Trip: China, Pakistan & India - Kashgar to Kashmir
There are [22] stories from my trip: China, Pakistan & India - Kashgar to Kashmir
INDIA | Friday, 12 Oct 2012 | Views [421]
Kashmir was a favorite place for the Mughal emperors to cool off during the summer. We visited two lovely Mughal gardens this afternoon. And what a difference these were from the Mughal garden we visited in Lahore. The Nishat Garden in Srinigar ... Read more >
INDIA | Friday, 12 Oct 2012 | Views [316]
Srinigar has a fascinating old quarter with preserved wooden houses that have carved terraces and rounded balconies. The old town has windy and twisty lanes, with a thriving market selling everything from food to copperware ... Read more >
INDIA | Wednesday, 10 Oct 2012 | Views [581]
After almost 20 days on the road, I have now arrived at Kashmir, the last stop of this journey (Part 2 of the Great Silk Road trip). Kashmir (or at least the part of Kashmir in which Srinigar is located) is in the Jammu and Kashmir province ... Read more >
INDIA | Tuesday, 9 Oct 2012 | Views [469]
Not much to offer in Jammu other than a pitstop enroute to Kashmir which is disputed territory, fought over by India and Pakistan. I am still on the Silk Road, on the route that ended in Delhi. Key ... Read more >
INDIA | Tuesday, 9 Oct 2012 | Views [739]
Five hours from Amritsar heading north to Jammu today (a stopover enroute to Kashmir). The train ride was comfortable enough and as expected - two tiered bunk seats/beds, Railway-supplied cotton sheets and pillows, a stranger's feet hanging ... Read more >
INDIA | Monday, 8 Oct 2012 | Views [642]
Amritsar is only about an hour's drive from Lahore, one of the biggest cities in Pakistan, and yet it feels like it's a world away. On the road from the border crossing driving into Amritsar, it's farms and small shops along the way and yet gone ... Read more >
INDIA | Monday, 8 Oct 2012 | Views [495]
Today, it's a fond goodbye to Pakistan after 12 days in the country, and Namaste India! Again, we are the first people to reach the border office at Wagha and the Pakistani officials seemed slightly overwhelmed at having to deal with multiple ... Read more >
PAKISTAN | Sunday, 7 Oct 2012 | Views [913]
Wagha is currently the only road crossing from Pakistan into India. It is well-known for its daily flag-lowering ceremony and parade which takes place in the late afternoon on both the Pakistan and Indian sides of the border.... Read more >
PAKISTAN | Sunday, 7 Oct 2012 | Views [838]
Aside from the Karakoram Highway, Lahore was another big reason for visiting Pakistan. It has a reputation for a confluence of Mughal architecture, British history and Islamic tradition and I was very much looking forward to it. Driving into ... Read more >
PAKISTAN | Friday, 5 Oct 2012 | Views [929]
I wonder when human beings lost the ability to live together peacefully and tolerate each other's different beliefs. When did we all start getting so dogmatic especially about religion? I visited the Taxila ruins today at the outskirts of ... Read more >
PAKISTAN | Thursday, 4 Oct 2012 | Views [803]
Never did I think that I would have the chance to visit Abbottabad. Yep, that's the place where OBL apparently hid for years and was finally (apparently) killed by covert US action. Abbottabad lies directly on the highway to Islamabad ... Read more >
PAKISTAN | Thursday, 4 Oct 2012 | Views [839]
Day 7 in Pakistan - we need to go from Gilgit to Islamabad and it was 13 interminable hours on the road starting at 7:30am. In the morning, we pass by the spot where the Gilgit and Indus Rivers merge and where the Himalayas, Hindu Kush and ... Read more >
PAKISTAN | Tuesday, 2 Oct 2012 | Views [790]
Drove southwards from Karimabad for around three hours today and now at the historically significant town of Gilgit. It is a "town" indeed and we're no longer in a picturesque rural mountain village. Gilgit has many small shops and markets ... Read more >
PAKISTAN | Sunday, 30 Sep 2012 | Views [1468]
Because of the change in itinerary (riots and landslides ahead), we stayed an extra day in the Hunza Valley today which turned out to be an unexpected boon. The Ganish settlement near Karimibad is definitely a must-see in this part ... Read more >
PAKISTAN | Saturday, 29 Sep 2012 | Views [1665] | Comments [1]
Just so as to prove that I am really in Pakistan and that there are in fact both sectarian and anti-American troubles here as well as natural disasters, the forward itinerary is now up in the air. First - the good news: ... Read more >
PAKISTAN | Friday, 28 Sep 2012 | Views [950]
Pakistan does not immediately strike one as a foodie country, but nonetheless, there has been a couple of interesting finds. The typical cuisine of the Hunza Valley (north/central part of Pakistan along the Hunza River) comprises largely soup, ... Read more >
PAKISTAN | Friday, 28 Sep 2012 | Views [779]
Simple - the road stops but the smiles begin! But more about this shortly.
On 26 September, 2012, I finally fulfulled a longheld dream to cross the border from China into Pakistan via the Karakoram Highway (fondly known by the locals as the ... Read more >
CHINA | Wednesday, 26 Sep 2012 | Views [124203]
As with any great travel story, there has got to be a mishap. And the classic one is that the bus breaks down. Well, ours did today. Fortunately, after various coughing fits and screeching halts, our bus managed to at least ... Read more >
CHINA | Tuesday, 25 Sep 2012 | Views [1628]
As I walked through the winding alleys in the Old City of Kashgar today, I thought a lot about what it means to be "aspirational". In the industry that I work in, we talk about "aspirational" television channels and frankly, I have always ... Read more >
CHINA | Monday, 24 Sep 2012 | Views [666]
Today was the ideal day to visit Kashgar's famous cattle market, which only convenes on Sunday as well as its bazaar which is open every week of the day but becomes more hectic on sunday because villagers from rural Kashgar bring in their produce to ... Read more >
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