Neil poses with his new best friend.

Journal and photos by Neil Dana

Who would have thought that getting denied at the Chinese border would be a good thing? Well, I guess it wasn’t, but today, the day after our denial, being back in Pakistan was a very pleasant one……… for some of us.

Poor Nick and Todd left last night after dinner to drive more than 16 hours all the way back to Islamabad to get new Chinese Visas. They were not excited about that at all. Luckily, our previous guide, Riaz, was still around and met them just a few hours into their drive. We haven’t heard from them yet, so I am assuming they haven’t arrived. It is going to be a long journey; thank goodness we received a huge shipment of Red Bull the other day.

As for us, we woke up today and drove a couple hours to the town of Hunza, which is a beautiful mountain town in the middle of the Karakoram Hwy. We are staying just above Hunza in tiny town called Karim Abad. Mountain peaks in every direction surround us and it is extremely peaceful and quiet.

The rest of the team decided to drive a couple of hours towards Gilget to use the Internet, and I stayed behind by myself and sat on a cliff edge and played some guitar while overlooking the most scenic mountains ever! Then the local antique store owner here, a young man named Anwar came up to me and sat down. We chatted for a few hours and picked some local grapes and stuffed our bellies. He is actually from Afghanistan and lives here for half the year when trekkers come to hike the local mountains and buy his merchandise. He is a really nice guy, and I asked him all kinds of questions about his view on America.

Now as you all know, Afghanistan is where the Taliban came from. We gave them guns and ammunition and put them in power there back in 1979 or so, then they went crazy and we ended up air striking them in 1996 and ousting them from power. Anwar said that he loves Americans, and he is so happy that we ousted the Taliban. He really likes the new man in power now. He also says that many foreigners travel to Afghanistan and tourism is picking up.

He doesn’t have many friends here, just one really. He has eight brothers, and they are spread all over the world, including a few of who are antique dealers.

After hanging with Anwar for a while, I went for a walk as the sun was setting and I spotted some goats and hung out with them. Their owner came by and we ended up talking for an hour, too. He and his brother are really cool guys. They are farmers and live on this sweet plot of land overlooking the mountains with a stream running through it. I believe his name was Marab, and he has three brothers; one reads, one drives, and the other one works on the farm. He was really friendly and grabbed his goat and then told me to come over and take a picture with him. It was pretty funny, as this goat didn’t really like to be held too much. However, after I held him and let him go, he kept coming back up to me and rubbing my leg and jabbing me with his horns!

The people I have met in Pakistan are very friendly, and it is hard to imagine there are so many fundamentalists and hard-core religious fanatics that cause such terror and fear for most Americans. The truth is, there are parts of Pakistan that are very dangerous, yet most of Pakistan is beautiful and very worth visiting. The Pakistani people are just people, just like you and me. And like everywhere in the world, there are some crazy people whom the media focus on and terrify the rest of the world by only showing those small negative incidents on TV news constantly. We have been traveling through many parts of the world now which have TRAVEL WARNINGS, and which the news always portrays as being very dangerous; however, the reality is very different from what you see on TV. The only way to really judge is to come over here yourself and check it out.

Of course, some areas of the world are extremely dangerous, and I wouldn’t go near if I were paid very large amounts of money, such as Iraq!

Well, I hope Nick and Todd are alright and they call us soon to let us know they have arrived in Islamabad. Until then, I will continue to soak in the beautiful mountainous surrounding Pakistan and its people and animals. In fact, right now, the moon is shining right over the mountain top! MMMnnnnn.

Neil

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