It all started 2 years ago. While sitting ard, sipping Teh 'O' kurang manis ( tea w/o milk less sugar ), we came up with this idea of going for this trip.
Believe it or not we only started planning where to go around 2 months back.First, it was around southeast asia but in the end after talking to a few kind folks from www.sgtravelcafe.com we finally decided to go to Central Asia instead.
Here is the story of our journey.....
We discussed yesterday night that we wanted to leave Fairy meadows early so Felix, Ramli and myself could get the bus to Karimbad the same day and Howard could get the bus to Islamabad without having to stay one more day in Gilgit.
We woke up and left about 0830hrs and rushed down the descend of 834m.. The way down was easy for us as not much effort or energy is needed only the pressure on our knees. Finally we arrived at the jeep stop after 3 hours which is about 1130hrs. We told the guy to contact the jeep driver that we are here cause before we told him we would go back at 2pm. But he said he couldn’t contact him cause there is no reception at Raikot Bridge…Ermmm so we waited and waited hoping that the jeep driver would come up earlier.
On the way down
Waited for about 2.5hrs the keep came up 15mins to 2pm. We rushed to the keep and was on our way down to Raikot Bridge. At Raikot Bridge while waiting for our bus ride a English lady approached us and asked us about our trip to Fairy Meadows as they were just going up. Chatted for a while and saw a mini van coming we flagged it down and since there wasn’t any seats available we were asked to sit on the roof of the mini van.. Yahoo!! Finally we had a chance to experience sitting on the roof of a vehicle.. Even though I kept thinking of the danger and how I would fall off the cliff when the mini van make a big turn, I still got up and experience the danger…
Us on the roof of the van..
All of us holding tight!!
The first 15mins was fun, being able to see the mountains and the rivers from a moving vehicle but after our butt started to ache as the road is not ready and still bumpy.. Luckily another 15mins later some of the passengers got down and the driver asked us to get into the van also saying that the road ahead is not safe, too bumpy for us to be sitting on top.
The very well decorated Truck
These bus ride seems to be super long long long… It took us about 3.5hrs before we reach Gilgit bus station. We got down and checked if they still have bus to Karimabad and Islamabad but was told to come tomorrow cause the buses has left.
So we headed back to Madina guest house and stay for another night.
Woke up about 0330hrs to go for our Sahur at the staffs cabin. But when we went there they were still sleeping so Ramli had to knock on the door and wake them up and we waited for them to get ready our roti and chick pea curry and red bean gravy. Finished our food and headed back to the cold cold cottage room to wait for the time for Subhr prayers.
Ramli in the air
Today we will head up to Beyal at 3500m. We packed up our things and wanted to check out . The manager was reluctant to let us check out and asked that we try come back to stay for the night since Beyal and the view point is just 1.5hrs away. We told him we try and see how it is.
me taking a rest
Slowly we hike up the track towards Beyal and arrived about 1hr later. The managers of the various hotel approached us and asked to stay at their place but we just replied that we will go to the view point at 3667m and come back later. We walked on and saw a cottage which has the best view of Nanga Parbat and decided to ask the price for the cottage room. After bargaining we got the room for Pkr600, checked in and rested for about 2 hours before heading towards the view point as it was only about 1130hrs or so..
We agreed to leave for view point at 1430hrs, we went outside about 1400hrs and Howard had just ordered lunch. Noodles and dhal curry.. We waited with him to finish his lunch before we set off. When they serve his lunch we were all surprised and staring at each other as they gave him instant noodle in a small soup bowl but the dhal was of a acceptable serving. But it costs him Pkr200.. Whoa that is expensive we told him but no choice cause we are up in the mountains and no other place to go for food..
We started walking about 1500hrs and arrived at the view point about an hour later. We could see the glacier quite close.. The view was fantastic!! We only need to climb for 2 days and we are so close to the mountains.. Not like Nepal we had to climb for 11 days before we reach the destination and also not so close to the mountains. The guys were very tempted to go down the very steep slow and cross over to take pictures at the glacier. I opted outcause I know I will have big problem to climb back up the hill..
So I sat and watch them slowly descending the steep hill and slowly walking towards the glacier.
Howard had a difficult time going down cause he had phobia after climbing down the Ultar Meadows alone at Karimabad. He said the climb down was so steep that he thought he is going to die. So after he had phobia climbing down any steep slopes.
Felix and Ramli waited for him and when Howard was just at the bottom they turned back and started climbing up.. Hmmm not sure what was wrong.. When Ramli got up he told me that the Glacier was actually further than they thought so decided not to go and it wasn’t really safe as the ice should be moving as they could see the rocks falling into the small glacier pools..
