Pakistan has effectively been off-limits to organised groups since the Foreign and Commonwealth Office blacklisted it for all but essential travel on 9/12. Now tourists are trickling back: if you’ve ever fancied the North-West Frontier, the time is now.
Local Color
http://www.travelintelligence.net/wsd/articles/art_1514.html
Chitral
By Amar Grover
As the noisy old Fokker cleared strands of fir and turbulence at the Lowari Pass, I gazed out across the crinkled Hindu Kush. It was tempting to feel smug but Chitral's airfield packed one last drama. Our plane dipped between bare valley walls, houses flashed by above and just when it seemed we might plop into sinuous tongues of river, the wheels bumped home and dry.
As the noisy old Fokker cleared strands of fir and turbulence at the Lowari Pass, I gazed out across the crinkled Hindu Kush. It was tempting to feel smug but Chitral's airfield packed one last drama. Our plane dipped between bare valley walls, houses flashed by above and just when it seemed we might plop into sinuous tongues of river, the wheels bumped home and dry.
Tucked away in the furthest corner of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, Chitral is an exhilarating region nudging the western Himalayas. Enclosed by the Hindu Kush and Raj ranges, and virtually cut off by winter snow, it also shares a rugged mountain border with Afghanistan. But you can leave the crampons and kalashnikov at home. Here one's 'privacy', not person, is threatened. Chitralis - amongst the Frontier's warmest people - seem to thrive on endless cups of tea and impromptu chats with visitors.
I had strolled the bustling narrow streets of Chitral town where cubbyhole shops sold woollen caps and waistcoats, fruit and sheeps' heads. Beyond the crumbling royal courthouse and dusty parade ground, the minarets and cupolas of Shahi Mosque stood against a stirring backdrop of stark hills and mighty Tirich Mir peak. Polo ponies grazed in a meadow as I rounded the log and masonry walls of Chitral fort. In its shadow at the Pamir Riverside Inn, Asad-ur-Rehman bade me across a neat lawn for tea and snacks beneath huge plane trees.
"When Government abolished our perks in '72 we had to do something" he lamented. Even by 1947 much of the Indian subcontinent was an unwieldy patchwork of princely states and archaic kingdoms. Independence swept most away, their rulers clinging to quaint titles and romantic lineages. Remote Chitral kept a shade more autonomy until 1969 but the erosion of power and privileges was inevitable.
Much like India's Maharajahs, the Mehtar - ruler of Chitral - felt tourism was the fiscal solution. Today his uncle, Asad, runs the hotel perched on a leafy bluff above the surging Kunar River. It's comfortable rather than palatial, and I was here primarily to see the adjoining fort whose ageing walls once had the Raj's army wringing its hands as her public held their breath.
As I wandered past cannons and crumbling outbuildings into a weedy courtyard, the 'Seige of Chitral' seemed more 1995 than 1895. Yet neglect and earthquakes have caused more damage than any conflict. The Seige was rooted in fin-de-siecle imperial rivalry between Britain and Russia. As their empires' borders crept closer, so began the Great Game, a melodramatic blend of exploration and intrigue with spies, adventurers and 'political agents'. Their playing fields were, for the time, unfeasibly remote and absurdly risky - but the lure was irresistible.
Patricide and fratricide haunted Chitral's Mehtars and by 1895 the British were entangled in a contested succession. Holed up in the fort, their 400 troops (and 150 servants!) were besieged by wily Afghans and Chitralis for 48 days as relief forces fought through from the south and east. Surprisingly, the end was largely bloodless and heroics masked the blunders.
The bond which blossomed between Mehtarship and Raj is reflected in the fort's private quarters. Banqueting halls and salons combine home and museum, with acres of rugs, fading photographs, weaponry and exquisite robes. Old newspaper cuttings -"The Air-minded Mehtar of Chitral" - report His Highness flying back from Peshawar having completed the hajj. In spite of what must have been conspicuous indulgence, I found myself revelling in nostalgia.
The Mehtar boasted other hunting lodges and bungalows, now mostly forlorn and forgotten. Birmogh Lasht, the most accessible, floats on a hill high above Chitral town and one comes up here in the spirit of a fine walk with stirring views. Cut in the late 1920s, a tortuous jeep road winds up the ridge but I took a short cut on a steep shepherds' trail. The so-called summer 'palace' - built ten years later yet now dilapidated - is home to servants and their families marooned in a scenic limbo.
I strolled past groves of walnut trees to where the ground simply fell away. Beyond the yawning valley reared a jagged skyline dominated by the massive peaks of Tirich Mir and Buni Zom. Birmogh Lasht marks the fringes of Chitral Gol National Park, home to markhor, bears, wolves and a handful of elusive snow leopards. Several trails cross this lonely wilderness and you're best off venturing further with a local guide.
Two days later, the local police were reluctant to let me press on with a far gentler walk. I was in Garam Chasma, 'hot spring', 40km northwest of Chitral in the Lutkho Valley. The problem was Afghanistan, whose proximity coupled with tantalizing border passes has lured numerous foreign adventurers, especially Japanese. Many simply disappear. Fearing I might stray into a news story rather than a travel feature, they made me promise not to scuttle past the final upland checkpost.
I set off for the day with a picnic of dried apricots, mulberries and nan bread. Passenger jeeps sometimes bounce up this side valley to Begusht village and I followed the track for several kilometres past groves of hollyoak and strands of poplars. Wheat was being harvested in small irregular fields and threshed by cows on circles of packed earth. Villagers waved me on cheerily. Most are Ismaili, that most liberal sect of Islam headed by the Aga Khan, so even women were out and about wearing distinctive pillbox hats.
I walked on and up. The stark, dun hills of the Hindu Kush cradled plots of corn, beans and potatoes. Flat-roofed stone houses huddled by giant boulders while, high above, hand-dug water channels contoured across valley slopes for kilometres. I watched boys playing cricket in fallow fields and a few gathered round to reel off names of their idols.
At dusk back in Garam Chasma, mule trains stamped and snorted on a patch of open ground. Tough, swarthy men milled about with bales and ropes. All had beards; all were Afghan. The Lutkho Valley leads straight to the Dorah Pass on the border and this is the region's simplest crossing. When the Mujahedeen fought the Russians in the 1980s, it was a vital supply route. Trade continues today much as it has for centuries.
"They bring dried fruit and nuts" explained a merchant in the bazaar, "and the finest lapis from Badakshan" he added dreamily. Then, eyeing me carefully and in a voice tinged with regret - or maybe it was rapture: "Sometimes opium..."
Simpler pleasures awaited my return at the Communications & Works Resthouse on the edge of the bazaar. Government-owned resthouses like this originated with the Raj, enabling touring officials to sojourn in modest comfort. Typically they are bungalows, with a garden and resident cook.
Having fixed dinner for 8pm my cook, Mr. Abdul, ushered me to the very frontiers of comfort. Adjoining my room lay the only bath in Chitral, sunk like a pool in the cement floor and fed by warm spring water. On the verandah I wolfed dinner as hungry walkers do. Mr. Abdul brought peaches from the garden, wagging his head approvingly when I opted to stay another day.
