OK, we’ve been on some easy OEs – to the Balkans and to the Great Barrier Reef and to Germany. They’re easy because you can get by with only English and the food’s safe and the toilets are clean and manageable. This week, let’s go to North-West Pakistan, to the three Kalash Valleys just a few kilometres from the Afghanistan border. This is definitely not an easy OE and definitely not for the faint-hearted.
Emirates will get you to Islamabad and luck will get you the rest of the way. About 14 hours and exactly one million bends in the road and an amazingly impressive road tunnel system north of Islamabad, is Chitral. It’s a small town clinging to the edge of the mountains hoping for all its worth not to be washed downstream in the next Spring thaw. Don’t expect a Hilton, although you are absolutely assured of a huge smile and an even huger dinner of barbecued chicken or lamb kebab. Fresh salad, straight for the tandoor naan and carrot halva for pudding. You’ll want to blend in with the locals so find yourself a woolen pakol (the hat) and a woolen shawl. (Sneaky secret: many of these shawls are made with eN-Zed wool – it’s a long story.) Kitted out against the cold, now you can venture up the river road to see the markhoor (an impressive mountain goat and Pakistan’s national animal) come down for grazing. Not far behind them you might also see a snow leopard looking for its dinner. By the way, take your time buying that woolen shawl and maybe even buy another, because it’ll be with you for a very long time; it’s perfect as a blanket on every plane, boat or walking trip from now until forever.
Next morning you’ll breakfast on halva poori which is high-fat naan and sugary almond halva. And tea, of course. Then you’ll squeeze yourself into a 4×4 because the roads up to and in the Kalash valleys are not for cars or eN-Zed drivers. You’ll pass through a few military checkpoints who aren’t bothered about you, so you’ll smile and say Assalaam o aleikum. Say goodbye to the world now because you’ll soon lose mobile coverage. And remember, just like in space, without mobile coverage, no one can hear you scream.
It’s remote, it’s near Afghanistan, and it’s prone to earthquakes and mega-flooding, but you can relax. The Kalasha people are friendly, they speak English, they’ll knock up a stunning lunch and if you ask the right people, you’ll discover some… shhh… amazingly good home-made red wine. Go in September and you’ll have cool but sunny and dry weather, shady trees to walk among, and crispy ripe apples picked straight from the trees.
You can walk up the valley road and visit a museum, visit a Kalasha school with not a computer or tablet nor even a photocopier to be seen, but with kids who not only speak good English, they have outrageously neat handwriting – conclusive evidence (as if it’s needed) that tech in schools is not good for kids.
Back in Chitral, a stroll along the main street will be rewarded by a few fast food places selling freshly-fried pakora and mouth-burningly hot naan wrapped around lamb kebabs smothered in chili sauce. And sticky sweet galub jamans. And when it’s finally time to leave, don’t. Get on your phone, change your flights, book another week here, go back to the valleys… because here is one of the few exceptions. Here, in Bumburet Valley, on the bank of the upper Kunar (Chitral) River, eating a freshly-picked apple… it’s the destination not the journey.
eN-Zed 