On the Road to Lahore

The Naran-Mansehra Highway was already a long drive, but there were still about 200km to Islamabad to go for. A few KM on the road on the northern approach and suddenly I was stopped by a check point - the road would cross now some of the Kashmir areas and as such I wasn’t allowed to continue and had to return to take the road via Abbottabad.

Already in the dark this is getting awful. No road-lights, most of the Pakistani driver keep the brights on and so it was even more stressing. A few km before Abbotbad was a traffic block caused by a broken down bus and lorry. Once cleared it was a hit and run drive at nighttime fighting with all the lorries.. after about 14 hours staring from Gilgit I reached Islamabad, found the guesthouse .

Next day the drive down to Lahore and the Crossing. Again awful traffic. For about 330km 7 hrs and as a result I was to late at the border - it closes allured at 3pm nowadays. So I had to stay in Lahore for a night.Crap!

This was Pakistan. A country which wasn’t really on my map apart from the Karakoram highway. Meet lovely, friendly and welcoming people all the way and the scenery was amazing, especially the Hunza and the Astore Valley. A complete opposite from what your would normally hear and see in the news!!! Biggest surprise on the journey so far.

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