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!
