On the third day, we drove into verdant valleys nestled in the deep cleft of mountains, of bustling villages, cold, mountain streams, bearded men, tea, fruit stalls and colourful marketplaces.
We drove for three days from Islamabad on the Karakoram Highway, the road that the Pakistanis declare is the Eighth Wonder of the World. It is an engineering triumph, a road wrested from precipitous mountainsides, running from the lowlands of Pakistan through its remote, mountainous provinces to the Chinese border at the Khunjerab Pass, from which it plunges into the wilderness of China’s Xinjiang province.
We drove through desolate country of elemental beauty and vastness, great expanses of pink, grey and brown contrasted with a searing blue sky. Snow-covered mountains pierced the sky. In certain places, the road ran by the milky-grey froth of the ancient Indus River, from which India derives its name.
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