Besham is about 40km away from Mansehra only, but any distance covered meant we were closer to Fairy Meadows. Anyhow.
Couldn't wait to check out of the room anyway.
The journey was a slow and enduring one; with the road still full of loose stones and partially flooded at many parts.
The road was not yet officially open, and vehicles were not supposed to proceed any further on the Karakoram Highway due to safety reasons like further land slides or rock falls i supposed. The roads at some point looked pretty disastrous to me.
Eventually, our vehicle was stopped by the police when we were only about half way through to Besham. Vehicles started turning back and there were many people waiting by the roadside.
We were feeling rather helpless, being dumped at by the roadside as our vehicle that has brought us there began heading back in the way we came. We turned to the police but they all insisted we should go back to Mansehra as well. But the strange thing was some vehicles were allowed to pass but the majority wasn't allowed to. So what does the desperate do? We started to flag down those that did and managed to hitch a ride to Besham. Yay!
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| Vehicles couldn't proceed any further |
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| Police stop |
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Two men picking and loading the rocks onto the trucks manually |
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| Managed to hitch a ride |
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| The disastrous state of the highway |
Besham was the furthest we could go, as the road ahead was totally destroyed.
Besham is another small town with all shops and guesthouses situated by the highway.
News of foreign blood arriving in this small town spread rather quickly and we found ourselves face to face with the chief police inspector of the town within hours.
He advised us to stay in this little town till the road ahead was cleared, which might take up to a week! That was what he advised. Following which, he then ordered his 2 armed policemen to follow and protect us wherever we would go, and that includes crossing the street to buy some neccessities like toothpaste and paper. Imagine the attention we were bringing with the 2 armed guards. It should be rather hilarious, if not for the situation we were in - stranded in a small town with a serious shortage of food, unknown as to what lies ahead due to the broken roads and bridges.
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| The inspector's house |
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| Houses nearer to the Indus River destroyed |
We stayed in Besham for 3 nights and the inspector kept feeding us news of people dying and roads collapsing which made us feel rather helpless and trapped. There were no way we could use the Karakoram Highway, even on foot. At this point, we were rather anxious because our 20 days visa was slowly making its countdown and the last thing we wanted was to go back to where we had came from.
On the 4th day when everything seemed rather bleak and we were wondering how freaking long more we were going to stay stucked in this small town feeling food-deprived (at this point, i was rather desperate for some real food like meat after nearly 2 weeks of only lentils and bread) and totally devastated with the current situation of the Karakoram Highway, we saw 2 Dutch walking on the Highway! heading towards where we were at Besham. Without a word, we ran like sprinters in a marathon would approaching the finishing line hahaha and i thought for one moment they think they were going to get mugged. They said it was possible to cross the highway by foot and by arriving at this town, they had also proven their point, we didnt waste any more time and went back to the guesthouse and packed up within an hour and then checked out.
Basically, we all had the opinion that we were being fed news of all the dangers because all the hotels proprietors just wanted us to stay there so they have the revenue from our stay.
Screw the inspector, did i mention whose nephew is the hotel owner.
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| Our personal guards |
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