The less traveled road to Shimshal

It can take quite a while to get to Shimshal from Gilgit. First, you need to take a minivan to Aliabad, the major transport hub of the Hunza valley. From there it’s a 5 hour journey on a trusted old Toyota Landcruiser along the Karakoram Highway. Just past Janabad you turn off the highway and onto a narrow dirt road that hugs the side of a mountain. In places that road is just as wide as the Landcruiser with big cliffs dropping down a couple hundred meters. Occasionally, the car crosses surprisingly sturdy hanging wooden bridges. There are no rails on the track to stop the car from going over the edge and the latter half of the journey is usually driven in absolute darkness. It is frighteningly glorious if you’re into this sort of thing!

#Getting a seat

So, theoretically you could reach Shimshal in a day from Gilgit, but the Landcruiser only leaves if there are enough people. And as it gets colder and the days get shorter, that might not always be the case. After stopping in Karimabad for a couple days, I got myself on the waiting list for the next day to Shimshal. The jeep would leave anytime between 11 in the morning to maybe 2 or 3 in the afternoon, I had been told. Someone would call me in the morning for the correct time. But the hours passed and the phone call didn’t come, so by 15:30 I gave up on the idea of leaving that day and headed out for some chai. At 16:00 the phone call finally came. I had a spot if I could make it in half an hour to Aliabad. I quickly finished packing, then headed outside to wait for a shared taxi that never came. At 16:30 I cancelled my current spot and reserved another one for the next day.

The next day my plan was simple. Get to Aliabad by 11:00 and just wait it out. Either the Landcruiser would leave or I’d stay a night in Aliabad. Rinse and repeat until it finally happened! At the Landcruiser-Station I was told that the car was almost full already and that we’d leave around midday. At 13:00 news came that the Landcruiser was in the garage being repaired. At 14:00 the Landcruiser would be there momentarily. At 15:00 it finally showed up and after loading all the luggage we finally set off at 15:30. Traveling is rarely glamorous, there is just way too much waiting and sitting around involved and to handle that, one of the most useful things to pack is patience!

#Seating rules

There is a certain hierarchy when it comes to seat selection in shared taxis, minivans or jeeps. Two men, usually the oldest in the group, sit in the front next to the driver. The row directly behind is reserved for women. If there are more than four women on board, then the second row also turns into a women-only row, but exceptions can be made for male relatives. Kids usually sit on their mother’s laps. The rest of the men then pile into the last row or rows, the younger ones further in the back on the uncomfortable seats behind the axle. Sometimes, young men hang on for dear life outside the vehicle in the back, usually only for a short time though until a spot becomes available inside as people arrive at their destination.

Usually, I get seated in the last row with the young men, but this time I got lucky and was offered a seat up front. While the view was great I somehow doubt that Toyota meant for two people to sit next to the driver, especially if one of them is a big European guy, but such is the traveling life and you just have to roll with it. Close to Passu we stopped for a quick chai and toilet break and then piled back into the Landcruiser for the last leg of the journey. After turning off the highway and stopping at the police check post we finally entered the narrow Shimshal valley.

#On the road

The road itself has an interesting history. Shimshal village is about 50 km from the highway and for most of its existence its residents had been walking on small precarious mountain paths from and to the highway, the trip taking anywhere from 5 to 7 days. In the 70s and early 80s people tried to get the government to build a proper road, but the cost was deemed too high for just one village. So in 1985 the Shimshalis took matters into their own hands and started building the road themselves with help from NGOs like the Aga Khan Foundation and financed largely through donations and some government grants. In 2003, after 18 years of hard work, the road was finally finished. When the first vehicle arrived, a few of the oldest residents in Shimshal saw the first car of their life! Even though the road certainly is dangerous, there has never been a fatality in 22 years of operation. One car did apparently go over the edge at some point, but the car was stationary at the time with the driver being on a toilet break. Another car flipped over, but didn’t miraculously slip into the void and everyone was fine. One guy, a Mr Mirza Aman, also set the unofficial world record of the longest drive in reverse on a winding dangerous mountain road, going all the way from the highway to Shimshal village.

Finally, after about five hours our little Landcruiser that could ambled into the outskirts of Shimshal. The women had been entertaining us by singing some Pakistani folk and pop songs for the last hour or so. As people got off, tho, it got more and more quiet in the car until there was only me and a couple Japanese tourists left. The driver dropped us off at the Shimshal Tourist Lodge, where I got a room, had a quick bucket shower and then headed to the kitchen for a few cups of hot tea before heading to bed an hour later.