Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Saturday, August 16, 2008
The Deosai Plains (world's 2nd highest plateau)
Not very far from Skardu lies a stony tumble-weed jeep track. If you follow it, it’ll take you up and up. Up and up you'll go beyond the clouds. Passing lush green valleys; their hills sliced into geometric terraces bustling with dusty corn cobs. As you climb higher the valleys give way to alpine scrub. Then the temperature starts to drop. Alpine scrub gives way to tawny weeds; skinny little things that hug the rockscape like babies hugging their mothers. The landscape more unforgiving as you get higher - the wind harsher - the rocks darker and moulded into acute angles. Suddenly at the top, you find stretching endlessly before you, an immense plateau. Welcome to the Deosai Plains – at + 4,000 metres above sea level this constitutes the world’s 2nd highest plateau, 2nd only to Tibet. The plains support the endangered Snow leopard, Indian wolf, Himalayan Ibex and the Golden Marmot. It’s a harsh landscape but also sublime. The air is fresh, the sunlight is clean and clear like sparkling water and in the background you can see the lofty snowy peaks of the world’s highest mountains.
Never was bleakness so beautiful. Never was emptiness so bountiful. I felt my spirit spirited away on these plains; it being no longer tethered to my body. It wandered across the steppes with my thoughts in tow- dragging them along with it. My thoughts, so restless these days, resisted the invitation, but eventually seduced they gave in to the nagging spirit.
Such landscapes; barren and lonely as they are; with their harsh lines, strong colours and endless panorama’s – are like being given a lemony tonic. They make you realise that there is no stopping the human spirit. That it has no boundaries and it takes these landscapes to realise it. Perhaps the steppes serve as a kind of metaphor or visual representation of the boundless spirit incarnate? Here - Now - You realise how minor some things are. Like love for example. Love has no meaning here. No definition. Love may reign supreme on ‘normal’ terrain – but here, love is a small, mediocre emotion – too selfish and self-interested to deserve room in such majestic sweeping landscapes. Instead, here the hollow that love leaves is filled with grander emotions. By grander I mean more altruistic, selfless, and more universally encompassing emotions like ‘the nature of mankind’s quest’, ‘the meaning of life’, and the ‘cosmic imperative’.
Cosmic imperative?
Mankind’s quest?
What the devil am I talking about? What is happening to me? Such metaphysical language; wishy-washy and obtuse don’t suit me! Oh, by the way did I neglect to mention that I am writing this in a high-altitude low-oxygen environment? You see the O2 levels at 4,000 metres are low thus leading to euphoric, ecstatic emotional swings – or in layman terms a feeling of being high. Oh, I’m ‘high’ alright – both literally and metaphorically! Such places push the brain down weird little-frequented mind alleys:-
Here’s some for my eventual ignominious shame:
1) When I get back down to the city I’m going to walk up to the first single, pretty girl I see, look her in the eyes, tell her how beautiful she is, and then clear off before she calls the cops. Or her brothers.
2) When I get back to the city I’m going to grab the first beggar I see. Hug him tightly. Plant a huge kiss on his (filthy) forehead and give him 1,000 rupees and then walk off before he realises what just happened. Then I’m going to walk into the nearest hospital and get some boosters for Cholera just in case.
3) When I get back to the city I’m going to phone the girl I love, tell her how I feel about her, tell her how much I love her, and then hang-up. Oh, but I don’t have her number? Mmm…slight problem there. Aha! Well maybe she’s reading this in which case I’ll just tell her here:
'Yo babes. I love you, you know. Did you know that I take you with me wherever I go? Honest. I tell no lies. Death to me right now, right here if I do. Slice me In half/cut me to kebabs/make me into an omelette/for I tell no lies. You’re always in my breast pocket. Always. I’ve dragged you with me everywhere. To all the countries I’ve been. Through all the airports. I’m never lonely cos you’re always in my breast-pocket. If I don’t have a breast pocket I just sit you on my shoulders. Or if things get a little hairy I put you in my trouser pockets. Not the back pockets cos then I might squash you when I sit or when the road goes bumpkety-bump (as it so often does).
I do wish though, that now and again, you’d climb out of my breast-pocket, or get off my shoulders, or sneak out my front pockets and give this poor, hopeless, fool, a little kiss. Just a small one. You have no idea how happy it would make him. Especially up here in the Deosai Plains where breathing can be so hard. And every breath so precious. But I’ll keep some breaths for you – just in case you need them. Don’t worry. You won’t run out of breaths here:'
I’ve still got plenty left in me.
