1st group on Karakoram Highway

04 - 16 july

Assalam Aleykum,

Pakistan is a wonderland, every day is even better then the previous one. For the first time I earn money here with guiding tourists. The first group is an old German couple. We go to Karakoram Highway via Peshawar (Khyber Pass) and Swat Valley – great places to escape the heat in Lahore. In the first days a Pakistani college accompanies me to make sure that I learn the little tricks of Pakistan. Meanwhile he is a good friend, taught me some Urdu inclusive script. Interesting! Here its very important to know how to make friends in business – they have a bit different styles to do this here. The working situation is also a bit different. Working for European tour operators I was used to get free accommodation and food. Here in Pakistan its not like this, you pay yourself. It depends on your personal negotiating skills if you get a reduced or even free room. Javed, my college is master of this discipline. I learned a lot. The first time in my life I even got commission for goods that my 2 clients had bought. I didn’t reckon with that, but its nice – I can use it for the Kalash school.
Javed himself could also learn a lot about European travel expectations and how to fulfil them. HE tells me, that if the money the company gave him is too less, he would pay the rest out of his own pocket – just to ensure his boss doesn’t get angry and kick him out – there are many others who wait for his job. Therefore sometimes the service quality suffers . For me it’s a bit easier, I almost only guide German speaking groups. There are not so many who do this, so I don’t have to fear.
Javed became a real good friend on the journey. After some days of polite distance he started talking very frankly about his life, his fears, his dreams. His childhood; his first 4 year long lasting platonic love (except one 3sec kiss); the arranged marriage with another woman who he only calls “very cooperative and friendly”; his strict mother, who makes life for is wife really difficult; his duties as father (education + food for kids), as husband (money, time), as son (obedience, money), as son-in-law (money), as brother (food, accommodation and gifts for his 3 sisters incl. family who come all 3 weeks for a week) and last but not least as employee (work from 9-?, only 1 day off, no holidays, fulfil every single wish of his boss and also he ones of Mrs Razal, who gained control over the boss.) And though has he always a friendly smile, some time to talk and some rupees in his pocket and is willing to give all of it. Admirable – if you see him he seems quite unimpressive, but as soon as he starts talking, one sees the spirit in his eyes and feels the warmth of his hearts. The last nights we even spend in the same room. Before he didn’t dare to ask an “angrezi” (foreigner). Among tour guides it is common to share rooms, to share costs. He bore the high single room rate – if there was one without complaining. I started talking on this topic even though I wasn’t sure myself. On the one hand I guessed he must have been on his limits with a daily allowance of 500Rp – on the other hand did I not know, what a Pakistani would expect if he was asked to share a room with an “angrezi”. In Austria I wouldn’t mind about things like this, but here… ?
But it was all right. Were talking till late at night, singing, joking, learning Urdu and German and sharing our knowledge about guiding European tourists in Pakistan.

In Karimabad/Hunza I took the 2 tourists along to my dear friend Alamgir, at whose house I stayed during my last visit. He invited us for tea and extended our stay for dinner. At 11 o’clock we returned to the hotel.
There I also met Martin again – the Austrian guy whom I had met in the Kalash Valleys. Again very coincidentally. With the 2 Germans I didn’t have so much time, but it was enough to share some stories. A bit of home as alternation is so nice, talking my own dialect I really miss sometimes. We even managed to gave him a free room in Baltid Inn Hotel as a Austrian Tour Operator (he will do at least oral propaganda).
Another asset in hunza are the apricots, which were fresh and children stood at the roadside to offer them.


