In the Mountain's Embrace

Travelling through the rough and rugged north of Pakistan was never going to be easy. When the poshest hotel in town gives you a hot bath the colour of green bean soup, you deal with it. When the hot bath suddenly turns into an icy cold shower, you deal with it. No drama.

You can no longer eat and live in the manner to which you have become accustomed. But in villages where blackouts are frequent, where a kid has to travel 2 hours to see a doctor and the only road to the rest of the world sometimes gets blocked by the odd avalanche, you know to count your blessings. In return, you get rewarded with priceless encounters.

- Over 10 days, our meals have taken on a kind of routine. Breakfast is toast and scrambled eggs, lunch is a forgettable affair of rice or chapatti...But the dinner, oh the dinner, is a princely feast every night.

Obviously, no one bothered to tell them the "breakfast like a king, dine like a pauper" theory. But hey, I'm not complaining. Dinner always starts with surprisingly delicious clear soup, then a jaw-dropping spread of rice, curries, chappati, salad, fried meat and vegetables in gravy. There is always way more than enough food for the three of us. Then there is dessert (usually pudding) and milk chai (tea). Our palates are pampered, even if our stomaches aren't.

- One magical experience was when we stopped on the highway and tried out the local cable car - a rickety metal cage that carries villagers across a lush river valley, for 2 rupees a go.

- Hunza's villages has the most charming children. Rosy-cheeked and dusty-fingered, the boys play cricket anytime and anywhere they can. They don't know soccer, nor do they care to know. The girls, who look vaguely East European, are beautiful.

- When people here say "car pool", they really mean it. Scarce transport means that a little jeepney that officially sits six, can actually carry up to 20. We're gobsmacked to see men clinging onto the jeepneys' sides and back, and another bunch sitting on top of it, carrying live chickens and sundry. All while the vehicle swerves down snaking mountain roads. And yes, Momin tells us, the clingers pay the same fare as those with seats.

- It is a joy walking around Hunza's village tracks. We see stone houses with colourfully-dressed women outside working the fields and children playing. Tall poplar trees flank the streams that bring icy glacial water to farms and households. It is said that drinking the slightly murky stream water is the secret to the longevity of the village's famous 100 plus year-old inhabitants. Um, I'll just take their word for it.

- Getting invited to tea is one of the loveliest experiences. Hunza people take hospitability to the extreme, bringing out an array of snacks while boiling water for tea. They live in square stone huts where everything takes place in one room. Men and women of the house sleep on different sides of the carpet-lined room. In the centre is the sunken dining "square", and right above, a skylight and chimney. At the back is a tiny open kitchen. Cosy and warm, it is an ancient design that suits freezing winters.

- I got really ill and nauseous one torturous night in Hunza ( I think it was the copious amounts of milk tea we were offered), and the next day, the very kind hotel staff offered herbal mountain tea (gratefully accepted) and also to take bring a doctor here ( politely declined). The restaurant people also brought a room service platter of fruits. It is embarrassing when most of a hotel's staff know about your bowel movements. I will come back, but armed with more Lomotil next time.

Tea at 4647m Above Sea

So I be written in the Book of Love,
Do not care for the Book above,
Erase my name or write it as you will,
So I be written in the Book of Love. - Persian poet Omar Khayyam (1048 -1131)

So we find ourselves on the Karakorum Highway, the highest road in the world at 4647m. It is snowing heavily at Khunjerab Pass, the mountainous border between China and Pakistan. Freezing, desolate, and not a single soul in sight. Then, in the howling wind, an imposing Pakistani soldier emerges from the guardhouse. He reaches into his pocket, and offers us dried apricot from a crumpled plastic bag.

He invites us into the guardhouse for tea. A small, spartan brick hut coated at the bottom with thick ice. So the four of us - me, Boy, Momin and Asif - drink steaming milk tea with the pair of grinning soldiers at what must be the loneliest border crossing in the world.

As we chat over the steaming tea, a pair of loaded Kalashnikovs lie on their beds close by. Such an unreal moment.

Such human warmth, in one of the harshest, most god-forsaken places on earth.

We had ended up here after days of travel along the famed Karakorum Silk Route, one of a network of ancient trade routes between China, Central Asia and the Middle East. Forget romantic notions of camels in the desert sunset.

It is a land where tap water is visibly murky, you spend your nights analysing which dish was it that is now giving you the runs, and some of the public transport feeds on grass.

No mobile reception. No credit card. And (horror of horrors) no decent coffee for love or money. And - ta-daah! You live.

You will be surprised how cold turkey cures you of your urban addictions. In fact, instead of feeling miserable, we feel warm and contented.

The road from Islamabad to Khunjerab Pass took us from the urban summer cauldron to the freezing mountain peaks, across lush green river valleys to rocky, lifeless canyons. We passed by Greek archeological sites, Buddhist pilgrims' routes, Islamic tribal strongholds and pockets of tiny Central Asian kingdoms whose ways still survive but for their sovereignty. The country is now, of course, 97 per cent Muslim.

The most scary part was the highway journey from Besham to Chilas. Actually, "highway" is too strong a word for the narrow road that hugs the craggy, treacherous terrain through which the Indus River cuts. There, the river is an opaque, stomache-turning grey - laced with silt. Unsurprisingly, there is no sign of habitation - man, animal or plant - here at all.

With most of the road unfenced, the only thing that stands between us and the deep plunge into the precipitous canyons are Asif's driving skills. Don't get me wrong, I did not go looking for danger. I don't get people who spend good money seeking life-threatening challenges. Normal life is tough enough. I am more of a Unesco-heritage-site junkie who signed up for this trip only half-knowing what I was in for.

What made it more Indiana Jonesy: hiding behind the hills are ultra-conservative tribal militia who carry guns like Singaporeans carry mobiles.

In the middle of such inhospitable terrain, we spent the night at a rundown hellhole called the Shangrila ( no relation to the luxury hotel chain). Its rooms were dark, bedlinen dirty and there is a huge hole in the wall where they've installed a fan and through its blades you can see bits of the carpark outside.

It's slogan? "Heaven on earth".

The rest of our holiday digs, thank goodness, were clean, charming little lodges with breathtaking mountain views. The best of them is the Baltit Inn, in the legendary Hunza Valley. An isolated little kingdom surrounded by snowy peaks, it is like paradise lost.

It is thought to be where some of Alexander the Great's soldiers stayed behind. The people have brown hair and green/blue eyes, and speak a mysterious language that no one can yet trace.

They are also the warmest, kindest people we have met on this trip. Momin is one of them. While most villagers live the way they have lived for centuries, planting cash crops such as potatoes and rearing goats, they have (for better or worse) welcomed bits of modern life. The luckier ones attend universities and have satellite TV.

We got invited into their small, carpet-lined homes for tea and more tea. It is also the only place with an espresso cafe (Joy!). I remember walking down the ancient stone alleys, flanked by handicraft shops and seeing the mountains in front and thinking, like the soldiers: This is utopia. Hey, I could stay here forever.