy. I did not accept,
considering it a bluff or a test but the chief officer lit thehandmade cigarette and smoked it passionately. I couldn’t
believe my eyes! The same night, we camped in the backyardof the police station, which had been heavily shot up during
the previous year’s clashes. From our roof tent, I could see abunch of prisoners watching us through the bars. That night
we realised that you can do the craziest things in Pakistan.
You’re a celebrity, right?
At an altitudeof 4,693m, theKhunjerab Pass isthe highest paved
border crossing in
the world.

The Silk Road
Islamabad was calm the days we took a rest at the only
camp site right on the G6 sector, next to the busy Ampara
market. “Businesses are getting better as we’ve had no bomb

Indian soldiers delighted by
the Discovery3. India andPakistan are still in a stateof war over Kashmir.

attacks lately,” we were told by Ali, the gentle owner of aninternet café. From the capital we hit the road to the north,and what a road! The Karakoram Highway, a narrow roadthrough the Indus Valley to Khunjerab Pass and from there to
Kashgar, China. Karakoram was inaugurated in 1982 and is amiracle of road construction, as it crosses one of the harshest
geographies in the world. It is a modern version of the routefollowed by Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan towards
India and by Marco Polo on his way to China. Karakoram was
the trickiest part of the Silk Road and is still an unforgettableadventure for any traveller attempting to cross it.
The first part is annoyingly slow thanks to heavy traffic,
mostly trucks. After 300km, the narrow, twisty road follows
the Indus River, and at some points you drive through massiverock formations sculpted by the river. Karakoram passes next toNanga Parbat, the westernmost peak of the Himalayas. There isa notorious private road leading to a tiny village, standing like anaerie under the snow-capped mountain. We bribed a local guy
and risked the integrity of our Discovery3 to drive up, as only ahandful of local jeeps are allowed to climb there. Our Disco wasallegedly the only foreign car to ever arrive there! We survived
the nerve-wrecking path but at some places we had to fill theroad with stones so that the heavy, wide Land Rover could fit. It
took us three hours to cover 15km!
It was worth the risk plus the two hours of trekking. The
same night we slept in a basic hut, under the shadow ofthe ‘killer mountain’. The next day we arrived at Gilgit, thecommercial hub of the Karakoram. We took a break and thendrove further north, towards Sost, the last town in Pakistan

Karakoram was thetrickiest part of the
Silk Road and is still
an unforgettableadventure82

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The World Off Road Pt 4

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driving a car

Pakistani traffic!

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before the border with China. At Karimabad,
we met the Hunza people, the subtle, welleducated Ismaili Muslims who lived in a separate
kingdom until 1972. It was a heavenly world
without traffic until 1982, when the Karakoram
arrived there. At Gulmit, the road was cut off by
a melted glacier. “It happens,” a local told us when
we were frustrated that we could go no further.
“It’s a Chinese construction, that’s why,” we replied,pointing to a group of Chinese overseeing the roadrepairs. We waited a whole day while volunteers
filled the huge gap with rocks so that we could pass.
The next day, we arrived at Sost, passing throughbreathtaking landscapes like the knife-edged Passu
Sar mountains and the Batura Glacier. 80km north is
Khunjerab Pass, a hostile, otherworldly place, where
only yaks and golden squirrels survive. For us, it wasa benchmark to be there, right on the border with
China. We were in the most hostile pass of the Silk
Road but couldn’t enter China as we didn’t havethe costly documents needed to drive a foreign car
in the country. A$10,000 to enter China for one
month? No way! We considered our options atthat red-flagged border station, protected by two
Chinese guards. Had we gone on, we would still
be behind bars now. But it would’ve made quite
a story, don’t you think?
We didn’t want to return to Islamabadusing the same route. So to get back to Gilgit,
we decided to take the long way around the NorthWest Frontier Province (NWFP) the notorious part of Pakistan
bordering Afghanistan. The unofficial country of the Taliban,
a region they—the teachers-turned-fighters—still control,
despite frequent bombings by American drone planes andblockades by the Pakistani army. This is a no-go zone for any
foreigner. We took the risk and drove there for one reason.

The road from
Leh to Manali
climbs threetimes over
5000m and is
not passable
in winter.

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We wanted to meet the
Kalasha people, the so-called
descendants of Alexander
the Great. We took a narrowtarmac road following the
Gilgit river, climbed a nasty
gravel section at 3700m on the
Sandour Pass, and descended to
Mastuj and from there to Chitral.
This was one of the roughest
routes we had ever travelled anda tough test for our suspension.
We lived with the Kalasha for a few
days and seriously considered living
there forever. The Kalasha valleys areheaven on earth, a real Shangri-La. Well
hidden in the snow-capped mountainsof the Hindu Kush, at an altitude of
2000m, the valleys are fertile enough to support a populationof 4000 ‘kafiri’ (non-believers, for Muslims). Their wooden
huts are built next to the river from which their maze crops
are irrigated. You walk here and meet beautiful women withblue eyes wearing heavily ornamented dresses. “Ispata, baba!”(Welcome, Sir!”) We felt at home here thanks to the Greek
Volunteers, an NGO that is putting in a great effort to make life
better for the Kalasha, building schools, maternity centres anda great museum. Thanks to this initiative, the Kalasha people
still retain their own unique culture, religion and language,
despite being surrounded by fundamentalist Muslims.
After the painful drive through the Kalasha valleys, one
shock absorber became completely unscrewed and destroyed
the upper mount. We had to fix it on the road. We were happy
but uneasy to be there, as we still had to cross the wild westof Pakistan. We climbed the 43 hairpins of the mighty Lowari
Pass, passed the Taliban-controlled Swat Valley and arrived

