Pakistan & the Karakoram Highway

First of all I have to say Pakistan is the best place we have seen so far - one of the most interesting, beautiful and friendly. India was OK, Nepal was OK, but Pakistan was just AMAZING!

To be honest, we expected something similar to India or Nepal - thousands of beggars, tauts, neverending ripping off, etc but nothing like that happened. On the contrary, people were very very generous, nice, friendly. We have never seen such a hospitality like in Pakistan. Some of them invited us for a tea or coffee or even offered free accommodation! When we were waiting for Umair in a restaurant, many people came to us for a little chat, they asked us many questions like where we came from or if we were married (we said 'yes'...) , if we had kids, etc. I remember some teenagers came and asked us for a picture and mobile number! They were very excited about this! For a while we felt like very famous people! ;-))) Nice!

In Lahore, the first city we have visited, we stayed with our host, Umair Ghani, from the hospitality club. That time we didn't know that he is one of the leading photographers in Pakistan! He took us to his office, where we met his colleagues, also photographers. We spent a great time with them, just talking and watching their best pictures, they were really amazing!

To see some of Umair's pictures check this link http://www.tabblo.com/studio/view/tabblos/Umair/ or just type in google 'Umair Ghani'.



Lukas, Umair and I at Food Street

Food Street with lots of food...


The next day Umair and his friend took us to Badshahi Mosque, the oldest one in Pakistan, very impressive. See the pictures below...

Praying time

This family asked us for a picture. Aparently for them we were exotic... ;-)

They also wanted to have a picture with us... ;-)

We had only transit visa (7 days) and obviously we wanted to make the most out of it so following Umair's advice we went strait to Karakoram. First stop in Gilgit, 18 hours by bus... but views were beautiful!

We arrived in Gilgit around 2 am, sleepy and tired started to search for some cheap hotels in our guide book when one of the passengers offered us accommodation at his house! Very nice man. He took care of us like of his family or best friends. In the morning he made us tea and breakfast and then he sent his son to see us off to the bus station, from where we went to Passu.



On the way to Gilgit...Local guys met on the way

With our host in Gilgit
We are the Champions!!! (in our host's sports shop)
On the way to Passu


as above as above

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Passu is a small village placed between 2 glaciers - Passu and Batura. Together with 4 other travellers from New Zeland we did 2 one-day treks, one to the glaciers and second one to Hussaini village leading through 2 suspended bridges.

Passu glacier
Batura ValleyYak, met on the way

as above
Batura glacier and Lukas
Hurra!!! At least on the top! But how to get down now?...

First suspended bridge... Walking on it felt like on Indiana Jones movies...

On that day wind was very strong, bridge was trembling as other people were walking on it, including locals, but for them it seemed to be a pice of cake, they were almost running on it!

Second bridge. When I saw the broken one just next to the one we were about to cross, I felt a bit scared... but there was no other way to get to the village so I had to be brave...

Lukas first...

Then me.

Local kids in Hussaini village

as above

On the way back to Passu we stoped this beautiful colorful track.

Pokhara - trekking, rafting and paragliding

From Kathmandu we went to beautiful Pokhara, where our real adventure began as it is the starting point for many of Nepal's most popular trekking and rafting destinations...

Phewa Lake in Pokhara

Colorful boats at the lake

One day we went for a long walk along the lake. The views were amazing!



Little house...


Sunset


Some local people that we met on the way

And some 'thirsty' tourists... ;-)

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As I mentioned before Pokhara is the best place for things like trekking, rafting and even paragliding! It was all so tempting that we didn't know what to choose so we decided to do everything! ;-)

Trekking first! As our physical condition was not so great we decided to do only 5-day trekking to Poon Hill (at elevation 3210m) in the Annapurna mountain range. We started walking from a small village Nayapul...

We saw many beautiful things on our way, like a waterfall...

or beautiful rice plantations...

or 3 little girls trying to block our way... (They had promised to let us free if we gave them some sweets... ;-)

and local kids...


Lukas resting for a while after having passed thousands of stone stairs... and wondering how many more stairs do we have to pass to get to our first destination - Gandruk (about 1900m)... It took us 8 hours walking to get there. We were worn out but very happy! ;-)))

The most wonderful thing was the view...

The best views were in the mornings at sunrise, about 6am...

Our next stop, at little village - Tadapani.

And some more amazing views on the mountain...

and its beautiful snowy peaks...

On our last day we climbed to Poon Hill just before the sunrise! We started about 4:30 from our last stop at Gorepani, situated just at the foot of our destination. The views from Poon Hill were so breath taking that we didn't want to go down! We saw 2 of 8 thousand high peaks and others of 7 thousand high. Amazing!!!!!! Finally we had to go back because it was too cold and also we were getting hungry!!!

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Next- paragliding!

First we were going in a Jeep up to the nearby mountain, from where we were supposed to paraglide... We were a bit scared of the atitude, but also very curious what is the feeling of flying!

I was the first one. My instructor gave me some very brief explanation of paragliding, then we wore our equipment, start running and yuppiiiiiii we were in the air! Coooool !!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was only 30 minutes and not that much adrenaline as I expected, but flying above Pokhara was absolutely great!!!

Lukas flying above the lake

And back on the ground ;-(

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Rafting!

We were taken by bus to the Seti River, where we started our rafting adventure. Out of all the things that we have experienced in Nepal, rafting was what we enjoyed the most! It was perfectly organised, people were lovely (both locals and tourists) and food delicious!

On our first day we were rafting for about 6 hours, the river rapids were graded + - 3, water not cold at all so in some places we could swim, great fun!

Overnight we stayed at the river bank, surrounded by beautiful mountain scenery, together with some other people from the kayaking team. We had great fun sitting at the camp fire and drinking beers and singing some funny songs!

On our raft at the overnight camp...

together with the kayaking team...

On the second day we were rafting for about 4 hours and then we had a good-bye lunch. These 2 days passed extremely quick! But it was really fantastic and I can recommend it to everyone who is looking for an adventure an is not scared of water! ;-)

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After rafting we took a bus to Kathmandu, where we had to obtain visas to Pakistan and China. It took us a week and many trips to both embassies! Uff! But eventually we got them! I will write more about this in the next post...