You've Gone Too Far This Time, Sir!

by Danny Bent

  I was told there’d been a rock fall but this was clearly not true. The road has been blocked by someone or something. There was a neat pile of rocks and soil blocking the road. This could be an ambush. Didn’t anyone understand? We were potentially seconds away from having our lives extinguished. The Taliban were coming. As I stood shouting at those who would listen to me, I turned to catch two people lifting my bike over the rubble. I ran back. Thieves! They stopped, rested the bike on the other side of the rock pile and walked towards me with smiles. “You can go.”

  Once on the other side, I realised why the road had been blocked. The Chinese, who were remaking the road, were turning this single lane track into a multi-lane highway to traffic their goods to the sub-continent to be sold. They had big yellow diggers up in the mountains throwing stones onto the road.

  I had to keep moving to keep out of the cold. Tentatively I set off. Again it was like I’d been transported into my old Spectrum ZX computer. I had to get across the ledge whilst there were no stones being thrown. I got my timing wrong and a rock as big as a TV set flew down the rock face and ripped my pannier clean off my bike, carrying it halfway down the mountain side. Pulling the bike to safety, I had to re-live the treacherous route on foot to grab my pannier and get back.

  Further down the road I was stopped by border guards asking to see my passport and subsequently refusing to let me pass.

  “You have to be on a vehicle.”

  “I am on a vehicle.”

  I was taken into their hut where nine to ten men sat around a log fire, each one carrying some form of firearm. Unlike the Chinese, these men lay their guns on the side (precariously close to the fire at points) without a care in the world. I was getting a picture of the Pakistani people who seemed to be so laid back they were horizontal.

  I kept asking to leave, only to receive the same response. Solo? Too dangerous.

  They fed me an aubergine curry with naan which tasted delicious after the desert and mountain food. They also gave me salted tea which wasn’t growing on me despite my efforts to acquire the taste, but I forced it down anyway.

  When I asked to go to the loo, I was pointed outside. Anywhere. I was reduced to squatting outside the police station to do my business and to using leaves as best I could to cover it up afterwards. It felt a little unreal.

  Whilst sitting there, I considered my escape plan. Those buses could be up there all night. I wasn’t waiting. Shirley was propped up outside on the down slope of the gate. She was chomping at the bit, ready to rock and roll again. So was I.

  On my way back I went to my bike and pretended to get something from my bag. In a split second I was on it and pumping my legs like crazy. I waited for gun shots and shouts but, to be honest, I don’t think they even noticed.

  * * *

  Dark closed in and those drops into the ravines became more and more treacherous. At the last minute I would swerve to avoid hundred metre drops. I passed people with nothing more than a shawl to keep them warm on the mountain side, waving as I went by. They were as surprised to see me as I was to see them.

  A vehicle revved its engine behind me. Its lights lit up the road so I didn’t let it pass. The driver didn’t seem to mind one bit that I was hogging the middle of the road. Finally I arrived at the Pakistani border post, forty kilometres from China.

  The vehicle behind me contained Matt and Ali. It was the bus from Tashkurgan. The Pakistani travellers congratulated me and shook me by the hand as we three Westerners were taken into a separate room.

  The laid back nature of the Pakistani Guard was again confirmed when they couldn’t find the key for the cupboard where the visas were stored. Telling us to come back in the morning, they let us wander into Pakistan without visas to find some lodgings for the night.

  We waved to the other bus companions as they drove away – little did we know that within twenty-four hours the driver would be dead and the bus would be a burning wreck on the road side.

  Chapter 29

  Ali was now a vision of health, bouncing around practising her Urdu, but it seemed she’d passed the relay baton onto Matt who sat on the loo, bucket in hands, as he exploded from both ends. I wondered when it would be my turn.

  When you step out into Sost in the light of day, you are greeted by a whole new world of market stalls set up under a radiant blue sky on the side of road in front of snow-peaked mountains, filled with goods from China, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. It was like walking around Diagon Alley in Harry Potter. There were foods that looked like creatures from the deep, brightly coloured Chinese packaging containing who knows what, gems and handmade crafts. It was beautiful; so colourful.

