The Mir of Hunza, Part 2

July 10th, 2005 | By Joshua | 39 Comments »

Our reception at the Royal Palace was short and official, about the minimum of what our imaginations had conjured up; we were led directly through a side door to the Mir’s office, where, for the first several stiff-backed minutes, we sat and watched him open and scan his mail (he’d been away in Gilgit all week). Finally, he looked up and received us — kindly but not necessarily warmly. It was a long shot, we knew, this tenuous Gordon College connection, but there we were.
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Himalaya, Mountain Mama: The Hunza Valley

July 8th, 2005 | By Joshua | 26 Comments »

While Pakistan struggles with a severed submarine Internet cable (the communications ministry, apparently, had misled the country for years about the existence of a backup line), the TT struggles with how best to introduce you, fellow travelers, to the awesome, mind-clearing spectacle that is the Hunza Valley.

How, indeed.
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Trail Magic

July 7th, 2005 | By Joshua | 2 Comments »

When thru-hikers on the Appalachian Trail receive random acts of hospitality and kindness from total strangers, they call it “Trail Magic;” and when round-the-worlders discover these things in a city like Islamabad, well, I can’t think of a better term.
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Why We Came to Pakistan: Gordon College, Rawalpindi, and our search for Dr. Stewart

July 4th, 2005 | By Joshua | 90 Comments »

We did not come to Pakistan simply to wander the country for travel’s sake. That we are able to do so — to browse the silk stalls in Rawalpindi’s Rajah Bazaar, to trek across glaciers in the Hindukush, to seek out qawalli singers in the streets of Lahore — is merely icing on the gulab jamun (deep-fried milk ball coated with hot syrup and rose water). Nay, the reason we came to Pakistan is a topic about which I’ve been hesitant to write, for fear of not adequately conveying the reverence it deserves. But now that the threads of our quest are beginning to rise like so many bobbing cobra heads, pulling us unknown distances on snaking mountain highways, now that this is happening, I can wait no longer.
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Next up, on the Rawalpindi runway…

July 1st, 2005 | By Joshua | 3 Comments »

Joshua is cool and casual in his new, custom-tailored shulwar kameez, 100 percent cotton with Chinaman collar and straight cut flaps; design and fitting by Mr. Shan-e-Ellahi Sheikh, on Mall Road, all for a cool 800 rupias. Yes, Joshua shakes his little tush on the catwalk to a quwali rhythm that says, “asaalam aleikum, baby.”

The Mir of Hunza

July 1st, 2005 | By Joshua | 16 Comments »

Though only 600 kilometers on the Karakorum Highway, the bus trip from Rawalpindi to Gilgit, is an arduous 18-hour ascent, sometimes longer when there is flooding and/or rock slides. No surprise, then, that seats on Pakistan International Airlines’ two daily Islamabad–Gilgit flights are in high demand; by plane, the trip takes an hour or so, but unpredictable Himalayan storms cause many flights to have to abort landing, returning their load of frustrated passengers to Islamabad. This, in turn, results in mayhem at the Rawalpindi PIA ticket office where, each day following a cancelled flight, hordes of men cling to an iron fence with one hand and wave their tickets at the four brave clerks behind it with the other, hoping, sweating, sometimes screaming for a spot on the following day’s flights.
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Pakistan: The Adventure Starts Now

June 28th, 2005 | By Joshua | 6 Comments »

Paris was brilliant, but it was easy — millions of gawking day-trippers stream through its polished and numerous attractions each year. Dubai was a mildly exotic layover, its air-conditioned malls stocked with so much Western and Chinese consumer clutter.

But Pakistan!

Pakistan (and, in a few weeks, India) will challenge us in ways we cannot know — and, inshallah (God willing), it will reward us in ways that will affect us for the rest of our lives.

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