Pakistanistan Day 14, the long drive continued... back to Islamabad

Sleep at 3am, but not a bad night. Up at 8 reasonably refreshed. I get a message from Steve, they arrived just after 6am having driven all night.

Where is breakfast? The guy on one of the desks points outside, where we go, but there's nothing there. Then we meet a reception guy who takes us inside and we order at the front desk. Who was the chap pointing us outside?

In daylight Naran reminds us of an alpine resort, evergreen trees, streams, remnants of winter snow visible, and chalet style buildings, although mostly with corrugated steel roofs. The roads are chaotic as ever. There are convoys of jeeps taking tourists up into the mountains.

A beggar installed in the middle of the road, like a traffic cop, has constant streams of traffic pass either side of him. In fact there are more beggars here than I've seen anywhere in Pakistan so far, hands outstretched for any offerings gladly received. Battered tents pitched on grounds where there are no buildings suggests there's a poor population filling essential jobs in town. 

Just before leaving town, there's another checkpoint where Tabish has to show our foreigner details.

As last night, I notice that some of the buildings have a Chinese style to them with upturned corners on their roofs. There are many sellers of cloth or daputas along the road, their materials fluttering in the breeze.

Litter at the side of the roads is again a big disappointment. After a stop and giving the driver a sponge biscuit I cry in pain as he discards the wrapper outside the window! 😞 He gives me a puzzled look. 

We pass a large modern Chinese power plant, complete with satellite dishes and accommodation blocks. Its thick power cables trail off up into the hills, presumably to reach Islamabad by the most direct route.

Traffic builds up as we approach another police stop, but it's not in our direction and we pass unimpeded. By now I'm quite used to overtaking on blind corners, making lanes where there are none, and driving centimetres from the car in front, but being used to it makes it only slightly less uncomfortable, to the point my right foot doesn't try to brake instinctively.

Seeing men, women and children hanging out of windows and sunroofs still makes me cringe, I counted about six or seven from one car alone. And don't get me started on school kids sitting on the roof racks of their school buses, which was quite normal in Gilgit Baltistan, but I've not seen it today, presumably because it's a Saturday. The kids are now at the roadside selling snacks instead.

The road becomes even more twisty past Kiwai and a haven for bikes and it's a road that we're missing. It would have been a hard ride from Gilgit to Islamabad but I think it would have been enjoyable. 

We reach Balakot, another bustling town, which means traffic, but our driver is merciless, overtaking and cutting-in with surgical precision in between cars.

We turn right following a sign to the Hazara Motorway, through a small shopping area and then immediately onto a very rough broken road - not the motorway I was expecting. Apparently, this is a link road that people have been asking to be fixed, but it hasn't yet. 

Then we're onto a faster main road, nice and smooth, and then reach a toll plaza. One through that, it's proper motorway, with a central reservation and a hard shoulder that some people use as a third lane. 🤷🏽 At least no cows, motorbikes, rickshaws, or bicycles going the wrong way (all banned on the motorway).

We stop at services, to wait for Charlie's car to catch up, and get cold drinks, and the driver has the tyre pressures adjusted. We wait a bit too long and get a bit impatient. Finally they arrive, we synchronise and then we're off again.

Another hour or so and we reach Islamabad after going through the toll again (long queue!) and getting off the motorway. We meet the others at our hotel around 6pm. They arrived about 12 hours earlier then us but drove through the night, stopping only once for about 10 minutes. For me that was not the preferred option as I didn't consider it safe to have a single driver driving through the night for so long, but Steve's group said their driver did a great job in that respect. It was nice for the 'slow' group to see Naran and a few other sights on the way, the scenery is best seen in daylight although the traffic is heavier.

We have a farewell dinner at the excellent Kabul restaurant at Jinnah Supermarket in F7, followed by a truly excellent chocolate shake. We depart at different times, Charlie and Duff heading off around midnight, followed by Christopher early morning. Steve, Gerard and I, leave tomorrow evening, Ray early the next morning (he must have loved it so much, he wanted to stay longer 😜), and Hugo a few days later - he has a few other things to see before he leaves and Tabish will be his guide.

And so, our Pakistan adventure is complete. An amazing experience which completely changed the perceptions of many of our group. Spectacular scenery, delicious food, incredibly friendly and welcoming people, and so much potential for great value tourism in a place that's a little bit different. Just please do something about thoughtless littering! 🤬