Here in the Deosai Plains.
Playing on the grassy steppe.
Where the mind hovers.
And wanders
Kinda pointlessly.
And no worldly trouble
Dare touch me
Cos I am free
Here in the Deosai Plains
I am free
Finally.
Never was bleakness so beautiful. Never was emptiness so bountiful. I felt my spirit spirited away on these plains; it being no longer tethered to my body. It wandered across the steppes with my thoughts in tow- dragging them along with it. My thoughts, so restless these days, resisted the invitation, but eventually seduced they gave in to the nagging spirit.
Such landscapes; barren and lonely as they are; with their harsh lines, strong colours and endless panorama’s – are like being given a lemony tonic. They make you realise that there is no stopping the human spirit. That it has no boundaries and it takes these landscapes to realise it. Perhaps the steppes serve as a kind of metaphor or visual representation of the boundless spirit incarnate? Here - Now - You realise how minor some things are. Like love for example. Love has no meaning here. No definition. Love may reign supreme on ‘normal’ terrain – but here, love is a small, mediocre emotion – too selfish and self-interested to deserve room in such majestic sweeping landscapes. Instead, here the hollow that love leaves is filled with grander emotions. By grander I mean more altruistic, selfless, and more universally encompassing emotions like ‘the nature of mankind’s quest’, ‘the meaning of life’, and the ‘cosmic imperative’.
Cosmic imperative?
Mankind’s quest?
What the devil am I talking about? What is happening to me? Such metaphysical language; wishy-washy and obtuse don’t suit me! Oh, by the way did I neglect to mention that I am writing this in a high-altitude low-oxygen environment? You see the O2 levels at 4,000 metres are low thus leading to euphoric, ecstatic emotional swings – or in layman terms a feeling of being high. Oh, I’m ‘high’ alright – both literally and metaphorically! Such places push the brain down weird little-frequented mind alleys:-
Here’s some for my eventual ignominious shame:
1) When I get back down to the city I’m going to walk up to the first single, pretty girl I see, look her in the eyes, tell her how beautiful she is, and then clear off before she calls the cops. Or her brothers.
2) When I get back to the city I’m going to grab the first beggar I see. Hug him tightly. Plant a huge kiss on his (filthy) forehead and give him 1,000 rupees and then walk off before he realises what just happened. Then I’m going to walk into the nearest hospital and get some boosters for Cholera just in case.
3) When I get back to the city I’m going to phone the girl I love, tell her how I feel about her, tell her how much I love her, and then hang-up. Oh, but I don’t have her number? Mmm…slight problem there. Aha! Well maybe she’s reading this in which case I’ll just tell her here:
'Yo babes. I love you, you know. Did you know that I take you with me wherever I go? Honest. I tell no lies. Death to me right now, right here if I do. Slice me In half/cut me to kebabs/make me into an omelette/for I tell no lies. You’re always in my breast pocket. Always. I’ve dragged you with me everywhere. To all the countries I’ve been. Through all the airports. I’m never lonely cos you’re always in my breast-pocket. If I don’t have a breast pocket I just sit you on my shoulders. Or if things get a little hairy I put you in my trouser pockets. Not the back pockets cos then I might squash you when I sit or when the road goes bumpkety-bump (as it so often does).
I do wish though, that now and again, you’d climb out of my breast-pocket, or get off my shoulders, or sneak out my front pockets and give this poor, hopeless, fool, a little kiss. Just a small one. You have no idea how happy it would make him. Especially up here in the Deosai Plains where breathing can be so hard. And every breath so precious. But I’ll keep some breaths for you – just in case you need them. Don’t worry. You won’t run out of breaths here:'
I’ve still got plenty left in me.
Here in the Deosai Plains.
Playing on the grassy steppe.
Where the mind hovers.
And wanders
Kinda pointlessly.
