Ali Usman Baig Blogspot (Documenting Pakistan)
Exploring Supat Valley Kohistan
We reached at Naran around 9 am in the morning. The next task was to arrange Porters and Jeeps for our journey further ahead. Due to Eid holidays, it was getting tougher to find Jeeps. It seems like every tourist in Naran wanted to visit Saifulmalook. At last our host able to find two jeeps, but also came with a bad news that there was glacier road block some 3, 4 kilometers ahead from Soch village. It was disappointment but he said you will find Jeep on other side of Block. Also, in Naran it was difficult to find Porters at this period of time. We thought to hire few porters from Soch village. We stopped at Soch village but after an effort of one hour hardly able to find two young porters, among them one was first year student and other has given matriculation exams. This was beginning of disappointment phase. We left Soch village around 11 am, the roadside scenes were amazing. Then suddenly our jeep tire got flattens, luckily jeep driver have spares but this also wasted a lot of time. I was hoping, we will not face any further encumbrance in our way, but something else was written in faith of this journey. After a few kilometers a road side tree was fallen, that also caused a small land slide and blockage on road. We all came out of jeeps and everybody started giving his part in clearing the road. At last our collective efforts worked and jeep able to cross this hurdle. Then, we reached to the point where road blocked by glacier.
But woh joo kehtay hain na “Ishq ke imtihaan aur b hain”. Jeep trek was blocked by a glacier. And driver was not ready to take the risk to cross it. I partially agreed with his decision as it was not 100 % safe to cross it. So we decided to trek to the destination. We were 12 people + 8 porters. Since we were assured that bread will be provided by our hosts so we only carried the packed food which obviously required bread to be eaten with. Now this unplanned blockage caused major disrupt. So that mean we won’t be able to have bread. Porters who were from Soch & dumbail village created so much issue that at one time we thought to call it off. Anyways some how we carried on. Hardly couple of hours in trek a team member went ill so he with four of his colleagues decided to return back. So we sent two porters with them. Now we were left with 8 team members & 6 porters.
The same night whole team decided to return back because of food issue & totally uncooperative attitude of porters of Soch & dumbail village. Entire situation was upsetting for me because I was leading the whole group. My brother Salman and Rashid bhi from Faislabad were with me and wanted to complete this trek in any situation…….(Continued
Exploring Supat Valley Kohistan
We reached at Naran around 9 am in the morning. The next task was to arrange Porters and Jeeps for our journey further ahead. Due to Eid holidays, it was getting tougher to find Jeeps. It seems like every tourist in Naran wanted to visit Saifulmalook. At last our host able to find two jeeps, but also came with a bad news that there was glacier road block some 3, 4 kilometers ahead from Soch village. It was disappointment but he said you will find Jeep on other side of Block. Also, in Naran it was difficult to find Porters at this period of time. We thought to hire few porters from Soch village. We stopped at Soch village but after an effort of one hour hardly able to find two young porters, among them one was first year student and other has given matriculation exams. This was beginning of disappointment phase. We left Soch village around 11 am, the roadside scenes were amazing. Then suddenly our jeep tire got flattens, luckily jeep driver have spares but this also wasted a lot of time. I was hoping, we will not face any further encumbrance in our way, but something else was written in faith of this journey. After a few kilometers a road side tree was fallen, that also caused a small land slide and blockage on road. We all came out of jeeps and everybody started giving his part in clearing the road. At last our collective efforts worked and jeep able to cross this hurdle. Then, we reached to the point where road blocked by glacier.
But woh joo kehtay hain na “Ishq ke imtihaan aur b hain”. Jeep trek was blocked by a glacier. And driver was not ready to take the risk to cross it. I partially agreed with his decision as it was not 100 % safe to cross it. So we decided to trek to the destination. We were 12 people + 8 porters. Since we were assured that bread will be provided by our hosts so we only carried the packed food which obviously required bread to be eaten with. Now this unplanned blockage caused major disrupt. So that mean we won’t be able to have bread. Porters who were from Soch & dumbail village created so much issue that at one time we thought to call it off. Anyways some how we carried on. Hardly couple of hours in trek a team member went ill so he with four of his colleagues decided to return back. So we sent two porters with them. Now we were left with 8 team members & 6 porters.
The same night whole team decided to return back because of food issue & totally uncooperative attitude of porters of Soch & dumbail village. Entire situation was upsetting for me because I was leading the whole group. My brother Salman and Rashid bhi from Faislabad were with me and wanted to complete this trek in any situation…….(Continued