Polo at the Shandur Pass

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Being back at Qayum's was great, it had become a kind of home away from home. The day before the Shandur Festival we headed into Gilgit town to do a little bit of shopping and complete our 'local look'. A brilliant felt waistcoat and traditional Chitrali hat to go with my shalwar kameez and I was all set. In fact on the little Suzuki back to Qayum's some local guys tried to start a conversation in Urdu with me before reacting with great surprise when I told them that I was actually English. Job done. Due to the popularity of the festival we'd left it too late to get a space on the local bus, however we bumped into the English guys from the Fairy Meadows trek who said there was a few people at one of the local guesthouses putting together a private minibus so we decided to join them.

The next day, bright and early, we hopped on the minibus and set off. It was interesting being with so many other tourists having barely seen any since crossing from India (I say so many, there was around 8 of us including Joe and I). The journey was good fun, good conversations were had and the scenery along the way was breathtaking. We were following a sparkling turquoise river along a deep valley with the snowy peaks of the mighty Hindukush towering overhead. Our driver, Musafah, kindly offered to stop at his house in a small village along the way and serve us tea. From the road we crossed a wobbly wooden bridge on foot over the rapids of the river to a flat clearing. Irrigation channels flowed through green fields with large bales of hay standing in the middle and small houses were dotted around in the shade of apricot trees. It was amazing that in a hugely barren landscape such a lush area could be created through irrigation. Musafah not only served us tea but he graciously fed us all a breakfast of chapati and egg followed by freshly picked apricots and the fattest, juciest cherries I've ever eaten. Too kind. We drove on through the day stopping at countless police checkpoints which are common place in the Northern Areas due to the fact that like Kashmir it's a disputed area. At each checkpoint foreigners are required to jot down basics such as name, fathers name (obviously important), passport number, visa number and occupation. Seemingly an ungoing joke between every traveller in Pakistan is the tendency to put down the most ridiculous occupation you can think of to make the routine of getting out the vehicle and filling the book in a little more interesting. Believe me, the books make hilarious reading. Travelling with a group of about 8 foreigners, we obviously all tried to out do each other. Some particularly good ones I can remember include; Monarch, Kamikaze Pilot, Peanut Farmer, Fudge Packer and Zookeeper. In the spirit of trying to out do each other, someone was always going to take it a little bit too far and we didn't have to wait too long for that. Ben, a nice American guy on the bus, decided to put down 'ISI', the notorious Pakistani secret police, and by some awful coincidence he did so at the moment an ISI agent was present at the checkpoint. Some frantic questioning and quick evasive blagging claiming it stood for 'Internal Service Initiative' in America meant we could continue on towards the festival. Hilarious.

For the second half of the journey the scenery just kept on getting better and better so Joe and I decided it would be a lot more fun to get out and ride on the roof. Around every bend came another mindblowing view, and with the wind in our faces and local children from the villages along the way waving to us it made for one of the most memorable journeys I've ever had. We reached the foot of the pass late afternoon, by which point we'd reached some serious altitude so had to retreat back inside the bus for the final stretch to avoid getting frostbite. We signed in at the final police checkpoint (I was a lampshade salesman this time) and climbed the bumpy, winding road up to the pass. We turned the final corner and climbed the last stretch up into a spectacular, vast glacial amphitheatre. Great snowy peaks towered on all sides and a tent city had already been erected on the green pastures with more people arriving all the time. We wasted no time in setting up our tents (which Qayum kindly rented to us for next to nothing) and heading out for a wander. It was a proper festival, merchants selling food, tea, water and ciggarettes had already set up shop. Pakora fried in huge vats under canvas tents with grateful recipients munching in the shade and even a tandoor was churning out thick, soft naan for the punters. This was Glastonbury Pakistan style, and I loved it.

The Shandur Polo Festival is held every year in the second week of July when the snow has melted and the 3800m pass is accessible. It sits on the border between Chitral district in the North West Frontier Province and Gilgit district in the Northern areas and is roughly half way between the two towns of the same names. The teams who are arch rivals meet once a year on the polo field at Shandur, the highest polo ground in the world, and local people and tourists alike coverge on the pass from both sides and camp for 3 days in what is a pretty unique spectacle! Bragging rights for the year are at stake and losing is unthinkable. Before the final is played there are smaller matches between the D, C and B teams of both sides. Having arrived a little late we'd missed the D team game which had been won by Chitral and the drama of the day was that a horse had died in the process. We suddenly realised that perhaps the polo we'd be seeing would be just a little bit different to the upper class game played in England. That evening the moon was full so a few of us sat up on a rocky hill under the moonlit peaks and listened to the folk music echoing over from the Chitral camp. It was an amazing place to be camping and we were seriously looking forward to the polo tommorow!

