confronting nanga parbat

8/3/2019 Confronting Nanga Parbat

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Confronting Nanga ParbatBy Osman Ibrar

A warm Friday afternoon and the still looking at those Google Maps. Asking people aboutthe views, confirming things we already know, we just couldn't wait for this month to end soour journey gets on its way. The last month in Europe, the road trips and the local andinternational weddings had not only taken the best of my courage, but also fried my braintotally. But once I met o'l Kari and heard his plan, there was no way of stopping us fromcontinuing this journey up north.Initially we called several people up and obviously as the typical courteous “Gesture of Pac's” said 'we are with you'. But obviously as the time nears, half have sudden urgentcommitments arising, half find it too hectic but only the ones who are true admirers andexplorers of the amazing hidden beauty of Pakistan set sail. Talking about myself, I love to travel; I've been on my voyage of exploring the continentsfor the past decade. From the heights of the Petronas twin towers to the holiness of Stamford Bridge SW6, may it be tuk tuks, rented maroon spider, gambling in the 11 storey

ferry or the 1 dirham Abra ride from Dera to bar Dubai; I just love to witness what theparticular country has to offer. However, if I wouldn't have read some of the journey tales of the worlds most soft spoken and sweet natured Wandering Dervesh, I would never evercome to realize what exhilarating beauty and hidden places Pakistan the Beautiful has tooffer. Thank you sir for this indeed. I invited Sh. Muhammad Ali to this voyage as well butunfortunately he had some family commitments so I couldn’t force him, but yet again I willsay that after reading Sh. Muhammad Ali's writings, I planned this all up.So finally two weeks to set sail and it’s the mid Ramadan Kareem. Midnight coffee at Gloria Jeans as we have really less time to eat after Iftar. Amazingly, 6 of the boys or I would rathersay angry young men, who initially planned to travel with us have parted ways already. Ibelieve its left to me and Kari only, but I would definitely kick another young marine who

more or less needs a bit of a walk up the hills. Not only has he been there before so he canguide us easily, he will be our only entertainment. (Not in a notorious way). Abdullah Zain, Ijust need to tell ol Col, that your boy is in safe hands, and were good to go.Obviously we needed stuff or youcan say necessities to carry along. Zainoo had a list already,so it won’t be hard in finding those things in J-Mart. (JamiaMasjid Market). I won’t say it’san open market, I would politely comment that emm, and thingsare just sold openly andrelatively at cheaper prices forinnocent boys like us. Well, finally the day has arrived.It has been a long drive already,heading from Talagang overnightand arriving to Rawalpindi around1 am. Well we set sail around 7:30am, its highly overcast and slight drizzle going on, more like tail debris of the showers last



night. We planned initially to leave 6 am but after listening to Bilal’s stories about Babusartop, we couldn’t sleep till Fajr prayers. Picked up Abdullah 8:07 from Qasim Market and weset sail, hitting the G.T. road nice and slow. The rain was getting heavier and heavier and our wipers were not working that well. Hunger was playing its part as well as none of us had breakfast in the morning. We parked our SUV

on a road side hotel in the outskirts of Hassanabdal, and had a mediocre Halwa Puri outsidein the rain. My cup of tea wouldn’t empty because of the rain pour; still a 94 rupees breakfast was a jolly treat. We bought some crisps and coke on our way from a dhaba type shop, butas expected, they were expired and made before stone ages. The next stop was Abbotabad, but we couldn’t find diesel there, so we re-fuelled from aPSO pump in the middle of Mansehra and Abbotabad. By-passing Mansehra, we got stuck in traffic, for about 20 minutes, I reloaded my mobiles while Zainoo couldn’t stop cracking his jokes. Kari was more or less lost in driving.So we arrive in Balakot, the area which was totally destroyed by the devastating earth

movement of 2006, we could see the blue tin rooftops which were aided by different countries. We offered ourZuhr prayers and grabbed coke from the bridge side

dhaba. After this, ascend started and we shifted drivers. Itook over the SUV controls and gave Wakar a breather.Zainoo was still joking around, all of us enjoying thescenic views. We could see lots and lots of land sliding that occurred due to the last year floods. We stopped atKiwai, which was about 5 km short of Shogran and saw an amazing Abshar Dhaaba. By the looks of it, welanded in mall road Murree, over crowded and peopleenjoying Chicken Karai with the stream in their feet. Wefound our spot and had some amazing Roti and Pakoras with awesome Doodh Patti. Sat there for a while, Wakar

started his foot stone massage while Zain was making amega dam in the stream. Funny little guy I swear.

