Karachi to Khunjerab
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Karachi to Khunjerab
From Karachi to Khunjerab on two wheels
By Chris Cork
October 1993, and my first experience of Pakistan as a tourist. I rode my bicycle from Karachi to Khunjerab, trundling over the seemingly endless plains of Sindh and Punjab until finally hitting the hills north of Islamabad and the delights of the Karakoram Highway.
Back then, cycle tourists were relatively rare and both me and the bicycle were the object of curiosity and, occasionally, wonder. In the north, local people were more used to seeing foreign tourists, and by the time I got to Hunza the potential that Pakistan had for tourism was as starkly obvious as the reaching spire of Rakaposhi.
The scenery was of jaw-dropping beauty and the attraction for the adventurous traveller was obvious. And you did need to be adventurous. Pakistan then, and to a similar degree now, is not a destination for the faint-hearted. The traffic was murderously lethal, likewise the water, sanitation primitive everywhere and by the time I was making the ascent of the last stretch up to Khunjerab top I had lost count of the times I had had stones thrown at me –– not everybody was friendly, it seemed.
Those were the days of innocence. I knew little of the country and its people and culture, the ethnic and tribal differences, the linguistic diversity or the tensions that existed outside the bubble that I lived in as a tourist. All tourists are, to a greater or lesser degree, bubble-dwellers, moving through space and time in a construct made of assumptions, misperceptions and dreams; rarely, whatever the culture or country they are travelling through, and what the place and the people are like outside the circle that services their needs.
For the simple cyclist basic food, water and shelter were about as much as was required. No five-star hotels to rest my head at night, instead rope charpoys and filthy truck-drivers’ chai-khaanas were where I took my rest and sustenance. But a bicycle does bring you close to people, it is a less ‘distancing’ conveyance than a car or a coach and you have to interact with the people around you to get from A to B every day.
It was a great ride, one of the best of my life, and the country and the people proved to be an irresistible magnet – by March 1995 I was married to a Pakistani and had begun to put down roots here; and begun the process of trying to understand the country I had only seen as a spectator.
The view from the inside is very different (as it is everywhere, Pakistan is no exception in that respect) and nowhere near as beguiling as that viewed through the prism of the wandering visitor, and the seemingly picturesque is revealed as a thin veneer over a deeper darkness.
Fourteen years on, the country has the same array of attractions, is no less wonderful or inspiring, but is it, as it could and should be, a destination of choice? For the adventure traveller, the mountaineer or trekker, undoubtedly so.
The Northern Areas offer an unparalleled mountain experience, perhaps the best in the world in terms of its diversity and beauty. It should be filled with visitors every year but it can be difficult to reach given the failure to extend the runway at Gilgit airport which would open up the area to greater volumes of traffic and paying customers; and the Karakoram Highway remains a precarious and oft-cut link with the rest of the country.
Skardu, the other principal mountain port-of-entry is underdeveloped as a tourist destination and right across the area there is a lack of decent mid-price accommodation that would attract and service a larger tourist clientele. Gilgit, itself, is prone to convulsive fits of sectarian violence –– for which reason it was virtually closed as a destination for most of 2005, nearly bankrupting the tour operators and hoteliers that struggle to make a living there.
The Northern Areas remain the most obvious ‘pull factor’ in terms of destination choices, but there is a whole lot more to see and do in Pakistan –– the problem is persuading yourself that making the trip is going to be safe for self and family, and that once here, you can get to see what it is you came to see in reasonable comfort and with a sense of ease and security –– which after all is what the majority of holidaymakers want.
If Pakistan is ever to develop as a tourist destination that grows beyond the backpacker and adventure traveller market, it is going to have to make some fundamental changes –– and there is little sign as yet that it is prepared or willing or indeed able, to do so.
Transport infrastructure is appalling –– trains are unreliable, planes likewise and travel by road is downright dangerous everywhere. The cities are filthy and polluted, there is no entertainment to speak of, cinemas are no-go areas for foreigners, there is little to do after dark, cultural activities are extremely limited and poorly publicised, the shopping (a market shrewdly captured by Dubai) fraught with concerns about pickpockets and street robbery and over everything, a black umbrella, the perception that it is a place of violence, of intolerance, of the sexual harassment of women and not a place to relax and take one’s ease.
It is the violence and the acts of terrorism that ultimately create the ‘push factor’ when it comes to destination selection for today’s potential visitor to Pakistan. The push away, the push in the direction of a place that does not turn a blind eye to honour killing and rape, the push towards a destination that has an image that will attract the pound, dollar, euro and yen from the wallets of the relatively wealthy and into the pockets of the relatively poor. Simply and bluntly, Pakistan does not have an image that is going to attract a market outside of the specialist tourism niche it currently occupies, and the designation of 2007 as a year in which Pakistan might be a destination of choice for the discerning traveller, is a pipe dream. National images and tourist destinations do not develop like photographs; they take years, decades, to build.
It would be more productive to designate 2007 as the year in which a 10-year programme of destination development could begin, and for 2017 to be the year in which the ‘Land of the Pure’ threw wide the gates and rolled out the welcome mat. And would I ride from Karachi to Khunjerab again? Sadly, probably not –– far too dangerous, even for an adventurous soul like myself.