And no worldly trouble
Dare touch me
Cos I am free
Here in the Deosai Plains
I am free
Finally.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Sunday, August 10, 2008
The road to Skardu
40 km south of Gilgit the road to 'Skardu' forks off from the Karakoram Highway and heads eastwards into Baltistan territory. If you thought the double-laned Karakoram Highway was scary then you're in for a rude awakening. The KKH is indeed a marvelous engineering achievement but the road to Skardu is even more formidable and a case-in-point of mankinds total lack of respect for nature. Let's make it clear right now: this road should not exist! The fact that it does is a testament to the 'Pakistani Army' engineers who built it in the 50s and 60s. The road has literally been carved out of the mountainside; a narrow groove that has been blasted out bit by bit (with countless loss of lives) and snakes through the barren meandering mountain rock for over 170 km. Somehow they bought heavy machinery down here, injected the rock with explosives, blasted it out, scooped out the rest with shovels and pick-axes, made a flat surface, added a layer of tarmac, added road signs for authenticity and hey presto! - you have a road. But this is no ordinary road. This is by far the most terrifying road I have ever travelled on and once you have experienced it you will never fear any road ever again. The road is very narrow with barely enough room for a single vehicle. It sits perched 1km (1000 metres) above a deep mountain gorge carved out by the mighty Indus River, whose raging and spitting torrent can be seen and heard somewhere at the bottom. If you're lucky (or unlucky) enough to have a window seat you can see the long skinny outline of the silvery river right at the bottom - a Km down. On either side wherever you look are huge, brown, vertical scraggy mountain walls that rise sheer into the sky or plummet into the mouth of the gorge below. The gorge is so narrow that sunlight only touches parts of it for a few hours a day. Nothing grows. Huge boulders overhang from the road edge and threaten to topple over taking you with them. Landslides are common. And so are accidents.
What makes the experience doubly frightening is the driving. We we're seated in a large NATCO bus whose wheels we're barely touching the tarmac, yet somehow, during the entire trip to Skardu, the driver maintained a minimum speed of 70km an hour. Picture this:
You're seated near the front. You can see the road ahead of you meandering through the mountain like a slit in the rock. You can see the edge of the road and below nothing. The bus approaches the turn. Instead of slowing down the driver continues at speed. You think the bus will tumble over the edge. But no, at the last moment the driver flips the stearing and we turn the bend. The precision steering and the skills of the driver are astonishing! One mistake and you've had it. Yet time after time. Bend after bend. The driver does the same thing. And you survive for another 'bending'. Your heart is in your mouth and you are regretting ever making this 'fucking' trip. You hear yourself cursing and when you look around you notice that all the other passengers are sleeping. Sleeping! There lives are in the hands of a mad-man and they are sleeping! Perhaps they know something you don't? What is this 'something' they know?
When you stop for a rest break you quizz the driver. You discover that he has been plying this route for 15 years. That's every single day for 15 years. He knows the bends by heart. Knows where the bad parts are. He knows the spots where he can over take. He knows where he must give way. He knows how much he has to turn before he has even approached the bend. Each bend is different he says. Each requires a different amount of turn and speed. It's all in his head he say's pointing to his cranium and smiling through his crooked teeth. You smile back at him weakly. You look at his cranium. It's not much. Bold. Wrinkly. Calloused and severely weather-beaten. Doesn't look as if a super-computer lurks in there somewhere...
What makes the experience doubly frightening is the driving. We we're seated in a large NATCO bus whose wheels we're barely touching the tarmac, yet somehow, during the entire trip to Skardu, the driver maintained a minimum speed of 70km an hour. Picture this:
You're seated near the front. You can see the road ahead of you meandering through the mountain like a slit in the rock. You can see the edge of the road and below nothing. The bus approaches the turn. Instead of slowing down the driver continues at speed. You think the bus will tumble over the edge. But no, at the last moment the driver flips the stearing and we turn the bend. The precision steering and the skills of the driver are astonishing! One mistake and you've had it. Yet time after time. Bend after bend. The driver does the same thing. And you survive for another 'bending'. Your heart is in your mouth and you are regretting ever making this 'fucking' trip. You hear yourself cursing and when you look around you notice that all the other passengers are sleeping. Sleeping! There lives are in the hands of a mad-man and they are sleeping! Perhaps they know something you don't? What is this 'something' they know?
When you stop for a rest break you quizz the driver. You discover that he has been plying this route for 15 years. That's every single day for 15 years. He knows the bends by heart. Knows where the bad parts are. He knows the spots where he can over take. He knows where he must give way. He knows how much he has to turn before he has even approached the bend. Each bend is different he says. Each requires a different amount of turn and speed. It's all in his head he say's pointing to his cranium and smiling through his crooked teeth. You smile back at him weakly. You look at his cranium. It's not much. Bold. Wrinkly. Calloused and severely weather-beaten. Doesn't look as if a super-computer lurks in there somewhere...