Meanwhile, I was on the phone and texting a few people. After about 45 minutes we set sail again and I gave Wakar the steering again. The distance to Naran from Kiwai was 45 km approximately, but the road was terrible. Ittook us almost 3 hours to arrive in Naran, the rain was pouring on the beautiful valley andno doubt, it was a remarkable view. I was very sleepy, and what better place to sleep then thepassenger seat of my bebo in such a weather. My nap was about for 45 minutes, and I wokeup almost 2 km short of Naran. Once we entered Naran, it was the biggest disappointmentof my life. The place was even worse then mall road Murree and was crowded like anything. All you could see in this city was crowd, millions of hotels and dirt. I was literally shocked to

see Naran, The city of Naran, which we heard about all out life. Now we had to find a hoteland luckily we got a room in the kabana huts in PTDC. We checked it out and it was pretty awesome, but the rate was quite high due to the high season and total booking. We offeredour Asar prayers and decided to check out a few other hotels. But as expected the roomsavailable were far worse then our house store rooms. And the prices were ranging around 4-8k. We decided to go back to PTDC and avail the kabana hut. Luckily again, we got theavailability and after some negotiations we got an awesome hut right next to the river and ata better price as well.



From the start of the journey Wakar was driving and he would never stop at a requestedpoint, in fact he would say, we will find your requirements further as well. From petrol, to

coke, hotel stay till the trout eating spot, we wouldn’t stop and said, we will find better locations ahead,

which never came so I and Zainoo would just not stop cursing him.Finally we just got stuck on thepoint that we had to eat the troutfish, so around 8 pm afterchecking in, we went to the localmarket searching for the fish, andafter a hard struggle, we found oneshop or it was again like a dhabaand we ordered our food. Yet another big disappointment

was the trout fish, as the one we ate

was tasteless and just makes in saltrather then oil. Maybe, our luck ran out as the 2.5k per kilo and one of the world’s mostfamous fish did not taste good. But the chicken karahi was pretty awesome and we werefamished as well, so we finally ate everything, with Zainoo of course playing the sheetanchor role. We headed back to our hut, changed, offered prayers and finally jumped intothe cozy beds. Zainoo luckily brought someHakeem medicine (Phakki) along with himand made us eat it by force and it was worth it. We called it a night and slept early as we had to leave early 6 am.Luckily I woke up with my bb alarm clock.

It was freezing outside; I woke up Abdullahand Kari and told them to get ready. Kari was a bit lazy and remained in bed for a while, so me and Zainoo went outside toget a few morning snaps, but the visibility was quite low. We went to wake up the in charge Chacha to get us some warm water but

amazingly, the Chacha already had everything prim and proper. So we said our Fajrprayers, pay the Chacha some tip and wehit the roads towards on of the mostbreath taking roads I have ever

witnessed. After leaving Naran, it took us about 30minutes to reach Batkundi. We werestarving and looking for some nice Desibreakfast. After crossing the small riverand entering Batkundi, we found a hotelaround 6:30 am and the guy made ussome amazing Anda and Paratha with

awesome Doodpatti. We ate to the full



and set course again in around 20 minute’s time. While the Chacha was making us breakfast, we took our bebo to do some off road near the river and capture a few shots. As soon as we crossed Batkundi, the road was amazing and the view was exhilarating. The road was superb and we easily went on 80 km/h driving through the

valley. The music was good, and therecame several points where we had tocross a stream or a glacier. We had touse our l4 or h4 gears on them, as carscannot easily pass those tracks. Till theroad was perfect, the view remainedalmost the same, as we drove through along valley. But as soon as the jeep trek started, the view started to changesuddenly and so did the weather. It wasdrizzling and we were driving on amuddy track, we crossed a very small

