After having travelled to different parts of Ladakh on our side, I got the opportunity of visiting the other part which constitutes a sizeable portion of the real “Greater Ladakh”. Fredrick Drew and Alexander Cunningham have described the entire land called Ladakh and after reading their accounts one really feels curious about the other part.

Additionally, I had a great longing to see Hunza which is supposed to have inspired James Hilton to write his famous novel, “The Lost Horizon of Shangri-La”. Normally people refer to two parts as Ladakh and Gilgit-Baltistan. However, climate wise and topographically it represents a single unit. Both sides are extremely dry and barren. The landscape is same with some stark differences in a number of places. The altitude of the base valleys on the other side is much lower even though they have 6 of the highest 14 mountain peaks of the world (more than 8,000 metres in altitude). On our side the altitude varies from 10,000 feet to 12,000 feet while as on the other side it is 5,000 to 7,000 feet. This makes most of the valleys on the other side within the tree line. This enables growing of pine trees in otherwise totally dry and barren land. During 1985 an International mountaineering conference was held in Delhi. Among the participants were the office bearers of the Pakistan Alpine Club including its then president late Major General Qamar Ali Mirza. I had the opportunity of meeting him and he invited me to visit their mountains. I got the chance in 1986 while visiting my relations in Islamabad. I called on General Mirza in the Alpine Club and he hosted a lunch for me. During the course of the lunch, I expressed my desire to visit Gilgit. Normally, holders of Indian passports were not allowed to visit the Northern Areas. The General asked me to apply for permission and he would request the concerned quarters for the granting of same. Accordingly, I made an application to the Interior Ministry for grant of visa to visit Gilgit. For a week there was no response and the General told me that he had spoken to the concerned. He seemed somewhat sceptical whether the permission would be granted.

My cousin Babar who was working as lecturer in the department of management studies in the Qaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad suggested a meeting with the concerned section officer in the Ministry whom he happened to know. According to him the entire bureaucracy was run by section officers. We met the concerned officer and he promised to get the visa cleared in a week. Exactly after a week he phoned us and asked to collect the visa order and get it stamped on the passport. My joy knew no bounds when I had the Gilgit visa stamped on my passport. I must have been among a very few lucky Indian nationals to get the visa. Now the next move was how to travel and where to stay. Regarding stay, Babar telephoned some family friends who were staying in Gilgit. It was the family of late Saddur-ud-Din, the former Deputy Commissioner of Gilgit. He had passed away some years back while in active service. The Government had allotted the official house to his family and they were extended all facilities including free education for his children. The family had very close relations with my relatives in Islamabad. They were overjoyed to know that Babar and I were visiting Gilgit. Not only they offered full hospitality but also arrangements for sight seeing. We decided to stay with them. There were two alternatives for the travel. There was a regular bus service on the newly opened Karakoram Highway which took two days to reach Gilgit. The other choice was to take a PIA flight. There was a daily Fokker flight of PIA. It took an hour to reach Gilgit. However, there was a catch. The weather en route was often bad and the flights could get easily cancelled. Unlike our side, the Airlines people on the Pakistani side seemed more practical and considerate. They would never give a definite and a confirmed flight for any day. It would be provisional. In case of cancellation, the passengers of the cancelled flight would be taken first and the people booked for that particular day would have to wait. We booked our flight and waited for the day of travel. Unfortunately, the bad weather forced cancellation of the flight and the forecast was bad for next two days. Babar and I went to the general bus stand to see the possibility of taking a bus. The moment we saw the bus, we gave up the idea. It was a very uncomfortable bus and in two days on the mountain roads we would have been total wrecks. There was the choice of getting a four wheel drive vehicle like a Pajero or a Land Cruiser but we were unable to find one. We decided to wait for the good weather and our turn. As the luck would have it, the weather cleared after a couple of days and we finally took off for Gilgit.

The aircraft, Fokker Friendship, is a small 50-seater turbo-prop plane. It is quite slow and cannot go very high. Luckily, I got a window seat and could enjoy the view. After take off we slowly climbed up. In half an hour or so we were nearing the big mountains. The weather was totally clear and sunny and we could see various features clearly. The captain announced that we will be shortly flying over the main Karakoram Mountains and we could see Nanga Parbat on our right. He invited interested people by turns into the cabin for taking good pictures. The announcement was a complete surprise for me. In India we are often used to hearing the directive that photography from the air or at the airports is strictly prohibited! I took up the invitation and went inside the cockpit. The pilots had kept the plane on auto pilot and were having tea. The captain offered me a piece of cake and bent down to give me a good picture from the windscreen. Some years later PIA had started a Boeing 737 service with window seats only for a sight seeing tour of Karakoram Mountains. It would cost about Rs. 8,000 for a two hour flight. I wish we could do the same in our part also!

After another ten minutes the aircraft entered a narrow valley. It is the gorge of the Indus River. Soon we passed Chilas and started the descent towards Gilgit. The airport here is very small, suitable only for small aircraft. The landing and take off have to be precise because of the narrow valley. The Airport building itself was somewhat primitive. There is a bell which is sounded as soon as the aircraft flies over Chilas. This signifies that the flight will operate. I hope by now things have improved? We were received by a driver with an American Willys jeep. He drove us straight to the house of Mrs. Saddur-ud-Din. The family had been waiting for us. They had a nice small house built of stones. It had been provided by the Government. This day we spent only in relaxing and knowing about various places of interest. The only mandatory thing I had to do was to visit the CID office to register my entry. The officials there were glad to know that I had come from Indian Kashmir. They offered me tea and informed me that I was free to travel anywhere I liked for sight seeing. It was nice to know that I was very welcome there!

(To be continued…)