A freezing nights sleep lead to a ridiculously hot day and with a belly full of pakora and chai we headed over to the polo ground for the C team game and our first taste of Pakistani 'freestyle' polo. The arena was fantastic. Except for the main 'grandstand' the stands were pretty much just rocky hills with local people perched trying to find the best vantage points. Security was tight for obvious reasons due to the current political climate within Pakistan, especially as the swat valley wasn't too far away, but all the police and Chitrali scouts (the army regiment present) were enthusiastic and friendly. It's only ever the security presence in Pakistan that reminds you that the country is unstable. We never saw a whiff of any trouble during our entire trip. The atmosphere was pretty good, both sets of fans cheering on their team and a band playing folk music. The teams entered the arena, Chitral in red and Gilgit in blue and the game began. Horses charged round kicking up huge clouds of dust, rider and mallet occasionally went flying and somewhere in the mix was a small white ball. Freestyle polo has very little rules and no referee and it showed as players cracked each other around the backs with their mallets with the ball nowhere to be seen. It was extremely close but in the end Gilgit ran out 10-5 winners and their fans invaded the field and began signing and dancing. Brilliant! It was awesome to watch although I did feel a little bit sorry for the horses, veins pulsing as they ran with just one small break in 50 minutes panting desperately as they tried to get oxygen from the thin air. We weren't done yet though and the afternoon brought the B team game. This was a little less competitive and Gilgit got taught a masterclass as the classy Chitral team won by a massive 18-3. It didn't bode well for Gilgit tommorow in the grand final if that was all their B team could muster.

That evening we went for a wander around the pass and headed in the direction of some music we could hear, inadvertently stumbling into the corporate sponsor's camp; Telenor, a mobile phone network. Although surprised to see us there, typical Pakistani hospitality followed and we were invited to talk to corporate guests around their fire, and even to share their spit roasted whole lamb. It was extremely interesting as most of them were from the big cities, Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, and had never been to the North before. They were extremely western in terms of dress, with unvieled women present and hence unlike anyone else we'd met in the north of Pakistan so far! It was fascinating hearing their surprise that the North was so safe. They claimed that people in the south know very little of the north and associate stories about the Taliban in the Swat Valley to the entire north of the country. one man claimed he had to text his wife every few hours to say he was OK as she wouldn't believe his reassurances whilst one of the women expressed surprise when she discovered we'd been taking local transport, something she'd never done herself. An extremely interesting experience seeing 'the other side' as such, although the people were clearly no less hospitable! When we felt we'd overstayed our welcome a little bit we headed off and after walking about 300m, came accross group of locals gathered around a fire dancing to folk music. The contrast we found in just walking those 300m was huge! Dancers were shuffling their feet and waving their hands in the middle of the circle while observers clapped them on. The band consisted of drummers and a nasally kind of flute. We were immediately invited to take our turn at dancing which we politely refused.. However Joe and I for some reason found ourselves pondering "what would Michael Palin do?" and decided we'd regret it if we didn't so jumped in dragging the other guys with us too. I tried to mimic the local dancing we'd just seen but in the end just ended up dancing like a madman whilst being cheered and clapped on by the locals. It was such a liberating experience to just let myself be swept along and taken by a country, if that makes any sense at all. Either way, although I still wasn't quite sure what being in Pakistan was supposed to feel like, today really had.

Although the previous night has turned into a late one we made it up just in time to grab a steaming hot masala chai and get ourselves to the polo field for the grand final. It was noticeably much busier and every single vantage point was taken, even the ladies stand was packed! The atmosphere was on edge however unfortunately the match didn't live up to the occasion. Although Gilgit made a real fight of it in the early stages, a Chitral master class meant they were crowned champions with a 10-2 win. The amount riding on the match and how much it meant to the players was clearly evident though as it got seriously heated at times. One player actually broke his mallet by whacking it across the opponents back, a fan had to be restrained and the coaches had to run on and calm things down after a disputed goal lead to things boiling over a little bit! I was half expecting some polo hooligans to storm the field, however I'm pretty sure there's no such thing. To say the Gilgit players looked dejected is an understatement, the Chitral players however were hoisted onto the shoulders of their fans and parraded around the field in jubilation, music blaring. The trophy was lifted and the mass exodus began, both groups of fans and players heading their respective sides of the pass for another year. Although not originally our plan we'd decided to join some of the others in continuing West to Chitral and the Kalash valleys on the Afghan border...

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Comments

[Fishpaste Taster]

Lampshade salesmen eh?
Hilarious! Can't wait to see the next part. 3800m beats the highest I've ever been (14000 ft)!