and dangerous bridge which took us tothe Lulusar Lake. Dodipati and Lulusar were absolutely amazing. The road goesalong the Lulusar Lake, with the wateror the lake slightly greening and bluish. We parked out cars and couldn’t resistgoing near the water. We had todescend a bit and then we reached thestill beautiful water with all of us justtaking pictures and enjoying thetranquility. We were there for about 15 minutes; allof us had to take a leak as well. Westarted driving towards Babusar. Theroad was getting bad and bad and the weather was just making life a bitmiserable for the SUV. We could see afew motorbikes going towards Naran which were giving us some at leastsome hope. Ascend was not that steep,and we could not drive faster then15km/h. But as we were heading

towards Babusar Top, there came acamping place right next to the river. Ireally wanted to go there, but it wouldtake us 15 minutes off road to getthere. We quit the plan and made way towards Babusar. After about 30 minutes, we asked alocal boy, how far was Babusar? So as he guided us, he wanted a lift to Chillas and weaccepted his request. We continued ascending towards the Babusar Top, and I cannot tell or



say how much of a beautiful place we witnessed. The valley was just too good. It was themost beautiful scenic views I had ever scene, I cannot just simply tell how awesome it was,and I just looked at my camera saying, even in a million years you cannot capture this beauty in your lens. We just had to stop, so we stopped for about 15 minutes and later, Abdullah

and Kari stood on the supporting pedals of the SUV for about 10 minutes. I droveslowly enjoying the valley and some nicemusic. When I was a boy, I watched amovie 'land before time' and in those

movies, the dinosaurs grazed in valleyslike this. To me the cartoons were sobeautiful, but this valley is just the live version of that. And trust me, I am notexaggerating. After a further 20 minutes, we drove all the way to Babusar Top. It was absolutely freezing up there andaccording to our GPS; we were about

13,900 feet above the sea level. The wind was blowing like anything; we took out our jacket and stopped to take a few pictures. There were square stones like the Flintstone era and seats made of them. The road was stony as

well so we didn’t off road bebo much. We left the place soon, as the wind was just entering out bones. Switched on the heater andheaded further. The road was still muddy and descend was bad. The gradient of descend was way more then ascend fromthe Naran side. I gave the car to Wakar,as I had a slight back ache at that time. As we continued descend nice and slow,it was extremely cloudy over there. Wenamed it the cloud production plant asthe clouds were coming up from below

and many a occasion, we couldn’t seeanything on the so called road. I lovedthe nature of the locals as everyone would wave their hands at us and give us asmile, but the funny part was, that everyone wanted a lift to Chillas which we couldn’taccommodate. They all thought that our SUV was Umroo Ayaar's satchel which couldaccommodate a million people all the way to Chillas, and still have space for a horse. We stopped at a local police check and then continued our decent. The police guys wantedto resist our entry into the Diamer district and I thought they wanted toll, we all shared smile



during that silly confusion. As we went down, there was amazing village which I named theFlintstone village. There were stones and stones and beautiful houses made of them. Themost amazing part of this trip so far was the changing of the views. From Jhalkad valley it

was lush green mountains, Lulusar was slightly brown with green water and the valley was

just un-explainable. Babusar was stones andthis village was green mountains with stones. The village was just amazing and the road wasgetting better in patches. We asked SaeedUllah who was our travel companion, andevery answer he would give was yes. So whenever we asked him that how long is it tillthe main road, he would say yes. But afterabout 3 and half hours of jeep trekking which

was about 45 km, we finally hit the road which was carpeted. Our joys didn’t last long, as the road was swept away by the floods last year so we had to take a bypass to Chillas. The guys had to take a leak, so we stopped again, and I

