Endemic Flowers of Kaghan Valley

[Munir]

Real historic; wonder, if someone else would have such rare & so old an edition of pictures of the place. Could Arif Sb please say a few words about the state of development/other facilities then i.e. hotels,electricity,food,water,bazar etc ?

[Mustansir Billah]

JazakAllah! for such a detailed information.

[Munir]

Thank you Khurram.It should keep us-me at least,busy for a week.I am sure Brig Arif must also be recalling his memory to give his views.

[mikhurram]

I was able to find the photos which appeared with the text posted above. While looking at the photos one can imagine how difficult or arduous the expedition was.

[mikhurram]

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[mikhurram]

the last of the photos. I also have some photos of hunza photos taken by Jean Shor when she visited Hunza along with her husband Franc in 1953. The text and the photos are in Jpeg and reading the text is not easy however they will be posted only if members are interested only.

[rafique]

Nice and informative. Thank you for sharing.

[Muhammad Arif Khan]

Please remember this was the main caravan rout to Gilgat, Hunza and beyond, The rout was dotted with caravan night stops in the form of small seasonal villages, with the snow the pass would close and so the villages.
The meadows were occupied by Gujars and Koochies, we hired a horse for our luggage and joined the caravan to Gilgat. We had no idea of speed and stamina of these people, any way soon we were left behind on our own. At Batakundi there was a big camp of Koochies, a pack of their huge dogs greeted us followed by a group of men, needless to say we were scared and cursed the caravan for leaving us behind. The group greeted us and took us to the tent of their sardar.
They spoke Persian (those days children were also taught pharsi) so we could make out what they said. After prelimeries the Sardar took out a letter for us to read, it was a letter from one chief to another demanding return of some goats that his tribe man had stolen. After a cup of Qehva we resumed our journey with great relief.
By nightfall we reached the base of Babusar pass, there was a camp of Scouts we entered the camp, met the in charge and asked him about the rest house which was supposed to be around somewhere. He politely told us that the rest house got burnt a few years ago and there was no shelter available for us.
He was very kind what he did was, he sent two parties on scouting missions and gave us their tents for the night.
In the morning to our dismay the horse man we had hired left us at mid night to join his caravan.
The camp in charge again came to our help and told us to go ahead and see the Lalusar lake and on our return he will have some arrangement made, sure enough on our return to camp he had arranged a horse from another caravan passing by, which brought our luggage back to Naran.
These days you get Chicken Krahi and Dall mash, travelling to anywhere up north in Pakistan, those days you ate whatever you could get and what you could get was very little, no one was ready to sell us there rooster as it was their Bangi, the alarm clock for the caravan to start the day.
And no other amenities but it was a real fun.
I am sorry I could not locate other pictures or the negatives.
Arif

[rafique]

While reading I felt I was there to enjoy that trip too. Thank you for sharing such historical moments of yours, really wonderful. Thanks to Almighty Allah, for the gift of imaginative power to mankind.

[Munir]

. Must have been a wonderful thrilling experience.
. Thank you for sharing.