Chapter 5: Taj Mahal to the Karakoram Highway

Back to our planned itinerary, we headed for Agra, home of the world-famous Taj Mahal. It was built by Shah Jahan in the 17th century over a period of 22 years as a memorial to his number two wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died in childbirth. Everyone's seen pictures of it, but they just don't compare to walking the grounds and taking in the views from different angles and in different light throughout the day. The symmetry and detail of the structure, with accompanying mosque and reflecting pools, is stunning and it's worth every one of the 105 rupees it costs to go in at 6AM when there are fewer people and the temperature is bearable (it costs 15 rupees if you wait until the more godly hour of 8).

A 20-minute rickshaw ride upriver from the Taj Mahal is Agra Fort, which was built by Emperor Akbar in 1565 with additions made through to the rule of his grandson, Shah Jahan. Jahan's son took power from his father and imprisoned him in the fort for the last seven years of his life. Unable to walk the grounds of the monument he built to his favourite wife, Jahan spent this time gazing at from his prison and was eventually buried there next to her. We spent a couple of days visiting several other Mughal monuments and ruins in and around Agra, and then continued on to Delhi, the national capital.

May 26

New Delhi, Old Delhi ... one just sort of blends into the other. The old half is crowded and lively like most cities in India, whereas the new half is sprawling with much green space and broad boulevards, the typical planned capital. We spent the better part of a week there, mostly dealing with government bureacracies and eating western food, successfuly eluding the infamous Delhi Belly.

After taking care of the tedious but obligatory task of obtaining onward visas (a downside of overland travel), we left Delhi and took a horrible overnight bus ride north to Dharamsala, home of the Tibetan Government in Exile. It's also home, albeit temporarily, to hordes of Westerners on a variety of spiritual missions. People take yoga courses, study Buddhism, learn various healing techniques, or just hang out in this northern Indian town populated mostly by Tibetans. It's in a great location up in the mountains and was an incredible relief from the heat of the plains.

We met up with our "Everest Trek" Israeli friends Michal and Mendi (see Chapter 3) who had been trekking in Manali, another popular destination for travelers in northern India. We spent a week hanging out with them, eating at the many good restaurants in town, taking walks in the hills above the town, visiting the Dalai Lama's temple, and just resting. The Dalai Lama returned from a trip to Ladakh in the far north of India and it was announced that he would be giving a public audience. Vivian and I signed up and were rewarded with a very brief but significant moment with His Holiness. There was no time to have him place katas (ceremonial silk scarves) around our necks, but I put some of our personal things (pendants, necklaces, etc.) in a small cloth bag and held it in my palm while I shook hands with HH. He looked down from my eyes to our hands for just a fraction of a second to see what I was holding and seemed to understand as we were quickly led away by his handlers. So we now have some things that were sort of blessed by the Dalai Lama, though admittedly in a sneaky kind of way.

June 12

Next, we headed southwest to Amritsar in the state of Punjab, passing many Indian troops on their way north to where Muslim fighters had crossed the Line of Control separating Indian and Pakistani controlled Kashmir. This was the only sign of the conflict we saw during our travels. Amritsar is home to the holiest shrine of the Sikh religion: the Golden Temple. It's made of white marble in a blend of Muslim and Hindu architectural styles and surrounded by a sacred pool and marble walkway. The dome is said to be covered in 100 kg of pure gold. It's open to everyone (unlike many Hindu temples) 24 hours a day and is spectacularly lit up at night. There seemed to be round the clock activity as pilgrims continually circumnavigate the walkway surrounding the pool at all ours.

We arrived after dark and passed a well-built Sikh guard holding a long staff with a machete-like blade on its end as we took off our footwear and washed our feet in order to enter the temple. The din of what seemed like hundreds of people washing metal eating utensils combined with the warm, moist evening air and eerie lights reflecting off the water made for an other-worldly atmosphere as we followed the walkway around the pool.