took over the driving controls. Finally we found some mobile signals which ended in Naran, we made calls back home, a few text matches here and there and we continued our journey. Icalled up my uncle who was very much willing to come, but had his commitments. He usedto be the commanding officer in this area so he was inquiring and guiding me as well. WhileI was talking to him on the phone, I was so lost in my explanations that I was driving through a road which was hardly 6 feet wide with 2000 feet ridge. My fellows had a heartattack almost, and I didn’t realize. Later once when entered Chillas, they told me on whatroutes I was driving single handed while talking on the phone. We entered Chillas about 12:30 pm and it was a Friday. We had to say our prayers, but it wasstill another hour and we thought we would go forward and find a mosque there. AfterChillas, we hit the main, the mighty KKH and the road was pretty awesome as compared to

the areas we came from. KKH remained a road along the mighty river with dry barren tallmountains covering it. The water wasgray and looked a bit muddy, but there was so scenic change from Chillas till Tata Pani. In fact, they say, fromKhunjerab border till Mansehra, theKKH remains the same, when it comesto scenic view. But I still say it had itsown might. We saw a couple of petrolstations but bebo was doing pretty coolon fuel and we had almost 3/4 fuel still

left after 300 km of travel. It took us 1hour to reach a small army unit, at splace called Tata Pani. There was a smallmosque over there and we offered ourprayers. It took us about 30 minutes furtherup to reach the place what we awaited the most, Raikot bridge. It’s not a town or a village;it’s just a simple bridge which takes the KKH road from the left, to the right of themountains. There was a Shangrilla hotel over there and a army dept also. We parked our carat the Shangrilla hotel car park, which is a pretty awesome garage and the keeper asked us



400 rupees for 2 nights of car park. The jeep ride up to fairy meadows hiking trek operatedin turns. The driver whose turn to take us was a guy called Gul Zaman. He was a jolly guy and told us that the rate is fixed 6k and if we needed a guide, we would happily tag along. We asked him a lot to tell us how much he would charge, but he said, pay me whatever. So we started the jeep journey, with Zainoo sitting on the front seat and me and Kari at the

back. Zainoo had scared us like anything that the jeeps ride would just scare us to death. Nodoubt it was deadly, torturous, and amazingly scary and as soon as you go about 2 km up theclimb, you will recall all the recitations of the holy Quran that you remember. Our adrenaline was pumping, and maybe the excitement was too much that we didn’t feel the danger, butafter a little while, Mr. Gul Zaman and his little shinai rush of blood forced him to apply zero brakes and step up the gas. When we reached almost 10,000 feet and the middle of the

journey, our glorious so called Rubicon’s back seat just broke and me and wakar almost hada heart attack. We stopped the jeep at a possible 8 feet wide place and Zaman started to fixthe back seat. In the mean while, I sat in the driving seat and we started to take a few snaps. The clouds didn’t welcome us very much, so they started to give us a glimpse of what they could offer. In the slight drizzle, it took us about 1 hour and 15 minutes to reach Tato village where we parked our Rubicon and got ready for the hike. It was raining properly now, so wetook out our raincoats (the best investment), loaded our bags, changed our shoes and startedto walk alongside Gul Zaman. Our hotel owner was waiting for us at Tato village, he told us

to continue our walk, and he will join us after receiving more guests. After about 1 km of hike and crossing the river, I suddenly ran out of breath (courtesy Marlboro). In extremedifficulty I reached the start point hotel and told the guys to stop and have tea. Luckily they listened to me and we had some tea and smokes. Sat there for about 15 minutes and then westarted ascending upwards. This was my first official hike, so I had no idea of what’s coming towards us, we walked bristly and after every 10 minutes I would just run out of breath andstop for 10 minutes. Wakar and Zain continued their walk, as me and Zaman came behindslowly. Zaman took my bag and carried it like a horse, while walking with me slow and



steadily. As we didn’t have anything to eat, we were really low on energy except for Wakar who amazingly showed his hiking talents.Zaman gave me some Candi biscuits andZain made me some lemonade whichsomehow put energy in me to walk. The

rain was pouring on us and the light wasgetting dimmer and dimmer. There came aspot where we found some mobile signalsand we called our loved ones to pray for us. We continued our walk uphill slowly now and after 10 to 15 minutes we would stopand take a break. I had an option of taking ahorse up the track from Tato village butthey were asking 2k return, which i thought was expensive at that time, but later realized I would pay 200k if anyone would take me up.