View of Glacier on the left
The Guys
While we were chatting and waiting for Howard and Felix to get up, we heard people singing or talking, and the sound came from the Glacier.. We looked over and I saw many sheeps or goats walking down from the glacier with their shepherds. They are heading upwards and towards us. Before long they are infront of us, the young shepherds said they have total of 400 goats/sheeps with them and they just came from the base camp which is 3967m and now heading back to beyal. Hmmm what can the goats eat at the base camp? Wouldn’t there be all fill with ice?
the goats that came our way
The Sherperds
We slowly headed down to Beyal camp to rest and waited for Iftar. We told the manager we wanted veg fried rice since he didn’t have much to offer due to Ramadhan. But we somehow feel that he don’t understand what we said. So we waited for dinner and see what he cooked up for us.
We sat at the candle lit table and was served white rice with fried cabbage.. Wahahhah we were right he didn’t get what we meant. But he also serve us instant noodle soup and desert for free just for iftar… Great!!
Finished our dinner and rested in the cold cold night..
The Guys, Howard from Singapore, Carlos from Columbia, Felix from Germany
Me and Mr Beck
We joined the guys at about 0830hrs at the dining area and took pictures with Mr Beck before we left as he was also leaving Gilgit to Hunza his home the next 2 days. Left the guesthouse and headed to the bus station to get a bus to Raikot Bridge which is the starting point to Fairy Meadows.
After about 3 hours ride on the bumpy road we arrived at Raikot bridge and waited for the jeep to get up to 2666m to the starting point of the hike and ending point of the jeep ride. After 1.5hrs we arrived at the starting point, checked in our names on the log book and started our ascend to Fairy Meadows at 3306m. A man volunteered to guide us along the way and wanted us to stay at his guesthouse, but Howard told him we will go up and see our options before confirming. Not knowing if he understood, we just carried on with him walking with us.
The climb is very steep and tiring so we took our time slowly. The guy seems to be getting impatient cause we are walking so slowly and kept making stops to rests.. keekkek He started conversation with Felix who could speak a little urdu and later Felix told us that this guy want us to pay him Pkr500 as a guide to bring us up. We got furious as we have already told him at the start we didn’t need a guide and would go survey the hotels before we confirm with him. Ramli was really frustrated and told him NO WAY.. He asked why no and Felix spoke with him again and we just ignored him. After speaking to him, Felix turned and said he could agree not to charge us any guide fee if we promise to stay at his guesthouse.. Ermmm again we told him we will see what our options and later decide as there is a few hotels up in Fairy Meadows.
Fairy Meadows and first view of Nanga Parbat...
Panaroma View
I guess he got our message and left us, when we are almost reaching the top we saw him seating at a hut waiting for us.. My goodness he just doesn’t give up. I guess he is really desperate to get a customer. He showed us the way to Fairy Meadows Cottage, we followed without any commitments. The view from the cottage was fantastic. We could see Mt Nanga Parbat at 8125m so close surrounded by the pine trees.. It is really beautiful. He showed us the cottage room which was clean and nice and after bargaining from Pkr600 to Pkr500 we agreed to stay for the night.
The Cottage
We told the manager we were fasting after he asked us if we wanted welcome tea. He looked really surprised and invited us to join them for their Iftar party later. We put our bags in the cottage and rested. Ramli and Felix wanted to go for a dip into the cold spring water at the stream just nearby while Howard went for a nap. I followed Ramli and Felix and took pictures of them dipping into the ice cold water..
The 2 scrawny man...
Wooo Coooold!
Feeling good Felix?
Fairy Meadows future sucessors..
After taking a cold shower we took a short nap as it was only 1700hrs. About 1830hrs we awoke and I went out to the balcony to enjoy the scenery of Nanga Parbat. But the first thing I saw was Felix all wrapped up in his sweater, wind breaker and the blanket from the hotel sitting at the balcony reading his book. It was so hilarious I burst out laughing and asked if he was really from Germany.. It was cold but still bearable for us the Singaporeans.. Wahahaha
Mr Felix all wrapped up.. Wahhha
Waited for Iftar and was invited to seat with the staffs and managers in their cabin with a fireplace to keep us warm. They served French fries, noodle soup and desert for Iftar for free and we ordered veg and egg fried rice for our dinner. We chatted with the manager and the staffs and went and rest for the night.
The moonlit nice was beautiful, so many stars hanging in the clear sky and we could see the shadow of Nanga Parbat.. Fantastic.
Today is a rest day for all of us after the 2 days of hiking.. We slept till late and did nothing.
Joined the guys at the dining area for some chatting and introduced Mr Beck to the laptop. He was so amazed to see and feel our laptop.. Ramli was showing him and telling him the functions of a laptop and asked him to try typing a letter on words.. Even though he is 80+ years old his eye sight is fantastic. He could see and type a few sentences with our tiny laptop and read what he has typed.. Ramli even told him that he could download story books or even the Quran from the internet and read it on the laptop w/o having to carry the book around. Ramli showed him some verses of the Quran and even the words are so tiny he could read it really fast.
