By now, it was already the peak of the monsoon season in Pakistan. Media and news showed nothing but floods and landslides, deaths and missing people, with an occasional insert of killings and suicide explosions in Pakistan.
This particular year, the monsoon was exceptionally heavy, with the amount of rainfall being the highest in decades. Villages totally washed out by the overflowing river, bridges that collasped and pipelines broken, cutting off supplies of food and drinkable water.
Pakistan was officially declared into a state of emergency.
Moving on from Rawapindi, Naran was the next stop but news from the bus operators said it was inaccessible due to broken bridge.
With the Naran route out of the itinerary, the next destination would be the Fairy Meadows via the famous Karakoram Highway also better known as the KKH, which was about 200 km away.
Karakoram Highway is the high road to China, which was blasted and bulldozed through an intractable landscape of raging rivers, deep ravines and high mountains in the 60s and 70s. It is a 1200km marvel of engineering and a symbolic collaboration between Pakistan and China. The Karakoram Highway follows a branch of the ancient network of trade routes also known as the famed Silk Road.
However, on the day of departure from Rawalpindi to Fairy Meadow, the Karakoram Highway was declared out of bounds to vehicles due to damages caused by the raging rivers and rock falls.
This particular year, the monsoon was exceptionally heavy, with the amount of rainfall being the highest in decades. Villages totally washed out by the overflowing river, bridges that collasped and pipelines broken, cutting off supplies of food and drinkable water.
Pakistan was officially declared into a state of emergency.
Moving on from Rawapindi, Naran was the next stop but news from the bus operators said it was inaccessible due to broken bridge.
With the Naran route out of the itinerary, the next destination would be the Fairy Meadows via the famous Karakoram Highway also better known as the KKH, which was about 200 km away.
Karakoram Highway is the high road to China, which was blasted and bulldozed through an intractable landscape of raging rivers, deep ravines and high mountains in the 60s and 70s. It is a 1200km marvel of engineering and a symbolic collaboration between Pakistan and China. The Karakoram Highway follows a branch of the ancient network of trade routes also known as the famed Silk Road.
However, on the day of departure from Rawalpindi to Fairy Meadow, the Karakoram Highway was declared out of bounds to vehicles due to damages caused by the raging rivers and rock falls.
We were very much trapped in Rawalpindi.
But we had to try somehow to get out of there anyway. Went down to the Bus terminal and managed to get a bus to Mansehra (70km away) cos that was the furthest any vehicles could go.
Mansehra was just another village by the Karakoram Highway that has nothing of interest to tourists. The only thing worth seeing perhaps was a set of edicts inscribed by King Ashoka 2200 years ago.
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| Town of Mansehra |
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| Many sections of the road flooded |
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| Interesting sight? |
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| The worst room ever, paradise for the bed bugs |
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