The shake down
Ok, where do I start? I think I left-off in Karimibad after the trek.
Dave and I set off to Gilgit and the Swiss went to Passu. The ride to Gilgit was fascinating because there was a visible change in the people. The ride was 100km and around the 50km mark, people stopped smiling so much, and there was a lot more staring without any greetings. Prior to reaching Gilgit we had heard stories about Sunni and Shiite fighting. One group of travelers we had met saw somone get shot and killed. That had been almost 4 weeks earlier, and tensions had be forecfully relieved. The fighting which killed more than 15 people was supposedly initiated by people in small rural villages around the area. This made entering Gilgit very interesting because as we passed through small towns the first question we were asked was were we Muslim. This was a little unconfortable but at no point did we feel as though we were in any danger. Gilgit was the first gritty city in Pakistan that I visited, but it also was a good place to get some much needed supplies. This was a little hard after 6pm though, because there was a curfew and the city fell under martial law due to the recent fighting.
Dave and I planned to leave by bus seeing that there were many stories of teenagers hurling large rocks a cyclists between Gilgit and Islamasbad. This became problematic when, the day we were supposed to leave, I became very ill. It turned out that the "drinkable fresh spring water" the hotel provided was in fact just tap water and not the best thing to be ingesting. The tickets were changed and I spent the whole day miserable and in bed.
The next day, still sick, we left for Islamasbad. This was a difficult day because I was sick, the bus ride was 16 hours, it was Ramadan (so people got weird when we ate or drank), and I've never been on a bus that drove so roughly through high moutain roads. This made me sick, car sick, hungry, and tired. At on point during the day I fell asleep briefly, and woke up to find what I thought was water on the floor of the bus. Thinking nothing of it I closed my eyes again but moments later felt somthing hit my foot. When I looked up I realized somebody across the isles was in fact vomiting on my right foot. It turns out I just have horrible luck with transportation and people puking.
At 11:30 that night,completely waisted, Dave and I arrived in Rawlipindi and decided that we would just forget about trying to cycle to a hotel (becasue Islamasbad was 6km away) and instead we would just sleep at one near the bus station. After some haggling we found a pretty crummy room, but, that fit our needs. We slept for about one hour before there was a heavy pounding at the door. After moment a voice said "The police here, you must leave". After we stumbled to the door and talked to hotel people we learned that they were not allowed to accept foriegners and that the police were forcefully evicting us from the hotel room at 1am. This was beyond imagination after such a hard day but there was nothing to do so, completely unprepared for night riding we rode 6km to Islamasbad. This was very surreal and really unexplainable at such a level of fatigue save to say we were a little crazy and singing most of the way. We ended up staying in an over-priced hotel that night. The saving grace of the hotel was that it had a 2 o'clock check-out time, so at least we were able to sleep in. The next day we went to a campground for foriegners, and have been there ever since preparing to apply for Indian visa's and extensions.
Yesterday morning I was siting in the campground talking to Dave when I felt the first inklings of the earthqauke. I realize how desensitized I've become to them because everyone freaked out while I just continued talking. Really, even though the earqauke that hit was such a high magnitude, it never felt like it topped 5.0. I don't know why this was but the damage it inflicted on Islamasbad and the surrounding areas speaks otherwise. I've been told that the Kerekorum was shut down due to the massive amount of landslides that the earthqauke caused. This means if I had waited two more days before leaving, I would have been stuck traveling midway on the road to Islamasbad or completely unable to make the journey for maybe up to a week.
Everything is a traveling comedy show of errors.
Hope your all well. Bye.
Dave and I set off to Gilgit and the Swiss went to Passu. The ride to Gilgit was fascinating because there was a visible change in the people. The ride was 100km and around the 50km mark, people stopped smiling so much, and there was a lot more staring without any greetings. Prior to reaching Gilgit we had heard stories about Sunni and Shiite fighting. One group of travelers we had met saw somone get shot and killed. That had been almost 4 weeks earlier, and tensions had be forecfully relieved. The fighting which killed more than 15 people was supposedly initiated by people in small rural villages around the area. This made entering Gilgit very interesting because as we passed through small towns the first question we were asked was were we Muslim. This was a little unconfortable but at no point did we feel as though we were in any danger. Gilgit was the first gritty city in Pakistan that I visited, but it also was a good place to get some much needed supplies. This was a little hard after 6pm though, because there was a curfew and the city fell under martial law due to the recent fighting.