His first glance on the laptop
Ramli, Mr Beck and Carlos
Mr Beck all amazed!!
Mr Beck is reading the verses from the Quran
Trying to type a letter using words
You should have seen the look on his face… He is really astonished and said he also want to buy one.. Oh noo not sure if we bring him or his family any trouble..
The day pass so quickly today, we had our iftar and dinner and rested for the day to prepare for tomorrows trip to Fairy Meadows with Felix and Howard.
We planned to go to BargotValley with Carlos, Felix and Howard. We rented a jeep and paid Pkr700/pax = SGD13/pax. We left the guesthouse at about 0930hrs and was on our way on the 2hrs jeep ride to BagrotValley.
While waiting for the jeeps turn to cross
The bridge linking to the cave tunnel
Along the way Carlos told us there is a surprise we would see later but he didn’t want to disclose cause the first time he saw no one told him and he was really surprised. Hmmm we wonder what it is.. The jeep drove about 20mins and turn to bridge to cross the river and we saw the surprise Carlos was talking about. Across the bridge there was a tunnel dug out thru a hill just for the crossing of the vehicles from this bridge. It is truly amazing how the locals could think of it and gone thru so much hard work to make the crossing work..
The beautiful valley that greeted us... Fooyooo!! kekek
First View of Bagrot Valley
Here we go...
The jeep passed many villages with the locals all amazed to see a jeep full of foreigners. They were waving and saying hello when our jeep pass them.. After going up hill about 1 hour we finally arrived at the starting point to BagrotValley.As the lonely planet indicated we could see the glacier on the left side. So we started climbing up the steep hills slowly slowly.. There were villages at this valley, the locals has wheat fields and potato fields which brightened up the valley with the greens and yellow etc.
The view of the valley was magnificent!! No words could really describe the beauty of this valley. Snow caped mountains surrounded the valley and we are blessed with a clear blue day and this made it much more beautiful. We walked on and rested under a apricot tree. A boy was on the tree picking the fresh apricots from the trees and I thought I wanted to have some too so I start picking from the floor and branches and asked Carlos who was also picking to keep for me till Iftar… He tempted me to eat it now as it is so fresh and sweet but I told him it can wait… Was nice to be able to pick fresh fruits from the trees…
The view further up...
The villagers we met half way..
We pass a family who was cleaning their fields of weeds, the daughter passed me a crescent shape knife and gestured to ask me to try out cutting the weeds.. So I did very clumsily with the whole family giggling at what I was doing.. And when it was their turn I felt really embarrassed.. they did it with so much skill and most importantly fast. Wahahha if I were to do it for them it would take me a long long time.. Took some pictures with the man of the house and walked on… I felt sad cause I couldn’t take pictures with the mum and daughter…
The paddy fields..
Son of the family... He looked tense and stress..
We walked about 3hrs but still have no sight for the glacier and later decided to give up as we needed to start walking back to the starting point before it is too late. We climbed down to the river bed thinking we could be able to cross the river to the village across and than continue back to the start. But after 45mins of walking on stones and pebbles we returned back to where we came as the bridge is broken and the current is too strong for us to pass thru. On the way back we stopped and rest at the river and soaked our tired feet in the cold glacier water… it was so relaxing…
Everyone was exhausted as we had to make 2 detours on the way back but still we managed to arrive at our starting point where the jeep was waiting for the last 6hours.Hoped on the jeep and was on our way back to Gilgit..
We went for our shower and adjoined back later to go dinner at the Ramzan restaurant which was said to serve good food. Felix, Howard came along with us. We ordered our food and I waited at the restaurant while Ramli and Felix went and buy the long awaited mango milk shake and Howard went to the guesthouse to get his water. While waiting for them I was enjoying the commotion at the restaurant.. The boss was sorting out the plates of fruits and dates for Iftar and he was screaming to his staffs to get a plate to sort his and that and was hitting the hand of one of the man who tried to help. It was hilarious..
Just at adzan Felix and Ramli returned with a pleasing look on their faces. Ramli had one mango shake and Felix had 2… He must be really thirsty.. Ramli told us that the mango shake boss didn’t like Muslims.. Hmm cause when he knew Ramli was waiting for adzan before he could drink the mango milk shake he asked to confirm if he was Muslim. And said muslims no good and not sure what else. And when he was preparing the 2nd shake for Felix he asked him if he was Muslim when the reply was no he poured extra milk or syrup for Felix.. So weird…
Anyways we enjoyed our dinner very much and returned to the guest house and spoke with Carlos and Mr Beck before we went to bed.
