Ka Pai Kiwis

Our breakfast table this morning overlooked the Main Street outside and it was very interesting watching the comings and goings. One shop took a delivery of massive blocks of ice which had obviously machine cut into what looked like about 100kg each, the poor Suzuki Carry Ute really struggled, then a massive truck arrived loaded high with a variety of  boxes and it duly backed up the lane to unload. Then there was the chicken man, no Tegal frozen chicken here, there are trucks loaded with cages and the chickens are delivered live, the poor creatures are then transferred into the shop cages to await their fate, it was interesting watch them being carried into the back of the shop 2 or 3 at a time, then a few minutes later the plucked and clean carcasses were brought back to a little bench on the street where they are hung, then cut into portions and weighed.   Then the rest of the day was all about the road really. We started out ok but then we hit about 50km of roadworks and I...

The day got off to a very nice start, a group of men in the restaurant insisted on paying for our breakfast as well as plying us with very nice marmalade for our bread.  Well fed we set off in the naive hope of reaching Islamabad, almost 500km away. We started well enough, the road was good and the traffic light. We continued down the KKH (Karakorum Highway) which follows the Indus River. Very spectacular gorges that just go on forever.  We meandered through little towns but not much going on. Some of the villages are built on terraced hills and there is a good water supply which means arable land, they looked very pretty. The road deteriorated and was very slow going, massive potholes, some very wet areas with unknown puddle depth, one we went through I don’t know what we hit but the front suspension bottomed out big time and we were only doing 20 or 30 KPH. Anyway it appears we got away with it, these Heidenau tyres are as hard as hell and just made for this work. We climbed...

Big day today but we didn’t really get far south.  We got away early and back through crazy town, but it wasn’t as bad as yesterday. Tank of gas and we are back on the wonderful KKH.  Our first stop was a lookout for a spectacular view of the massif of Nanga Parbat an 8200m monster. Wonderful to see it with a blue sky background.  We then turned off the main highway with the intention of going to Skardu.  The road started nicely enough but soon deteriorated into a lumpy rough track. If you have seen those roads on TV where there are precipitous dropoffs, rough as guts narrow roads and maniac drivers then this was it. It was very scary at times.  We boxed on and arrived at a town called Astore, the Main Street was incredibly steep and was basically constructed of boulders, how the hell we got up it without coming to grief I am not sure.  We carried on for a bit and came to a bridge which was followed by a hairpin bend, a huge truck had unloaded its many sack...

Another wow day.  We chatted for a while to a nice young couple from Islamabad, we met them yesterday and they helped us find the hotel we are in and also helped with suggestions for our itinerary, thank you to Aiza and Hamad. We messed about in Karimabad for a wee while, taking in the views and taking in coffee. We wandered into a neat little street and perused a few shops. It is a picture perfect morning with blue skies and not a cloud in the sky.  We then set off towards Gilgit with mouths open at the sheer grandeur of our surroundings.  We stopped for a cold drink at the Rakaposhi lookout point, very impressive indeed.  It was hard to throw the leg over the bike to leave this scene, we did and sure enough not far down the road we found something else to gawp at in awe. A section of the original Silk Road which has been restored far, far up, traversing a sheer cliff. Utterly gobsmacked. We took a photo of the explanation so I will let that speak. We then set off f...