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in Peshawar,
a city that has
had the mostsuicide attacks inhistory. Inshallah,
we survived it. It’sa medieval societyof conservative men
and invisible women,
covered under fullbody burka. Arrivingback in Islamabad, we
felt we had returned tothe modern world. The
next day, a suicide bombing at the Danish embassy shocked
the capital city. We realised it was time to leave Pakistan. It isan astonishingly diverse country of great history, sophisticatedcultures, with generous people and breathtaking landscapes,
but still a war zone.

The road to Indian Tibet
Lahore in Pakistan and Amritsar in India are twin cities.
Punjabi people live in both. They were separated in 1947,
when India and Pakistan gained their independence from the
British, and were divided according to religion. Thousands
died in clashes held during the exchange of populations
that followed independence. Muslims were driven to the
Pakistani side and Hindus and Sikhs to the Indian side.
Waga is the only border left open between Pakistan andIndia, two nuclear powers that are still in a chronic dispute
over Kashmir, a country left ‘neutral’ after 1947 and still
occupied and divided under the UN’s watch. The daily flag
ceremony on the border reflects the chronic dispute between
the countries in an absurd but entertaining way. A Monty
Python-style show of camaraderie that is a major attraction

The World Off Road Pt 4

for tourists from both countries.
The next route we followed was a risky one, too. After wepaid tribute to the majestic golden temple of Amritsar, we
took the mountain road to Srinagar, a twisty, traffic-jammed
path leading to the valley where the best saffron in the worldis cultivated. We drove for hours at an average speed of
30km/h, struggling to survive Indian drivers who do anything
to kill you or commit suicide. These people are crazy! Pressing
the horn ten times per second, they drive on the wrong sideof the road, race each other like overgrown kids or overtakenaively on blind curves. It was the first time during our trip I
was sure we would have a serious accident.
Srinagar is a town devastated by continuous curfews, aheavy military presence and sporadic clashes with autonomistgroups or extremists supported by Pakistan. We were lucky
enough to be there when everything was calm or seemed tobe. Dal Lake and its labyrinth of canals is an idyllic place torelax forever. You can rent a basic houseboat for A$6 per night(or a palatial one for A$30) and escape from the honky tonky
Indian traffic, strolling all day on a shikara (wooden gondola)
and meeting generous Kashmiri people who are not Indian or
Pakistani. “We are Kashmiri, we want to be independent andwe will never stop fighting for it,” one young
houseboat owner told me.
Leaving Srinagar, we climbed from thefertile valley at 1600m to the Himalaya
range, at 4000m. The road to Leh isa painful, two-day drive through thecollision zone between Islam andBuddhism. On the way you can see
faces change from dark Caucasianto Chinese. One thing remains theconstant all the way: convoys ofarmy trucks carrying troops tohigh-altitude military bases. The
war with Pakistani forces is still on.

Bhaktapur, Nepal, is like a
17th-Century movie set. You
can get lost forever here!

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We had never seen so many soldiers as on the snow-capped
Zoji La Pass, one step from the disputed Line of Control (LOC)
between Pakistan and India.
We arrived in Leh, a remote town at 3500m, where thehuge valley of the Indus River is like a desert bowl surrounded
by Himalayan summits. This is a place you can’t drive during
winter. It is a well-visited place the rest of the year, full of
bloody cheap hostels, busy markets, Buddhist temples(stupas) and alternative yoga or meditation centres. Foreign
hippies mix with Buddhist monks. In the north, we attempted
a drive on the highest road in the world. We arrived at theKhardung Pass at 5602m after two hours’ or so drive. A bit
further down the road, there is a dead end—the border with
China. The air is so thin up here that the powerful TDV6
engine seemed to have lost half of its cylinders and a bit ofblack smoke was coming out of the exhaust for the very firsttime. We felt the altitude sickness more than our car did up
there. It was as if we were left with one lung to breath with,and the high blood-pressure provoked awful headaches.
Going back to Leh and from there to Manali, the drive wasintoxicating as well. We climbed three more times over
5000m and we felt as if we were drunk every time we were
driving downhill on that narrow, dilapidated tarmac andgravel road, full of water holes created by themelted glaciers. In Manali, wewent back to India, thereal one. We had survived
the harshest road trip in
the world. Now we wereready to face the heat, thetraffic, the noise and smellsof the subcontinent. Were wereally, though?