  This beauty was only surpassed by the trucks that waited for their loads at the border. The Chinese articulated trucks pass their goods to simple Pakistani trucks which are inferior to their Chinese counterparts on every level except one - their external design. They are completely decorated from bumper to bumper using paint, plastic, wood, jangling chains, shiny objects, metal, fairy lights, windmills, glass and mirrors, the more elaborate and vibrant the better.

  The custom started in the 1920s when bus drivers decorated their buses to get more custom and the truck drivers followed suit. Now it is a regular day-to-day occurrence to see a truck looking like a Harrods Christmas tree trundling along at five kilometres per hour carrying ten tons of potatoes, or brick, or wood.

  Walking through the markets and gawking at the trucks, you can’t help but be distracted by the guns. They are everywhere. Soldiers have them, security staff have them, street vendors have them. I felt compelled to greet each stranger carrying a weapon of mass destruction with a firm hand shake. I wasn’t sure whether my smiles were reflecting their faces or theirs mine. It was a chicken or egg question.

  One soldier, standing on an elevated area surveying the road below, was dressed for warmth in a fluffy pastel blue dressing gown with white clouds floating over it. He gave me a massive smile and posed for several pictures with his AK47 under his arm.

  "It's two hundred kilometres of the worst road ever imaginable. The Chinese are blasting big holes in it. Landfalls are smashing it to pieces. There are climbs that take a day to do. There are perhaps twenty kilometres of tarmac. It's frozen in places. Other parts are sand. The rest is boulders, rocks and stones." The people were warning me against the next leg of my journey. They thought it wasn’t do-able.

  The whole atmosphere in Sost played on the strings of my heart. The friendliness I experienced was something else. It was a Sunday; there were no banks open and we couldn’t get any money. A man I’d met at the police station on my way down said he could help us. We went for tea, the catalyst for all good transactions. The tea was accompanied by chicken curry, then more tea and biscuits. Eventually he pulled out $100 dollars worth of rupees and put them in my hand. As I handed him the dollars, he looked insulted. He refused to take them. He was trying to give us 10,000 rupees, about a month's wages in Pakistan, for nothing because we’d shared tea with him. I couldn’t have that and forced the money into his jacket pocket. Later I was told to ask three times and then, if they continue to be adamant, it is a true offer.

  An hour later I was hunched over, wearing prison shackles, with my hands chained, being led around the passport control area like a pet monkey by a border guard.

  * * *

  We had arrived to pick up our passports an hour before and the guards still hadn’t found the keys, so we waited and drank tea and ate biscuits. As time dragged, I joked that we were prisoners. The guards, to relieve their boredom, started treating me like a prisoner. The shackles were brought out, photos were taken, people slapped me on the back and everyone laughed. If I had been a real prisoner, then things would have been very different indeed.

  Eventually a guard walked in brandishing the key, looking very proud of himself. Visas were stuck in passports using Pritstick, and goodbyes were said to Ali and Matt. We were all heading towards Gilgit, our next destination, but they would ha
ve the comfort of a jeep; I was cycling. What a luxurious way to travel in Pakistan.

  The road out of Sost was one of the worst on the trip but the scenery blew my brains out. Is this the most beautiful place on earth?

  A turquoise river cut around the monstrous mountains. Glaciers worked their way down, filling it with melt water. Small villages were positioned along it, linked by the road. The people went about their daily duties and stopped to wave as I went by. Old ladies laughed, beautifully wrinkled, their worn dark skin reflecting and radiating sunlight with bright sharp eyes and shining white teeth. Young children ran alongside me until their legs gave up. School boys gave me the thumbs up and the girls giggled, then asked my name. Each and everyone possessed the most wonderful welcoming energies. Their smiles and waves passed a little bit of light onto me and within ten miles of setting off from Sost I had to stop. I couldn’t see straight. The ravishing beauty of this country filled my eyes with tears.

