I'm Going One Way - Your Way - Such A Long Way

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Hunza Watercolour

The sing-song laughter of children reaches your ears high up in the valley; a happy-go-lucky impish chorus carried on the backs of a tender breeze. You smile because it reminds you of your nieces. As you sift through the delicate valley sounds with your fingertips you notice the constant hum of the Hunza River - a never ceasing torrent at the bottom of the valley floor. It’s Friday. The Mullah in the mosque is in full swing and you can hear his sermon through the loud speakers on the opposite side of the valley. His pleading harrying voice surges forever upwards; imploring God to forgive our sins. Below you a troop of women squat quietly in a knee-deep ocean of grass not talking but listening in deference to the Mullah. You watch them thrash and cut the sun-dried grass with metal sabres and then dump it in pyramidal mounds as animal fodder for the winter months.

Your attention caught by a cackling armada of birds as they perform a fly-by across your veranda; large confident black things with brilliant-white wings and purple tails that swoosh and swoon on thermals. The flies continue to hassle you. Why won’t they leave you alone? In the distance the mountains heave to the heavens; their tips wrapped in chunky wads of icing sugar. The Mullah has finally stopped his sermon and suddenly the women become more animated and chatter in the fields; laughing and giggling and bobbing their heads mischievously like corks. You notice there features: oriental looking, light skinned and blue-eyed. Headily beautiful - Yes. These are Hunza women. Perhaps the most beautiful women in the world. Your heart is light and your mind fresh and so is the air; not thick and miry like the unpleasant miasma of Lahore.

You spot apple trees and cherry trees and apricots and squashes and walnuts growing in abundance all around you like a Garden of Eden. The apricot trees scatter their produce all over the ground covering it in a sludgy - orangey mire. You tramp over it and watch it ooze into your soles – like apricot jam. You grab an apple hanging from a tree and take a tentative bite at it - it’s soft and sugary and delicious. The sunflowers are swarming with a bumblebee invasion, their deep yellow petals screaming out for attention from the arid forlorn rocky crags in the background.

The valley really comes alive in the early evenings when the sun hovers low; carving long deep shadows across it. It’s now that the tips of the mountains take on that warm golden cast that you love so much. The colours of the valley suddenly jump out at you as if mounted on spring coils that have been wound during the day. Green suddenly says ‘Hi!’ and jumps into the valley making everything appear greener. The dusty hills suddenly look more interesting with their ridges and contours a differing shades of brown – details that you never noticed before. The apricots in the apricot trees now positively glowing like lit bulbs and the sunflowers dressed in a drunken yellow rage with brown splodges.

The cackling birds with their flashy white wings glimmer as the sun bounces off them all under a sky streaked with green and purple crayons. The children ever louder. The women in the fields ever more animated and eager to go home and cook the evening family meal. You know dinner time has arrived when twirls of smoke start scrambling heavenwards from the chimneys. The smell of burning wood and a thousand meals fills the valley and attacks your nostrils. You wish you we’re in one of those homes sitting around a cosy wood fire watching the family at play. Just watching and drinking tea.

The sun finally disappears and the valley now a milkyway of a million light-bulbs. But the river continues humming, lulling you to sleep in the veranda. But not before you’ve had your evening meal. In your bedroom. Alone!

I do it for you

Everything I do

Hunza Valley, Pakistan - (click image to walk closer)

Pakistani Tableau Vivant

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.

Pakistani Lives and Lands

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...