The next morning, an old Sikh gentleman took it upon himself to explain a lot of the history of the temple (including a story about a martyr who was beheaded while retaking the temple from Mughal invaders but got up and fought with his head in one hand and his sword in the other). He also got us into the temple itself through the exit so that we wouldn't have to wait in line (for likely over an hour) with all the other pilgrims making their offerings. We felt awkward, but thankful as we wove through the exiting worshippers to get a close up look at the pietra dura inlay work on the interior walls which look much like those found in the Taj Mahal. This 'shortcut' allowed us to avoid some of the midday heat and get to the border early enough to clear immigration and customs. We were leaving India and headed for ... Pakistan.

When we asked at for the bus to the Wagah border crossing not far from Amritsar, the locals thought we were crazy. "Didn't we know that India and Pakistan were at war?" We were pretty sure that the conflict was limited to an isolated and remote region of the Indian Himalayas and that things were pretty peaceful in the parts of Pakistan we were going to, so we got on the bus anyway.

We didn't really know what to expect but our first impression of Pakistan was that it was ... well ... nicer than India. The people were very friendly and helpful and it didn't seem quite so dirty. Best of all, there wasn't cow shit all over the place (Muslims eat beef so that solved the problem quite nicely). It was very hot and the air very polluted in Lahore, the first city we arrived in. So we got a bus to Rawalpindi (twin city to Islamabad) the next day.

Next nice surprise: It's a REAL bus!!! Not a cargo truck with walls, windows, roof, and seats bolted to the chassis (like they have in India and Nepal). It was a Mercedes and had air-conditioning that worked! Then, even more amazingly, we got onto a six-lane motorway (that's 'freeway' for N. Americans) that had a posted speed limit of 140 kph. The ride was unbelievably smooth after all the shakes, rattles 'n rolls we'd become used to. And there were real rest areas with convenience stores, CLEAN restrooms, and mosques. But this was all too good to be true. Sure enough, our bus broke down due to a problem with the brakes. While we waited to see what was going to happen, the other passengers (rather, the male ones) crowded around the driver outside the bus and began arguing with him. When I asked someone what was going on, I was told that they were trying to decide how much they should be refunded for the remaining portion of the trip to Peshawar. Peshawar? Wasn't this bus going to Rawalpindi? It seemed not. Luckily we were only a half-hour cab ride from our destination and didn't waste too much time or money.

A reasonably priced hotel in Pindi with central AC set comfortably to 30 °C was a welcome refuge from the 40+ °C daytime temperatures we'd been experiencing. The twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi were reminiscent of New and Old Delhi. Islamabad is a designer capital with broad streets and a wide-open layout while Pindi dense and lively. Not needing any visas, we spent our time in there running errands and drinking mango shakes. Pakistani mangoes are the most fragrant we've ever eaten. They're cheap, sweet, and taste fantastic. The flavour is so rich it's almost like eating meat. They're the next best thing to durian, the king of Southeast Asian fruits.

Time to actually start our journey along the KKH, formerly a southern spur of the Silk Routes, connecting China with the Indian subcontinent. We took the Northern Areas Transport Co.'s so-called 'deluxe coach' north from Pindi and spent 13.5 hrs driving along the canyons of the Indus River arriving at Chilas, home of some 2000 year old graffiti left by passing travelers. Chilas can also be one of the hottest places in Pakistan, so we got up very early the next day to see the petroglyphs, guided by our helpful waiter from the night before. He took us to the two main sites, climbing all over the boulders to point out the various drawings etched into the rock.

Gilgit is a pleasant and quiet town on the southern edge of the Karakoram Range. We enjoyed a few days of relaxation staying at the lovely Madina Guest House, visited a huge Buddha carved into the side of a cliff in the 7th century, and gorged on Chicken Karai (braised in a small wok with tomatoes, onions and spices), Chicken Tikka (barbecued over hot coals), kebabs, nan (flat bread), yoghurt, mangoes, figs and cherries.

June 22

Nanga Parbat is probably the world's most easily accessible 8000m. The original route to the summit began from what is now the KKH and involved many days of hiking before reaching the snowline. Today, if you're properly acclimatised, you could get from Gilgit to the North Face Basecamp (4000m) in just one day. From Raikhot Bridge on the KKH, we traveled up the private jeep road that leads to the tiny village Tato. This was by far the most amazing road we've ever traveled on. It's literally caved into the side of the smooth, rock slope of the Raikhot Valley and is only just wide enough for one jeep for most the way. In some places it isn't even cut into the rock slope but built onto it with stacked rocks.