  I’d grown up feeling like I was an alien, the jigsaw piece that couldn’t fit in no matter who I was, where I went, what I wore. I was surrounded by friends but I’m sure they had no idea of who I was or what I was. Suddenly I felt like I was slotting into place. I was where I was meant to be.

  Something was pulling me forwards along the right path, not only towards Chembakolli but towards my entire future. I could feel a calming of the soul, a releasing of tension from years of being out in the social wilderness.

  A bus of Taiwanese tourists drove past and stopped. Twenty people came out brandishing cameras that looked bigger than my bike, and others leant out of the window. The view was stunning; I couldn’t blame them. But then the cameras were turned on me. Flash bulbs blinded me and the clickety-clicking sounded like a train line. It was lovely to have some contact with the Taiwanese who the Chinese had alleged I favoured.

  One hundred metres further on, the view opened up. The valley parted as the river widened and gave me a perfect view of Cathedral Rock, the most photographed mountain in Northern Pakistan. As I sat on my saddle taking in the surroundings, young girls came out to watch me. Farmers stopped as they came from their fields, their herds of goats down from the freezing mountains, enjoying the freedom to stop and graze. An older woman hobbled closer using a staff to prop up her aged body. The people of Hunsa are the most longevous in the world, often living till over a hundred years old. This is thanks partially to a natural diet, clean air and a lack of stress but the gene pool must play its part. She was clearly at the upper end of the scale. Moving towards her, I could see a fire in her eyes which was wonderful to see in such an old lady. She came within a metre of me and smiled. I smiled back. Then, with the grace of a Bruce Lee or a Jackie Chan, she swung her staff above her head, stabilising herself with her legs, and whacked me on the back of my bare legs. Laughter echoed round the mountain side. My legs stung but, as the old lady smiled, I had to laugh too. Another barrage of hits rained down upon me and something similar to a Benny Hill sketch ensued. The old lady chased me round and round, occasionally landing her mark with the stick. By this point people were rolling on the floor. I asked one of the school girls what I had done wrong and she said it was my shorts. Showing your legs is not appropriate.

  This was Hussaini village. I liked their style.

  Once the lady thought she’d taught me a lesson, she hobbled off into the village nearby using her staff for support. A group of professional photographers who were creating a portfolio of Northern Pakistan took some pictures of me and invited me to have dinner with them at a local hotel in Gulmit.

  Meanwhile, Matt and Ali were thundering down the road to Gilgit. The bus leaped and jumped left and right as they crawled along at a pace of about ten kilometres per hour. Matt was squeezed in between five Pakistani men, all of whom had managed to fall asleep instantly as this roller coaster began. On the front rows, the women, including Ali, sat comfortably with free seats next to them. Unless you are a brother or cousin, no man can sit next to a woman on a bus. Matt was quite jealous as one head slipped onto his lap and the other rested on his shoulder.

  Gulmit is in the Upper Hunsa Valley and used to be a very popular tourist destination, a hustling, bustling village surrounded by mountains, peaks and glaciers for climbers, hikers, and walkers to play on, attempting ascents of the various peaks around. Now rows upon rows of hotels lie there empty. Still people smiled at me as I came by.

  The people of Northern Pakistan are Ismaili. It’s a branch of Islam that separated from Shiah during a crisis that spread through the Muslim community. Ismailis choose to focus on the mystical path and nature of Allah, with the Imām of the time representing the manifestation of truth and reality.

  Unfortunately for the Ismailis, the most recent heir to the throne, Prince Aly Khan, became an international playboy, socialite and racehorse owner, not to mention Rita Hayworth’s third husband. This wasn’t the kind of behaviour which was acceptable to people rooted in the laws of the Karan, so he was skipped and ignored, the Ismaili people preferring his son, Prince Karim Aga Khan

  Today the Ismaili Pakistanis were celebrating the day Prince Karim Aga Khan, their spiritual leader, came to visit Hunsa. They lit fires up in the mountains and set fire to tyres that they rolled down the hill sides. Before dinner the son of the owner of my hotel, Zahir, took me to see the fires.

