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Gilgit, Baltit and Sost
In the third of a series of articles chronicling recent travels through Pakistan's ancient Silk Road routes, Nishy Wijewardane reaches Gilgit in Pakistan's Northern Areas, the borderlands of the "Great Game", and witnesses Spring in the enchanting Hunza Valley, before travelling to the rugged northern region (Sost) bordering China's western frontier.

Gilgit was formerly a part of the Kushan empire and ruled by Buddhist kings with invasions from both China and Tibet in the 8th C AD. After a turbulent past, much later in the 19 C, it became an important British listening post, spying on Russian interests across the Pamirs and Hindu Kush - "the Great Game" as it was known for the intriguing game of political hide and seek played by Russia and Britain across forbidding territories from Khiva to Kashgar over respective interests in India and other territories.

The pawns of this game of chess were countless political agents, military men, explorers, archaeologists, surveyors and associates, many of whose individual feats "for King and Country" are simply legendary, and make for a more fascinating story than James Bond, the fictional spy, could ever be.

Gilgit is the Nuwara Eliya of the Northern Areas. Ringed in by mountains, it enjoys a cool dry climate at 1500 m and is a peaceful well laid-out town. It is also known as the home base of the Aga Khan Rural Support Project (AKRSP), a development centre serving the historic Ismali group that populates parts of the Karakoram.

Strolling in the lanes of Gilgit's old quarter, one is reminded of small higher altitude boutique shops in Nuwara Eliya or Beragala. Horses are an integral part of the life of this town; Gilgit is the home of polo and draws an international audience for its famous games. The Pakistani military also has a strong presence in this mountain town.

From Gilgit town, the road meanders through increasingly scenic scree valleys hugging the Hunza River, passing through few isolated small villages such as Nomal until about 105 km later it reaches Karimabad, set in the centre of the lush, green Hunza Valley. A magical landscape of trees now emerges on terraced mountainsides, with poplars bordering homesteads, interspersed by apricot and walnut trees and small fields of highland wheat and maize. Stone flat roofed houses dot the greenery; small slow moving human figures can be seen in this most tranquil of scenes.

Climbing steeply up through the pretty and small town of Karimabad (an offshoot of Baltit, the original capital), one reaches Baltit Fort, the former home of the Mir (ruler) of Hunza and the Hunza royal families until the 1950s. The Hunza people, a gentle group, are predominantly the followers of the Ismali sect of Islam, whose spiritual leader is the Aga Khan, a philanthropist who this month unveiled the region's first university for mountain people, besides the development work of the AKRSP in Gilgit.

The people themselves draw their bloodlines from the centuries of traders and travellers that have passed this way; this is clearly evidenced today as I walked past many womenfolk, bearing astoundingly Greek or Balkan faces, reminiscent of no less than faces on ancient Greek urns or statutes one might find thousands of miles away in the Mediterranean. Others bore more Eurasian physiques, some passably Iranian with blond hair and blue eyes. Many Hunza people claim descent from Alexander's soldiers who came this way around 327 BC. Indeed, one could easily be forgiven for thinking one is in the Balkans, aside from the unique Hunza scenery around us.

Baltit Fort, Hunza
Stepping into the Baltit Fort whose origins go back to the mid 13C AD, one is transported again but this time into a different world, one which brought back memories of Bhutanese or Tibetan dzongs, clearly also a major historic influence in this region. Small dimly lit rooms enclosed by thick walls of mud, straw and reinforced local timbers (in Tibetan architectural style) are sparsely furnished with items and wall hangings, some chests clearly bearing the styles of those that I have encountered in Bukhara in Uzbekistan, another far off Silk Road city. From the roof of this 'palace', the former rulers of this mountain kingdom enjoyed the most panoramic view of a kingdom that is imaginable, and could directly see over the settlements and lives of their citizens. Perhaps only "mad" Ludwig II of Bavaria, perched in his magnificent Neuschwanstein castle deep in the Bavarian forests could claim likewise.

Stretching out from Baltit's southern side, a plateau is fully visible, with the Hunza River cutting 'S' shaped rings through it, and flanked all around by magnificent mountain chains. The snowy Rakaposhi Peak (7000 m, 22,000 feet) soars up in the background. In this setting, the Hunza's legendary longevity - fed by a diet of dried fruits and nuts - is wholly believable (senior citizens can live well over 100 years). The delicious fruits in May, notably apricots, loquats and black cherries made up for many an impromptu meal on the road.

From the Hunza, my wife and I travelled to Pakistan's border town of Sost. The road goes through still more villages beset by towering peaks. Of particular note is the village of Nasirabad where the warm tones of the setting sun cast a golden mantle on rock tips. Glaciers still move across the landscape; the Pasu Glacier groans over the terrain at close quarters as a mix of millions of tons of snow, ice and boulders grind the ground, and nearby is the grey-ice Batura Glacier (60 km long).

Much evidence of glaciers long gone remain in these valleys, in the form of vast light chocolate coloured alluvial plains, moraines and fans. The edges of such silt form towering cliffs (5 to 15 floors high) that often protrude now over largely dry river beds. The Karakoram road, which for the most part zig-zags high up along the mountain sides for much of the journey from Thakot, now descends to almost kiss the river before ascending swiftly again. Finally, the relatively bleak border settlement at Sost is reached, home to a few houses and lodging places, clearly not a place to idle in for long.

After anxious pre-booking of bus seats for the next day, we turned in for a cold but comfortable night at a local hotel. Early next morning, healthily unsure of departure times as is necessary on such rough journeys, we made our way in advance to a rudimentary border hangar where smartly clad Pakistani Customs officers with military precision (and good timing) made a final detailed baggage check. One or two rather bedraggled foreign travellers in overly ethnic dress, clearly a product of many months residence in the country, were subjected to extra scrutiny, probably on account of suspected casual drugs, but apart from some mere inconvenience, they were soon cleared. Passengers then boarded either two ancient and rather suspect Toyota jeep carriers (packed to bursting with passengers and baggage) or a small bus, serviced by NATCO (Northern Areas Transport Company) to make the daylong journey through the Khunjerab Pass and into China proper. Sadly the last vestiges of rich Pakistani balti curries, brimming with tomatoes and onions, left us at this point and we reverted to chewing dry apricots, said to be good for high altitude travel.

In the next article, we ascend into the dizzying heights of the Khunjerab Pass, the final leg of the journey through modern Pakistan (for such borders are geographically and ethnically undistinct) and its finger-like projection into the vast desert bowl that is China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region.

(Continued next week)

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