Dave and I planned to leave by bus seeing that there were many stories of teenagers hurling large rocks a cyclists between Gilgit and Islamasbad. This became problematic when, the day we were supposed to leave, I became very ill. It turned out that the "drinkable fresh spring water" the hotel provided was in fact just tap water and not the best thing to be ingesting. The tickets were changed and I spent the whole day miserable and in bed.
The next day, still sick, we left for Islamasbad. This was a difficult day because I was sick, the bus ride was 16 hours, it was Ramadan (so people got weird when we ate or drank), and I've never been on a bus that drove so roughly through high moutain roads. This made me sick, car sick, hungry, and tired. At on point during the day I fell asleep briefly, and woke up to find what I thought was water on the floor of the bus. Thinking nothing of it I closed my eyes again but moments later felt somthing hit my foot. When I looked up I realized somebody across the isles was in fact vomiting on my right foot. It turns out I just have horrible luck with transportation and people puking.
At 11:30 that night,completely waisted, Dave and I arrived in Rawlipindi and decided that we would just forget about trying to cycle to a hotel (becasue Islamasbad was 6km away) and instead we would just sleep at one near the bus station. After some haggling we found a pretty crummy room, but, that fit our needs. We slept for about one hour before there was a heavy pounding at the door. After moment a voice said "The police here, you must leave". After we stumbled to the door and talked to hotel people we learned that they were not allowed to accept foriegners and that the police were forcefully evicting us from the hotel room at 1am. This was beyond imagination after such a hard day but there was nothing to do so, completely unprepared for night riding we rode 6km to Islamasbad. This was very surreal and really unexplainable at such a level of fatigue save to say we were a little crazy and singing most of the way. We ended up staying in an over-priced hotel that night. The saving grace of the hotel was that it had a 2 o'clock check-out time, so at least we were able to sleep in. The next day we went to a campground for foriegners, and have been there ever since preparing to apply for Indian visa's and extensions.
Yesterday morning I was siting in the campground talking to Dave when I felt the first inklings of the earthqauke. I realize how desensitized I've become to them because everyone freaked out while I just continued talking. Really, even though the earqauke that hit was such a high magnitude, it never felt like it topped 5.0. I don't know why this was but the damage it inflicted on Islamasbad and the surrounding areas speaks otherwise. I've been told that the Kerekorum was shut down due to the massive amount of landslides that the earthqauke caused. This means if I had waited two more days before leaving, I would have been stuck traveling midway on the road to Islamasbad or completely unable to make the journey for maybe up to a week.
Everything is a traveling comedy show of errors.
Hope your all well. Bye.
posted by Robert at 10/08/2005 11:26:00 PM
2 Comments:
Robert,
Once again I can not tell you how relieved I am to read your last entry. As I mentioned before, I once again picked up the phone to call Anne, but I did not want to add to her worry. Anyway, I AM SO THANKFUL THAT YOU ARE O.K.! The puke on the shoe is preparing you for parenthood. The amount of puke that can come out of a child defies the laws of physics. They usually want to be with thier parents so a good portion of the barf lands all over my lap! A campground is probably one of the best places to be during an earth quake. That is funny how desensitized us CA folks are to quakes. Stay healthy!
Love Becka
Hi Robert
I'm Mike the cousin of Martin, the guy you went on the 5(3)day Trip with. We haven't heard of Martin since Oct. 2nd. I know that he was on his way to Passu for another trek and after that he will or is now on his journey to Kasghar. As far as I know there is not really a possibility for him to send us a message until Kasghar.
So could you write me a short email about your opinion how hard the earthquake hit the Passu region, so we could stop worring about Martins well being.
Thanks in advance and have a safe
journey.
Mike
PS: My Mail: michael_seger at hotmail.com
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