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Skardu
Tomorrow I'm heading off to 'Skardu' in the far north-east 'Baltistan' region of Pakistan. The bus journey there from Islamabad is expected to take about 24 hours. Yes 24 hours! The buses to the Northern Areas are run by NATCO (Northern Areas Transport Company) and I will be travelling on the 'VIP Express Service'. What this means is that I will get my own seat (i.e. I won't be expected to share it with another smelly person!) and we won't be picking up itinerant passengers (we'll see about that one). The express service still takes 24 hours though and it costs RS 1,400 (10 quid). I'm expecting some dodgy driving as we traverse some of the most hair-raising, brutal, and breath-taking scenery on planet earth.
(Click maps below for location)
Newspaper cut-outs, random thoughts & Fokker aeroplanes
Newspaper cut-outs
I was thinking of taking a train journey from Rawalpindi to the city of 'Quetta' in Balochistan province (near the Iranian border). Then I read the article below and had a change of mind. Quetta sits in the shadow of the 'Chargai' mountains in the South-West of the country and resembles a dust-whipped lawless wild-west outpost. Actually, judging by today's newspaper it is a dust-whipped lawless wild-west outpost:
'QUETTA, Aug 6: Four people were killed and four others injured when a bomb strapped to a motorcycle exploded in Quetta on Wed morning. The motorcycle had been parked outside a restaurant on the Majid Road. The bomb was detonated by remote-control. All the victims we're having Tea when the bomb exploded.
In a separate incident, a man on a motorcycle hurled a hand grenade at a stall in Quetta. A vendor was injured.
Notice the almost relaxed, nonchalant, care-free tone of the hand-grenade article. If a hand-grenade had been hurled in a vendors store in London it would make front page news! Not in Quetta it seems. Perhaps hurling of hand-grenades is a popular past-time. Or perhaps the hand-grenades they hurl in Quetta are timid affairs like the little fire crackers they let off at weddings that go off with a whizz not a bang; after all the vendor was only injured wasn't he?
Here's another newspaper cut-out from this mornings newspaper:
KARACHI: A suspected bandit, who was fleeing with his alleged accomplice after a bungled robbery was shot dead by the people. They said that two dacoits held a women hostage at gun-point and attempted to deprive her of her bangles. When she screamed they scarpered hotly pursued by the people. Someone then shot and hit one of them.
I don't know about you but this sounds suspiciously like a Bollywood script to me. 'Bandits', 'Dacoits', 'Bangles', 'Scarpered' and 'Hotly pursued??'.And they weren't particularly good bandits either if all it took was a women's screams to scarper them off!
Random thoughts
Currently reading Voltaire's 'Candide'. It is about human suffering and was written in 1758. It challenges (via the medium of erudite wit) the accepted belief (held widely at the time) that all suffering is in the end part of the 'Big Masterplan' - that in the end when you add everything up suffering leads to more good than bad and is for the best in the long run. Voltaire dismissed such thinking as hogwash. Or if he was born today he'd say 'Bollocks! Voltaire says that ultimately suffering is never good and that through our actions we should and can minimise it. i.e it is within the power of humanity to reduce suffering. Surprisingly, in our modern world there are plenty of people who still subscribe to the old fatalistic view.
Fokker aeroplanes
It seems that obtaining a Chinese Visa these days is a very tricky business indeed. You require proof of hotel reservations, flights in and out, sponsors, proof of employment, proof of fitness, proof that you are human (only kidding) etc. There's more hurdles to pass through then the 110 metre er hurdles...I'm not sure whether they'll issue a visa to me (at least during the Olympics anyway) for my land trip across China to Mongolia. So, this is where one must be a little more creative with border crossings and 'grease' some dodgy border guards. I am looking at the possibility of getting into Mongolia (after I have completed the Karakoram Highway) from 'Almaty' in the 'Central Asian Republic of Kazakhstan'.
Apparently, I've heard (on the travellers grapevine!) that Mongolian Airways has a weekly flight in an ageing 'Fokker Twin Propeller' aeroplane from Almaty to some flea-pit town in the far west of Mongolia that civilization seems to have forgotten. This is not for the faint hearted though because Mongolian Airways are not exactly the worlds 'premier' airline are they? In fact there safety record is in the top 10. That is top 10 'worst' airlines. In fact you probably have a better chance of surviving a trip to the moon. In a fridge. This is not a detour I had planned but a couple of weeks in Kazakhstan sound like great fun...erm don't they?
