Gilgit/Polo and Pindi

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August 26

After finding a suzuki ride to Aliabad its onwards on top of a local bus to Gilgit. The several hour ride allows for great mountain views, a great tan and witnessing some great rockslides. In Gilgit its time to check in at the Madina Hotel a great place though the food was not as great as in karimabad. Gilgit is an interesting city with a heavy military presence and more of an islamic feel compared to Hunza. After some discussion I finally make the decision to head to Kabul and see Afghanistan first hand. The hotel manager tells us about a local Polo game and its off to discover the city. At the New Polo grounds we're disapointed to only find some local kids playing soccer and a brand new toyota pickup truck with an M60 machine gun mounted on the back. At the old grounds there's quite a crowd though no bleachers nor guard rails to protect the fans from getting run over. The competitors are the northern light infantry/Gilgit scouts against a civilian team. After the game its time for more dial up internet and a healthy super of a full chicken.

August 27

Even though we have breaki at 7am there are no more buses till 2, so its time to head to the bus station in order to simply ensure we have a ride south. At the bus station Denis ends up cutting his face and in one of the bizarest things I've seen the entire trip a local tries to staunch his bleeding with a dirty peice of toilet paper from the road??. After lunch and internet its back to the bus station, after the first 20 minutes our bus has already stopped 5 times, I can only imagine that its gonna be a long assed ride. One of the many checkstops include one in a stone hut with several machine guns pcking out, it trully looks like a bizare war zone. No sleep and finally a stop in a bizare cliff restaurant, something out of star wars with children cooking fish in small caves beside the road and waterfalls underneath the hanging restaurants. After getting going again its interesting to note that there's a warning light on the dashboard...a bus with an exclamation mark in the middle....after two more hours it soon dawns on us that it stands for "get a new bus" as our ride grinds to a halt. Though as luck would have it a netco bus (our other choice) rolls up and lets us take the back seat. After another couple hours we reach the halfway point from gilgit to pindi, my guidebook says it has a good selection of gun shops though thats about it. In the end we all just ended up sleeping on the floor.

August 28

Wake up on the floor of the bus with the morning prayer...strange that they never woke us up to tell us??. Eventually we arrive in pindi then after some milk tea and saying goodbye to dennis we take a Daewoo bus to Peshawar. These buses are an amazing idea compared to the usual chaos you find in pakistani transport. In Peshawar its on to Tourist Inn Motel and get the officers quarters at the end of the dormitory which is much more like a bunker than anything. Had a great lunch/supper at the balcony of a restaurant in a main square of the city.

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