  In the pitch dark that envelops Pakistan at night we made our way up the mountain side with only a mobile phone screen to light the way. Losing our path in the dark, we followed the distant fires which guided us up the mountain. We dragged ourselves through thorn bushes and over piles of loose rocks, up cliffs and along ledges. Finally we could see the people around the fires. A number of teenage boys were keeping them going all night. The fires were made of old tyres and the smoke was putrid if you got the wrong side of them. Having climbed up to the highest fire with the children following behind us, we sat watching the firelight dance over the surrounding cliffs. Suddenly there was a shout from one of the boys and Zahir grabbed me and pulled me down behind a small boulder. A handful of rocks crashed past over our heads, bouncing off the boulder that was our protection. We’d scared some goats up above who’d caused a rock slide.

  It was a scary story to retell over dinner while we ate curry and chapatti with our fingers. I didn’t realise then that this fall would be emulated in a few weeks' time when a massive landslide would wipe out Gulmits' neighbouring village, Atta Abad, killing twenty people.

  As my dinner was once again being paid for by the locals, Zahir ran in to tell us that the bus Ali and Matt had travelled on from China to Pakistan had been blown up by rebels in Chitral.

  Chitral was on my route from Gilgit to Islamabad.

  The Taliban had stopped the bus, shot the driver in the face, asked politely that everyone leave the bus, then blown it up after stealing belongings and money. It was a harsh warning of the treacherous route that lay before me. Zahir and the photographers re-emphasised the dangers. In stark contrast to those I’d received earlier in my trip about Uzbekistan, these warnings were backed up by the knowledge that someone I had plied with sweets days earlier had made his last journey as a bus driver and had started out on his journey to Allah.

  I was worried about Matt and Ali. I knew they had left the bus but I couldn’t help wondering whether either of them had decided to bypass Gilgit to head straight for Islamabad. I wrote them an emotional email asking them if they were safe.

  What a first day in Pakistan, the most naturally beautiful people and country I’ve ever seen. I felt as though I was in love, yet at the same time incredulous at what people can do to each other in such a country. I dreamed of machine gun fire and bombs, tears and family.

  * * *

  Zahir insisted I stay for at least another day. Fearful of what lay beyond this beautiful village, I swiftly agreed. Hearing I was a teacher he wanted to show me his old school, a government-funded school with a playground that looks over the mountains. Inspiration indeed. The heights you can reach towards. U
nfortunately, most of the children take on jobs in the cities, leaving this town with an imbalance in age groups.

  The children are taught outside as often as possible. However, when the winter kicks in, they have to huddle into the small classrooms for months on end. When I entered the classrooms I noticed there weren't any teachers, so I asked the children where their teacher was. “Away” was the answer, but the children worked with determination knowing that only an education can change the lives of their families.

  I met Zahir's cousin whose family lived miles away from a school. She boarded with Zahir’s family doing odd jobs around the small house they chose to live in rather than the big hotel.

  Later we went for a walk with Zahir's old teacher and role model, Rahim. We strolled through the countryside, walked on glaciers that are constantly moving - creating new holes and chasms big enough to swallow a body without trace – and we crossed the rushing glacial rivers on rope bridges that swayed terrifyingly with each step. Children ran past me as I moved one hand and foot at a time, gripping so tightly that my knuckles were white. The children laughed and shouted encouragement. We ended up in Hussaini.

  Down by the river, women washed themselves and cleaned clothes. Zahir asked if we could come down. They replied. I asked what they said. Zahir told me they’d told us to “Piss off.” We hung around like school boys hoping to elicit a further verbal assault from these ladies, young and old.

  Apparently a boy came to spy on the girls washing down here once and they grabbed him, stripped him of his clothes, tied him up and left him down there. I love these guys.