July 27 All good things come to an end and so we prepare to leave this enchanting place. Yesterday we bought our bus tickets to Islamabad and today we got confirmation of our seats on the plane for a flight from Gilgit to Islamabad. Seen the weather forecast I think there is very little chance that the plane will be flying so I hang on to my bus ticket. Flying is our preferred choice though, a one hour flight against a bus ride of a minimum of 24 hours. Grey and Pierre have their mind set on flying but with the weather forecast the way it is I don’t think that that is going to happen Common sense prevails in the end and Grey and Pierre decide to come with the bus as well. We pay the bill at our hotel and say farewell to the owner of the Hidden paradise restaurant who has cooked for us over the last two weeks. He gives us all a few packets of dried fruit and a bar of Hunza chocolate, a mix of dried fruit and nuts to show his appreciation. I think we were his best clients for the season and he was sad to see us go. The owner of the hotel organised a taxi for us and paid for it, I think we were his best clients too. We are not looking forward to this ride and are apprehensive about the state of the bus. We could only get seats in the back of the bus so it is certainly going to be a bumpy ride. The first stage of the trip takes us back the way we had come over the road that is under reconstruction by the Chinese. It takes 4 hours to do the first ….. km which shows that it is going to be a long ride indeed. Not far from the confluence with the Indus river we run into an accident scene where a tanker truck has rolled and is across the road. It is noticeable warmer and the air is humid. After an hour the road is clear and we continue. Just before dark we are stopped at a police post. From there on busses are only allowed to travel in convoy with police escort. We are entering the tribal area and the folks around here have the habit of harvesting valuables of passengers of lonely busses. We wait for an hour and a half and later on this is the time which is going to make all the difference in our progress to Islamabad. Because of the waiting time to get the convoy going we arrive at the dining place at midnight. The next time I wake up is for another police check post where we have to show our passports. It is an eerie place in the middle of nowhere, windy, no light and a line of busses waiting in the dark. Walking along those busses in the dark with people silhouetted against the light of the head lights felt unreal. Each time the bus goes over a bump in the road we get air born and then fall back into our seats, my neck hurts but through the discomfort I manage to sleep through the night. When I wake up it is raining and that is the beginning of the end. The rain gets heavier, rocks start falling and streams swell up to torrents. I don’t remember at what time we first got stopped by a flooded bridge but we waited for two hours for the water to recede. From there on things got worse. The incessant rain found its way into the bus and the water dripped through the air-conditioning vents. Mid day passed and the possibility of another night in the bus started to loom. The bus driver was a skilled person and we never actually got stuck but driving over those flooded fords was a frightening experience. Sitting in the back of the bus there simply is no escape if things should go wrong. We traversed several of those fords and it was sometimes unclear why we had been waiting so long before crossing it as the rain never let up and the water level only got higher. We finally reached the first important town on the south side of the Indus gorge and that is where we stood for an impassable obstacle for the bus. A stream from a side valley had swollen to unbelievable proportions. A bend in the road followed the bend in the stream and the now raging torrent tore away at the ground. When we arrived already half of the road had eroded away so it was impossible for the bus to reach the bridge. The water had been passing over the bridge but because off a temporary abatement in the rain the level had dropped enough for pedestrians to cross. The water was the colour of dark chocolate and the air was filled with the smell of wet earth. We got our bags as soon as possible and ran over the bridge. The roar of the water was deafening and the sound of enormous boulders careering over the bottom of the river sounded like canon fire. The volume of water was bigger then the bridge allowed for and so every now and then a big wave would spew over the top. This action of getting over the bridge saved our bacon. An hour later the bridge flooded and became impassable. On the other side we found a cheap hotel, got something to eat and put our heads down nice and early.

July 29. The events are overwhelming. We have passed a good night sleep in our hotel but it rained the whole night and so the flooding continues. The raging torrent has turned into an all devouring monster. The road that we walked yesterday to cross the bridge has been completely carved away and the river is now a good fifty metres wider. The bridge is invisible under the enormous volume of water that presses around and over it. The on and off ramp washed away and the narrow passage around the bridge was a boiling mass of muddy water. Tons and tons of topsoil are being washed away every second. The really disturbing sight is the amount of building materials that race by on the surface. The road into the side valley is practicable for a few hundred metres and then it is blocked by some rock fall and washed away by the enormous forces at work. At times the earth shudders when big boulders in the flow race by. The bed of the river directs the flow against a rock wall which divides the water. It creates an gigantic vertex that turns at great speed and eats away at the terraced cornfields on the other side of the river. A house that looks like it has been finished not long ago is on the edge of the water and with the vertex eating away at the land on one side and the raging river on the other side, it looks doomed to disappear. On our side of the water is also a house right on the edge and the people are getting whatever belongings they can salvage before their home topples into the flow. The amazing thing is that while all this tragedy is going on some people risk their lives trying to salvage drift wood out of the churning water. The vortex is catching big quantities of flotsam and spits them out into the eddies close to the shore. Those people were standing on ground that was rapidly sliding into the river and while hanging onto branches they would pull the timber out of the water. It was timber from houses that have been destroyed further upstream and later in the day the horror stories start to come in from whole villages that have been swept away by the rising waters inhabitants and all. The sheer power of the water is frightening and we are all silenced by this overwhelming force of destruction. Later in the morning the new concrete house toppled into the river and got simply swallowed up by the water as if it was an aspirin dissolving in a glass of water. Many power lines come down as the poles topple into the flow so the power supply stops. We realise that it is going to take some time before we will able to continue our trip. News is hard to get as nobody can get in or out of town and the only way to get news is via the cell phone. From our friends in Islamabad we hear that the flooding is wide spread and that the rain will continue for another 24 hours. We also hear that a plane has crashed trying to land in bad weather in Islamabad and that all 152 people on board have perished. Sorry I have to post this and run.to be continued…….