We saw other trekkers also pass us and some would walk alongside chatting. After half the

journey, it was night fall; we had to cross thejungle uphill with the walking trek narrowing as we moved. It was really hardto walk as it was all muddy and dark. After a while, Zainoo lost his breath and it wasdifficult for him to walk. The mistake hemade was moving quickly initially whichlater caused him problems. But slow andsteady with the help of Zaman and lighterlights, we moved. If you buy a lighter, it has

this silly light with it and i always used to

wonder, what a silly thing it is, but that day I realized its importance and kissed the Chinese. We had 2 lights which were not enough but helped us a lot. There came a u-turn in the woods and after that the extreme ascend started. I believe that was the most difficult part of the hike, after that we took a torturous short cut up to the meadows and in about 3 hours wereached the meadows. It was pitch dark, extreme cold and raining, we couldn’t see anything but a few lights off the kitchen and the staff room. We went inside the kitchen and warmedourselves for like 5 minutes and ordered dinner as we were literally famished. Themanagement made us sit in the staff room as it was the only place with a local heater whichhelped us warm ourselves and our clothes. We were tired like hell, and we just dropped deadat that place and didn’t say a word for like 10 minutes. After a while, Qari Saab came, who was the hotel owner, and he apologized for being late. It was the first time I had boiled Rice

and Daal, surprisingly it was just the yummiest thing at that time for me. We had a lot to eatand then I just dropped on the floor and slept for like 15 minutes. After that, we movedfrom our cozy staff room to our hut which was a little cute box which was inclined towardsthe left side I wonder why. We put our bags and other material in the room, went to the washroom to enjoy some extreme cold water. Said our prayers and then within no time wefell asleep. After some amazing hibernation, we woke up around 6 am and all of us rushed to see the view outside. As soon as we opened the door, it was majestic. Lush green meadows with themighty parbat standing in the front. We couldn’t see the whole of the area as their was



immense cloud cover, but no doubt it was just simply majestic. Some cattle’s were grazing inthe meadows below us and I stood their on the door watching them and enjoying the scenicbeauty. The clouds started toperform a brutal assault on usand were coming over from

everywhere. The mountains onthe left and the right, all werebeing swallowed by the clouds, while the Killer Mountain NangaParbat was standing there withits immense Might and we couldonly see about 20 percent of thesnow covered area. I woke upthe rest and we all got ready. Wehad some breakfast in the tentright in front of our hut. Weopened both sides of the tent to

get some view, there was no sun, soit was getting colder and colder. After a nice meal, our tour guide came and we planned to goforward. We got ready and planned to go to the base camp which was about a 4-5 hour hike.It was 11 am already, so Qari saab recommended not to go to the base camp, in fact weshould go till the view point as it was quite late to return and the weather was a bit dodgy as well. I was tired as well and wanted to ride a horse. There were a couple of horses grazing and limited to my knowledge, they operated on a lucky draw basis. I took a ride trying to seehow obedient my horse was. He was doing well in the meadows, but as soon as i negotiatedthe rate, the luckily draw pointed towards a different and arrogant horse named bulbul. Thehorse was owned by a little 13 yr old boy named Abdullah who studied in 7th grade and was agood polo player as well. So I sat on bulbul and continued my journey further towards the

parbat, while Wakar, Zainoo and Zaman were walking behind nice and slowly. Our eyes wejust jammed and stuck on the parbat and we were desperately waiting for the clouds to move

away so that we could get a view of the whole range. As we moved, the trek narrowed again, so much that only oneperson could barely cross the mountain ata time. I felt many times to get of thehorse, but I ender why I still rode it and wecontinued out journey. My mobile battery ran out, so we couldn’t use our GPStracker and calculate our altitude or the

journey trip but time and again we werebeing told by the guide about everything. After about 1.5 hours of crossing themountain side and the jungle, we could see

the small stream passing the rocks and creating a lot of sound. It was a beautiful place; the hike was not that difficult as the initial one, but of course the tired legs of my fellows and my horse, made us stop there. We took a few camerashots at the stream and refueled out water bottles from the ice cold water. After stopping for5 minutes, we continued out walk and discovered many amazingly different views of the



area. Our eyes still stuck on parbat, we could see glimpses of sunlight, penetrating throughthe clouds and striking the mountains which were giving an extraordinary view. Abdullah thehorse owner showed us the flood destroyed village, his ancestor’s village which was a uniqueplace as well and a mosque which was right next to the stream. The whole village wasdestroyed by the last year floods, but nothing happened to the mosque.