On this tour I was even able to see the Northern part of KKH in Pakistan, where I had never been before – but don’t tell anyone . I did my preparations very well, so they couldn’t find out it was my first time there.
You cant compare this part of Karakoram Hgwy with the Southern one, although that one is already a magic site itself.
North of Hunza the mountains look extremely rugged – only here I understood the meaning of “Karakoram” which is “black crumbling rock”, the area gets more and more desolate, nature more and more pristine, the valley higher and higher and wider and wider. Up to Sost I guide the 2 people, there is the Pakistani Check post, customs and Immigration. On top of the pass, at the real border – it’s too cold for any formalities. A very friendly former tourist guide who was now working as customs officer helped me and led me through the bureaucratic jungle. I didn’t know about it, I had never been there. From a distance it looked as if we were good old friends and I was given fast service – the Germans were happy as they thought to get special treatment again, all right. I could even persuade the NATCO (Northern Area Transport Cooperation Organisation) guy to give me a Jeep ticket instead of the common bus ticket. The tourists were more than happy. Now they had the chance to get extra picture stops. A 3hrs journey leads over Khunjerab Pass to China, from where they continue to Kashgar and Beijing. Over Khunjerab one can only go with these NATCO Buses or Jeeps, except for some special cases. I met 2 Spanish girls up there who wanted to cross the pass with their bicycles. They were sent back to Sost from top of the pass by the Chinese Border Force.

At see off tears run down her face. Though they first showed a polite distance, we became quite good friends. They asked me to guide all their other tours – since they have been retired they are travelling all over the world – always as a group of 2 for maximum flexibility. They know stories from all around the world.
I am curious about how this relation will continue. They are also interested in my Kalash school project and want to donate some money.

While writing the upper part of this journal, I sit at Rakaposhi View Point Restaurant with beautiful view of exactly the mentioned Rakaposhi (7788m). It is glooming down on me, sweetening my waiting time here. Waiting time? Oh yes, we are in Pakistan, remember? There was a landslide a little ahead, so we – Suheel the driver, and me have to stay a little longer in this beautiful region. The bulldozers try their best – since 1 ½ days, lets see. The people here are very hospitable. We had already stopped here on the way up with the clients. Now they leave no possibility to show their friendship – in expectance of further business. One of them offers me his room to stay over night, he shifts to a friend. They bring breakfast, lunch, dinner and in between tea, cookies, fresh sweet apricots, figs and nuts. I hope the bulldozers take a little longer!

After almost 2 days we can continue. I learn that its is even on KKH possible to drive 100km/h, I didn’t know that before. Suheel tries his best to bring the car back as fast as possible. Safe? Inchallah

Overnight in Besham, nice but short. At half past five we continue, after 4hrs of sleep. As if the heat in Lahore is that attractive…
The motorway to Lahore is incomparable to the KKH. Wide, straight, plain, no rickshaws, animals, pedestrians and other varieties of Pakistani mountain street life.
Almost a bit boring after gorges, waterfalls, falling rocks, steep ridges, gravel roads, goats and dirt. Beside the motorway rare signs ask you to take care of hyena, hedge hocks and tortoises.
The closer we come to Lahore the hotter it gets. 2hrs ahead we switch on the ac. Its not as hot as two weeks ago when I left, compared to the fresh, clear, cool air in Hunza its like a thick, dusty mouldy, smelling air penetrate your lungs.
Back home I learn that there were train crashes between Lahore and Quetta and another one between Lahore and Karachi.
The London explosions I came to know only 3 hrs after, the first + last time during my trip to switch on the TV. No one knew what had happened, neither reason nor real impact, but everywhere the term “Al Qaeda” was visible and audible. The next strike in war against terrorism was about to be born – I am really sick of these things. As they then screened Condi’s eerily sneaking face I had to switch off. I am not the person to look away if something bad happens, but here in the remote parts of Northern Areas there is really not much to do if you have to handle a group.

Coming to Lahore is almost like coming home, only the faces of the guards have changed again. Sometimes I am not sure if it is safer to have a guard because there is “something out there” to protect yourself of or if it would be better without guards, because you can never trust them. Anyway, thanks god I belong to the naive people who don’t fear “something out there” and if something really happens, I wouldn’t mind, because than its already past. Why worry about past? Let's see.. Inchallah nothing will happen.
Sometimes people ask me if Pakistan is save – additional to my own experience of never ever facing a dangerous or uncomfortable situation – I can say: here everyone knows the places where it could be dangerous, you know where you should not go or where you have to take care – if I had been to London, I guess I would have never considered to take care in the tube (except of pickpockets)
At the moment I feel much safer in Pakistan than in England I have to confess…

So see you some when
khuda hafez


there are pics on yahoo - they are too much for this blog... if you are asked for a password: acchigom

Work - 1st group KKH pics