It's a three-hour walk to a lovely meadow surrounded by pine forests with a heart-stopping view of the Nanga Parbat massif. You can camp and rent tents and sleeping bags and they cook up pretty good food in the kitchen. The next day we took a leisurely two-hour walk to Beyal Meadow (3600m) and then stayed the night to get acclimatised.

The trees began to thin out as we walked along the west side of the Raikhot Valley towards basecamp the next morning. We could hear moans and creaks coming from the glacier below us. The alarm calls of golden marmots welcomed us to basecamp where there are memorials to the many mountaineers who died attempting to climb Nanga Parbat (nicknamed 'Killer Mountain'). Feeling the effects of the day's walk and the 4000 meters of altitude, we quickly ate a cold meal of dried fruit, nuts and chapatis, witnessed a large avalanche cascade off the face of Nanga Parbat, watched some amazingly surreal post-sunset alpenglow over the Karakoram peaks in the distance, and went to sleep.

The next morning I climbed the snow-capped hill above the meadow at the top of which is Camp I (just under 4500m) while Vivian waited halfway up, basking in the sun. In three short days we'd come from the highway to a spot right in the middle of the mountains surrounded by snow-covered peaks on three sides. I glissaded partway down and we returned to basecamp to pack and begin the walk back to Fairy Meadows. It was a very long day indeed, compounded by our getting lost in the nastier of the two glaciers, but were rewarded by a hot chicken dinner back at Raikhot Serai.

Located a few hours north of Gilgit, the Hunza Valley is peacefully nestled in the Karakoram Range and is populated by Ismaeli Muslims whose religious leader is the Aga Khan. They even named the biggest town in the valley after him, calling it Karimabad. After taking in the green of the irrigated fields, the brown of the upper slopes of the valley, and the white of the snow and ice covered mountain tops, the first big change you notice from towns further south is that women seem to walk the streets freely with their heads relatively uncovered. You can even hear them talking out loud, even talking to men. The Ismaeli sect is much more relaxed than most other branches of Islam and although we had noticed the absence of women in public in Pakistan, it hadn't really dawned on us just how absent they were until we saw them out on the streets again.

The 'Shangri-La' of James Hilton's novel Lost Horizon in which the local population lived very long lives was supposedly inspired by the Hunza Valley. The 1970's National Geographic article on the Hunza Valley was later shown to be false in its claims of extreme longevity of the residents. But the food they eat is pretty healthy, made up mainly of grains, fruits, and creamy cheeses. We especially liked the big round loaves of hearty bread and the apricot oil they spread on chapati-cheese sandwiches. Hunza 'chocolate' is a sweet, flat bread made without sugar but rather by cooking the grain before drying it and grinding it into flour. We didn't sample any of the Hunza 'water', which is actually local fruit wine, but it may have been for the better as we heard that it can upset western digestive systems.

The Hunza people have a history of independence and there are the ruins of two forts that attest to their fighting history. The Baltit and Altit Forts sit in commanding locations backed onto steep cliffs. The former has been renovated and charges an exorbitant 250 rupee entrance fee. So we opted for the more original and less expensive Altit Fort. A lot of fine wood carving on the structural beams still remains and the view from the outhouse which drops several hundred meters straight down to the Hunza River is worth the hour's walk from Karimabad.

July 7

Many people heading over the Khunjerab Pass at the end of the Karakoram Highway to Xinjiang skip Passu and head directly to the border town of Sost. But there is a very quiet little village with several inns scattered along the highway and it's easy to spend a few days hiking in the area. The trail up Borit Sar (sar means 'peak' in the local language) was pretty much standard by Pakistani standards (meaning it was nonexistent), but the view of Passu Glacier was breathtaking. After a day's rest we did the 'double suspension bridge' walk, which almost made us feel like Indiana Jones, and then we continued north to Sost on the roof of the daily bus.

Border towns don't usually have much charm, and Sost lived up to their reputation. But it did provide an opportunity to photograph the colourful and garishly decorated Pakistani trucks that ply the highways throughout the country. Not too many women hanging around this rather dumpy place. We got tickets on the "Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation" bus to China for the next morning and prepared ourselves to enter the People's Republic.