Northern side of Pakistan — Part 2
Not exactly the same weather which I had shown you in the previous blog. It is a bit warmer area, as compared to other locations in the north, especially in sunny mornings while nights are quite colder. The main attraction places include Chitral, Kalash Valley (Bamborait village) and Garam Chashma. And here our journey begins.
On the way to Chitral, you also pass through the Lowari tunnel which is the country’s longest tunnel. You can check the video also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGM_xjJ1bvY
After a 20 hours long drive, our first destination was ‘Bamborait Village’, a small village but having a unique significance because of the Kalasha community being living here.
But before going on to visit these lovely places. Here we unpacked our bags and we failed to find even a single dry cloth!! Because due to heavy rain early morning, our bags, which were unfortunately and obviously not waterproof, gave us the first blow of the tour.
So, let’s explore the Kalash valley! These people have three villages. The main village is Bamborait, which we are visiting now. The culture of the Kalash people is unique and differs in many ways from the many contemporary Islamic ethnic groups surrounding them in northwestern part of Pakistan. They are polytheists and nature plays a highly significant and spiritual role in their daily life. Kalasha women usually wear long black robes, often embroidered with cowrie shells.
Kalasha people don’t bury their deceased. But they just place the coffin in the graveyard. You can check this in the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX6_9raVVaM
Jewelry keeps a special importance among these people. Years back they used to sell their animals to purchase jewelry for women. Little girls to elder women, everyone is in their special getup of black dress with embroidery and jewelry. When any of there woman dies, they lay down the body into the coffin along with her complete jewelry.
A Spanish zoologist who came here for some research and got deeply attached to this culture that he wished to be buried here in be village after death. His grave can be seen in the picture.
Another worth visiting place here is the Museum. A foreigner funded, established and then donated it to the community and visitors. The museum includes some model houses of Kalasha people, their weapons, utensils, old jewelry etc.
We had two nights stay at Bamborait Village, as now it’s time to move to our next destination.
Our second destination is ‘Garam Chashma’ (in English, it means Hot Waterfall). But our second disappointment was not finding any such waterfall there!! :-D But, let’s first reach our point.
There is actually a spot on top of the mountain at Garam Chashma, from where hot water is pouring out, which is then channelized through pipes and brought down. It is believed by the localities that this water also has healing power against certain skin infections and diseases.
If you happen to visit this place, Hotel Innjigan is the place where you need to stay. Here every restroom has a connection from ‘Garam Chashma’, and there is a pool also, which is connected to the continuously flowing hot water.
So now, it’s time to return. We will be having one night stay in Chitral city and then move back towards Lahore.
On our way back, we saw a plane, an actual aero-plane which belonged to PIA, standing in a plot. Upon asking, we came to know that this plane had a crash landing here and an affluent person of the community purchased it and constructed a boundary wall around.
So, here our voyage ends.
I had a different plan. I wanted to write this second blog just after a few weeks of the first. But busy routine didn’t allow me to do so. But yes, third one is already in my laptop. I’ll not disclose the place now. But yes, I just visited another place with mesmerizing sceneries.
Good Bye. See you soon. :-))
Link to Part 1 — https://medium.com/@bilal.sahi/northern-side-of-pakistan-part-1-b1a9d9b8108e