We reached Bial camp which we later found was one of the highest altitude living populationin the world above 12,000 feet. It was a small village with a breath taking view of the parbat. There was a small cottage type hotelthere which was non functional. Asmall dhaaba and a local village withsome population. Bial camp wascovered with rocky mountains onone side and grass lands in themiddle with parbat in the northdirection. The clouds were still thereand we were still hoping for them todisappear. We were there for 15

minutes and then it was not muchfurther up till the view point. Weclimbed some rocky and rigging terrain, enough to make me get of my horse and walk the way. Wereached the view point around 2 pm and luckily we had some sunlight along with rain. Thescene was breath taking. We were standing on the edge of the mountain with the glacier onour left. There were two glaciers, one completely white and the other muddy and covered with stones and dirt. According to the locals, the white glacier was the male one and thestony one was the female, who doesn’t show off her body, in fact covers itself with mud anddirt, and the glacier water also flows from the female one. We were also told that fairy’s and

daemons reside in these areas, but don’t usually confront with the tourists, while a few incidents had occurred to the locals. It remained a myth yet to be busted. We took pictures, lay down, sat and just enjoyed the view for 30 minutes. The sunlight was

diminishing and the rain started to getheavy as well so we decided to headback before night falls again. Ijumped on my horse and started tolead the way, as the rest walkedbehind. We stopped at Bial camp fortea and met a few other tourists’ as well from across Pakistan. The local

hotel guy made us tea fromabsolutely fresh goat milk whichinitially had a funny taste, but it wasquite refreshing. We couldn’t findany biscuits or food, but the tea wasenough as we had to make a long

journey. I performed abduction fromthe local stream which completely numbed by body and offered by afternoon prayers in thelocal mosque. The best and the most amazing part was, each mosque was a beautiful hut,



nice and cozy and minted properly. It felt really good to offer prayers and then we headedback. Stopped at various places in the jungle again to take a few pictures. Zain was a bit tired,and wanted to ride the horse back, but the horse and Zainoo could not come up to a mutualagreement as Zainoo could not balance himself and bulbul didn’t like that. So we went to theold routine of me riding the horse and Zainoo walking. My horse was hungry and didn’t

want to go slow, so he was not very much listing to me, and started moving quickly towardsthe meadows. I stopped him many a time to feast on some grass, but the rain was pouring again and we didn’t get much a chance. The rest came slowly enjoying their walk in the jungle and around 5:30 pm we were back in our huts. Again tiredand knackered, we ordered some soupand just lazed around outside our huts.Right in front of the parbat, suddenly some of the clouds started todisappear and we could sea the peak.It was above the clouds and one of the

most magnificent views I have everseen in my life. We tried to capture, videos, panoramas, pictures but thatbeauty could not be captured anywhereelse then our minds. We kept on praying for more clear skies, but after giving us a 80 percent view, the parbat took the cloud cover again. That evening view was exhilarating, as themountains on our left and right were having the last bits of the sun shining on them. The

color was golden and simply majestic. Our soup came and we feasted on that while ordering some Jalfarezi for food. He told us that the locals sold chicken for 1200 to 1500 per kg, but we still decided to eat. Later we came to know that a small goat can be purchased for 2500 as well. After feasting on amazing Jalfrezi and some Qehwa afterwards, we rested a bit and told the

locals to make us a bonfire on the camping side. After Maghrib prayers, the campfire started,and we made way towards it. Other tourists also came along and a bunch of 25 gatheredaround telling stories, tales and information in their trips. It was indeed a fantastic timespent, and adding insult to injury, the sky was suddenly so clear that we could count 93million stars. Too much to our enjoyment, it was only clear for 1 hour and again the cloudscame. We cursed the cloud production unit and Babusar and blamed it for sending everything towards us. Still after enjoying some local and Faisalabadi jokes, we headed back to out hut and called it a night as we had to leave early morning. We told Qari saab that we wanted to leave 6 am so the breakfast should be ready.