I was thinking of taking a train journey from Rawalpindi to the city of 'Quetta' in Balochistan province (near the Iranian border). Then I read the article below and had a change of mind. Quetta sits in the shadow of the 'Chargai' mountains in the South-West of the country and resembles a dust-whipped lawless wild-west outpost. Actually, judging by today's newspaper it is a dust-whipped lawless wild-west outpost:
'QUETTA, Aug 6: Four people were killed and four others injured when a bomb strapped to a motorcycle exploded in Quetta on Wed morning. The motorcycle had been parked outside a restaurant on the Majid Road. The bomb was detonated by remote-control. All the victims we're having Tea when the bomb exploded.
In a separate incident, a man on a motorcycle hurled a hand grenade at a stall in Quetta. A vendor was injured.
Notice the almost relaxed, nonchalant, care-free tone of the hand-grenade article. If a hand-grenade had been hurled in a vendors store in London it would make front page news! Not in Quetta it seems. Perhaps hurling of hand-grenades is a popular past-time. Or perhaps the hand-grenades they hurl in Quetta are timid affairs like the little fire crackers they let off at weddings that go off with a whizz not a bang; after all the vendor was only injured wasn't he?
Here's another newspaper cut-out from this mornings newspaper:
KARACHI: A suspected bandit, who was fleeing with his alleged accomplice after a bungled robbery was shot dead by the people. They said that two dacoits held a women hostage at gun-point and attempted to deprive her of her bangles. When she screamed they scarpered hotly pursued by the people. Someone then shot and hit one of them.
I don't know about you but this sounds suspiciously like a Bollywood script to me. 'Bandits', 'Dacoits', 'Bangles', 'Scarpered' and 'Hotly pursued??'.And they weren't particularly good bandits either if all it took was a women's screams to scarper them off!
Random thoughts
Currently reading Voltaire's 'Candide'. It is about human suffering and was written in 1758. It challenges (via the medium of erudite wit) the accepted belief (held widely at the time) that all suffering is in the end part of the 'Big Masterplan' - that in the end when you add everything up suffering leads to more good than bad and is for the best in the long run. Voltaire dismissed such thinking as hogwash. Or if he was born today he'd say 'Bollocks! Voltaire says that ultimately suffering is never good and that through our actions we should and can minimise it. i.e it is within the power of humanity to reduce suffering. Surprisingly, in our modern world there are plenty of people who still subscribe to the old fatalistic view.
Fokker aeroplanes
It seems that obtaining a Chinese Visa these days is a very tricky business indeed. You require proof of hotel reservations, flights in and out, sponsors, proof of employment, proof of fitness, proof that you are human (only kidding) etc. There's more hurdles to pass through then the 110 metre er hurdles...I'm not sure whether they'll issue a visa to me (at least during the Olympics anyway) for my land trip across China to Mongolia. So, this is where one must be a little more creative with border crossings and 'grease' some dodgy border guards. I am looking at the possibility of getting into Mongolia (after I have completed the Karakoram Highway) from 'Almaty' in the 'Central Asian Republic of Kazakhstan'.
Apparently, I've heard (on the travellers grapevine!) that Mongolian Airways has a weekly flight in an ageing 'Fokker Twin Propeller' aeroplane from Almaty to some flea-pit town in the far west of Mongolia that civilization seems to have forgotten. This is not for the faint hearted though because Mongolian Airways are not exactly the worlds 'premier' airline are they? In fact there safety record is in the top 10. That is top 10 'worst' airlines. In fact you probably have a better chance of surviving a trip to the moon. In a fridge. This is not a detour I had planned but a couple of weeks in Kazakhstan sound like great fun...erm don't they?
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Friday, August 01, 2008
Dancing with transgender sex-workers (Kusras)
Commentary: The 'Kusras' are an ostracised South-Asian version of the transvestite and they have suffered years of widespread abuse from the Muslim community of Pakistan. The doors of institutions have remained closed to this minority group and they have thus sought income from a profession at the very margins of so called 'respectable society' : Prostitution and fetish fullfilment. They sate the lecherous sexual desires of respectable men with wives and children who come to sleep with them. Being 'she-male' they come cheaper then females and are thus a great substitute for those who cannot afford classic female prostitutes. They form a fascinating close-knit community and have only themselves to turn to for support. It is thought the term 'Kusra' historically is derived from the term khwaja sera; the hermaphrodite or the castrated male who had the physical strength to guard the womens' harem of the Moghal courts, yet posed no sexual threat. Thus in the past Kusra meant something grand and even noble if you will, today khusra sits closely with the term 'faggot'.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)