Part I
In July 2025, our group of six family and friend members departed from Taipei. We took a Thai Air flight which transited through Bangkok. Not too bad, around 4-5 hours per leg. That evening, we successfully arrived in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan.
We set out the very next morning aboard our very own tour minibus. This blog documents our 10-day tour and travel experiences on the road, in our journeys through the Hunza and Skardu valleys of northern Pakistan. We chose this custom group tour package arranged by Magpie Tours Pakistan, a travel agency based locally in Hunza, recommended by my daughter’s friends. Given the difficult logistics of mountain transportation, it was great to relax and “enjoy” the ardours of journeying itself, without the many additional hassles of bookings, tickets, dealing with checkpoints…
Northern Pakistan is a region that spans some of the highest mountain ranges in the world. The whole area was ruled by seven independent small kingdoms, with their unique cultures and languages. Gradually, due to historical processes too complex to share here, these kingdoms joined the Islamic Republic of Pakistan soon after the country’s independence from British rule in 1947.
From the moment we departed Islamabad, I was mentally prepared that this would not just be a journey through space, but a test of my physical and sensory endurance. At 70 years old, I’ve been to many places around the world. Yet the high mountains in this part of the world was a first for me. We headed northwards and upwards along the Karakoram Highway (often called KKH for short). It’s a highway connecting Pakistan and China, but not just any highway. Hailed as the “Eighth Wonder of the World,” you can only experience it to see why. This is a road that hangs daringly along cliff edges like a lifeline.
On the first official day of our journey, we departed at a leisurly time of 11 a.m. Soon, we enjoyed a delicious lunch at a rest area consisting of chicken, lentils, and flatbreads (rotis). The most interesting sights along the way were the elaborately decorated, vibrantly colored painted trucks, as well as roadside vendors selling tomatoes and peaches, and even cages of chickens being transported on cargo trucks.
We sat snugly in our private minibus. Locally, this is called a “wagon,” and indeed it did feel quite “wagon-like” to jolt on it along the narrowly winding, sometimes uneven mountainous highway. For hours and hours, our bodies rose and fell with the rising terrain. It was truly humbling to experience the hardships of transport in such mountain areas.
That evening we stayed at Besham Inn. Dinner included chicken and vegetable fried noodles, roast chicken, and a warming chicken soup. Now we understood the high volumn of truck-tranported chichens along the way! Our hotel room was right on the Indus River’s edge, and we fell asleep to the thunderous echoes of rushing water.
The second day brought an early-morning challenge. To catch the checkpoint opening time, we had to rise and shine at 3 a.m. We found armed guards on strict watch in both the hotel lobby and entrance. Mixed feelings of securitization!
Breakfast was simple but flavorful. We were alloted one egg and half a flatbread per person. Charmingly, our guide also brought us banana and peach, perhaps understanding our need for fiberous fruits. Later, at a rest stop with abundant water sources, we sat among locals to drink a warming green tea, different from the green teas of Taiwan. Although the KKH started off beautifully paved, road conditions became particularly poor in the dam construction zone, but we also observed planned greening projects along the Indus River.
We had set out from warm ochre plains the day before. The scenery changed turn by turn, often with the Indus River roaring far below. As we rose in height, we watched the scenery transform from lush green into towering, desolate mountains.
I had always heard the term “roof of the world” but not really comprehended what it truly meant. Entering the Gilgit-Baltistan region, the embodied experience of “being” on the roof of the world finally hit me. Before reaching Gilgit, the administrative center of the Gilgit-Baltistan region, we made a brief stop at a magnificent site: the confluence point of three great mountain ranges, namely, the Himalayas, Karakoram, and Hindu Kush. It felt like we were standing under the central dome of a grand cathedral, supported by these three massive stone pillars. It’s not hard to imagine, that before the highway was created, this had been a secret and isolated realm, entirely cut off from the world.
After arriving in Gilgit at noon, we enjoyed an upscale lunch at a five-star hotel with gorgeous food and views. Before entering Aliabad, we made a special trip to the mountainside to view the spectacular glacier-carved Hunza Valley and taste local wild-thyme tea, called tumuro, which our guide said was good for the respiratory system.
When we finally arrived at our lodging, the Apple Garden Guesthouse in Aliabad, Hunza, the high-altitude thin air was causing me a slight dull headache. My breathing also became more and more labored as we reached around 2400 meters in elevation. But all of this dissolved the moment I opened our bedroom door. From the room, I could simply lie on the bed and gaze in tranquile silence upon the breathtaking Rakaposhi Peak through the full-length balcony window. At 7788 meters elevation, its snow-covered peak stood serenely before me, radient in the sunlight.
The next morning, I strolled through the guesthouse’s gardens. Was it my imagination, or could I wiff a sense of glaciors in the coolness of the air? Underfoot, I picked my way through an abundance of fallen ripe apricots. Some had just dropped from the branches above, and I took advantage of their freshness to taste their pure sweetness, melting on the tongue.
After the desolate mountains flanking our KKH road trip, this apricot tree-filled garden felt like an oasis. Perching in the middle of the verdant Hunza valley, the sweet fragrance of ripe apricots in the crisp cool air, I sensed something awaken inside. A tranquile prelude, a page opens, to our travels among the snow-capped mountains to come.