The next morning we woke up early and still no clear skies and the visibility of parbat was 30percent only, we had breakfast and slowly waiting their some moment of the clouds as apatch of clear skies was chiming, but we were only lucky enough for a 60 percent view afteran hour wait. Later we decided to get back, as we assumed their wont be no clear skies for

about at least 3 days. We started our walkedaround 8 am and taking a short cut, we cut our walking journey from about 8.6 km to 6.9 kmdownhill. After about an hours walk, theclouds just busted with thunder and extremerain, making it difficult to see and walk as well.Zainoo and Zaman were walking quickly as meand Wakar were coming behind nice and slow. Taking a few pictures, calling from the signalpoint and walking right next to the mountain toavoid falling rocks. We reached the Tato village hotel in about 2 hours and 20 minutes, andhad tea again. Zaman told us to stop for a while as their was land sliding going on and he

didn’t want to risk the jeep ride. After a 30 minutes wait, we walked towards the jeep and while crossing the river we had to move quickly as the locals told that a small flood iscoming. We rode the jeep for about 1 hour this time and Zaman was driving fast. Sitting tightly as afew locals popped in as well, Zaman was driving not carefully this time, as we wanted toreach downhill soon. As i mentioned that the jeeps operate on a turn basis, Zaman was eagerfor his turn as many tourists were coming. There came many turns where Zaman drovedangerously and we told him to take it easy. This time that we properly felt the chill throughour spines and started reciting the Quran verses again. However, we reached Raikot Bridge

around 11:30 am, paid Zaman his duesand made way for Chillas. We

needed to refuel and use the washroom, so we stopped at acompany operated PSO about 10km short of Chillas, but I ratherdoubt he put diesel in our bebo,rather it was more like crude oil. Wereached Chillas around 1 pm bebodidn’t like the fuel that much, she was drinking it up like liquor andthis time, the exhaust was properly pumping smoke. We applied 4x4

and made way to Babusar again only stopping for prayers. Luckily the rainstopped and it was sunshine was we reached Babusar top. There were a lot of visitors thatSunday and it was partially crowded. Not more then 3 cars though. We stopped at Babusartop and picked up the square stones as Memorabilia and then made way for Naran. Wakartook the driving seat as we headed towards the decent of Naran. It took us 7 hours almost toreach the crowded Naran, and luckily I was sleeping so I didn’t have to witness it. It wasnight fall, and we didn’t stop. I moved on the back seat and Wakar and Zainoo enjoyed theirloud chatting. Enough to make me take out my Ipod so I could not hear their voices. I took



the driving seat near Mansehra as Wakar looked very tired, we had tea and it was 11 pmalmost. Bebo needed rest, so we opened the bonnet and gave her a breather as well. After a15 minutes break, we hit way for Rawalpindi and reached around 2 am. Dropped Zainooand Wakar and finally I reached home around 2:30 am. Took a shower, offered a thanking prayer, had food and just dropped dead on my wonderful bed which I missed the most.

The trip was just extra ordinary and we didn’t take the KKH on our return journey, as we wanted to witness Babusar again, but it was hell tiring. We met a tourist in fairy meadows who said that this mountaineering habit is the biggest drug on this world, and you guys havejust dipped into it. He was so true, as the next morning we were already planning for ournext tour. No doubt, it has been one of the best expeditions of my life which I will neverforget and indeed the beginning of the long journeys ahead. We were unlucky, as we couldn’tsee Nanga Parbat to its fullest, but that’s luck. However, even 20 percent of that view wassimply worth the effort.Concordia, here we come.

confronting nanga parbat

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