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.
July 30. In the night it has stopped raining and in the morning the flow in the river has visibly reduced. They have constructed a flying fox over the gorge so people can come from one side to the other. All the shops are on our side and medicines and food are sent over. In the night the bottom part of a hotel, perched on the riverbank, has been swept away as has part of the park at the confluence with the Indus. Pierre is anxious to get on his way as he has a plane to catch on the first of august. I however don’t feel the same urgency and Im quiet happy to wait for the first vehicles to come though from down stream. Till then we have a place to sleep and food to eat in a reasonable safe place. The people down here are definitely not used to foreigners and often look at us with suspicion or just stare at us. Communication is also a lot harder as not many of the locals speak English. Throughout the day conflicting news comes through about people that would have made it out or into town but the impression is that tomorrow is going to be the day to make an attempt to leave. In the convoy from Gilgit we have met a young chap from Karachi on his way back from a holiday near Nanga Parbat. Sam is an excellent help in organising food and transport and makes things a lot easier for us. It stays dry all day and things are looking good for tomorrow. We pass the time playing cards and strolling down the main street noticing the dilapidated state of this place.
July 31. We get up at 7 and at 8 Pierre has found a taxi bus to take is away. A bulldozer has cleared a path trough the mud and stones that have spilled onto the road with the over flowing streams. The water level has receded enough so that we can drive trough the fords. It is only after two hours that we are stopped at a police checkpoint where we are told that we can not proceed with the car. We have to take our luggage and walk over a bridge and load up on the other side. A big landslide would be blocking the road ahead and they didn’t want the traffic backing up through the bazaar and over the bridge. However our driver organizes another bus on the other side of the bridge and by the time we are loaded up and drive to the landslide the bulldozer is just pushing the last rocks of the road. Then the devastation becomes worse again. In places there is just enough road left for the minibus to pass, the rest of the road having been eaten away by the floodwaters. We make good time and slowly leave the mountains behind us. We arrive in the first major town where we are just to late to catch the bus for Islamabad. With the help of Sam we organise a taxi to the next town to cache up with the bus and from there we drive in the first air conditioned, clean bus on roads with no potholes to Islamabad. Our friend Jabbar is at the bus station to pick us up and drive us to our hotel. It is strange to be back in a big town with all the consumables available, after two months in places with only the bare minimum in the shops. In the evening we eat pizza from pizza hut and burgers with French fries and coke. Im already missing the vege curry from the Hidden Paradise restaurant in Karimabad. It is only when we watch the news on TV in the evening that we realise the full extend of the drama that is taking pace and how lucky we have been to escape so easily. The floodwaters have now reached the plains and millions of people are displaced and many have drowned.
August 7. Time flies, even when you are not having fun. I have arrived in Manali after a gruelling 26 hours journey, what was supposed to be around 15 hours. The monsoon is also in India and a landslide had cut the only road in and out of the kullu valley and manali. Traffic backed up for ten kilometres as only a one lane strip was finally cleared and reconstructed. At some point the bus simply dropped all the passengers of, turned around and disappeared, leaving us to fend for ourselves. The rest of the trip was made on several flat deck Jeeps and finally the last bit from kullu with a bus. I thank the gods for holding back the rain as I had no means to keep my stuff dry. Grey and I stayed in Islamabad for 3 nights, we had some social engagements and had trouble finding a seat on the bus to Lahore which made us stay one more night. The whole trip to Amritsar went very smooth. The bus to Lahore did 120Kmh, a speed that we are not used to any more, then a taxi ride to the border. Here one has to walk across to India. I lost count how many times I had to show my passport but it was close to ten times. With all the luggage we have there was no way we would be able to carry it ourselves over the kilometre stretch between the borders so we had to haggle with porters to assist us, Pakistanis up to the border and then Indians on the Indian side. We left Islamabad at 7am and arrived in Amritsar at 2pm which left us enough time to have a look at the golden temple and organise tickets for the next day. From here on Im going on by my self as Grey has business in Delhi. The heat is intense and even when you don’t move the perspiration pours from our skin. Our last night in Islamabad we stayed with Sadjad, the owner of Cox and Kings travel agency, and the person with all the right contacts in Pakistan if you want to travel there. In the evening we had a great Pot- luck BBQ and copious amounts of liquor with some of the local pilots and the prime minister of the Kashmir region. That night the air conditioning was great but it must have given me a head cold. My cold really broke through during the bus ride to Manali and when I got here I was more dead then alive. Yesterday I spend in bed all day and today Im feeling a lot better. My plan is to Robbo114@hotmail.com. Cheers, Rob
rent a motorbike and tour around Ladakh for a couple of weeks. I will not maintain this blog from here on. The only addition will be a summary and travel tips at some stage. I hope you have all enjoyed travelling with me. If you ever have any questions about anything relating to Pakistan and Para Gliding feel free to contact me.