[kl-bogel] Unknown Pakistan. Part 2

Continue to publish the photo-reportage of the LJ-user SE-Boy : Morning in the town of Chilas hotel, situated in the Indus Valley. The last opportunity to wash (the next nine days, only in his own sweat). But it makes no sense - a local open jeep, and all of our roadside dust. Today is finally able to buy a gas burner to the cylinder, which will train in the mountains, today will see the first eight-Nanga Parbat today myself feel what it means to live in a climate that scientists say is extremely arid.

The first part

(31 photos)

1.Ind. One of the survivors of the flooding of bridges.

The road almost anywhere in a terrible state, but judging from the eternal round drought, floods in these areas must be monstrous. The latter, which occurred in the summer, it was the worst in the last couple hundred years. Our guide Samandar Khan said that no such fathers, or grandfathers did not remember. We drive on the right side of the Indus, he pointed to the villages on both sides and briefly explains: "This flood killed ten people there - forty, from the village there is nothing left."

Kashmir in this region is a mountainous desert, and people from time immemorial settle along rivers and streams. Hence, such large-scale destruction - where the settlement was not touched over the banks of the river, there poshodili sat down and collapses.

Battered communications virtually mend, not enough money. Repair is only in the Karakorum Highway, and then only with the help of the Chinese, because they need to market their products, and highway - the only land route by which goods arrive in Pakistan with the Chinese territory.

2. Wooden car bridge. Former.

Before the beginning of the track got a good farewell. Afternoon jeep suddenly veered off the highway (where are we, because there a piece of normal asphalt!) Protryassya of broken-down track and stopped near a small rock on which paint has been written Nanga Parbat. This is no joke, and the point of view. The conductor said we were lucky - it often happens that people came several times to look at the eight-away, but he hides in the clouds.

3. So we first saw the Nanga Parbat, the first eight-Himalayas.

4. View from the Karakorum Highway.

And indeed, the evening sky addictive. Finally, having lost all of the interior on the road and impregnated with dust to their underwear, goes to a village Tarishing. Height 2900. Machines do not go beyond - beyond the village begins the glacier, and from them the roads not yet built. "As you wish, put up a tent or a hotel?" - Asks Samandar. Ksenia silently points to the "hotel" - two-story wooden guesthouse with no electricity and facilities, which have a chance to wash. We are the only guests. Further, on the whole track does not see any instrantsa.

Somehow shake oneself, bathing reserve for tomorrow - too cold at night. Throw things, get acquainted with one of the porters who go with us, then go for a walk.

5. In Tarishinge cloudy and windy. In the background shestitysyachniki Hongra (or Chongryon).

The village is big, spread over several hills. There is still a shop that sells products up to boot. Buy Pakistani sweets such kozinaki that permanently adhere to the teeth, and a kind of phantom (last time), however, can not drink it. Want to climb the highest hill, but along the way begin to stray along the narrow passageways between the houses. Stacked stone fences squirm under the most unexpected angles, to get out of the maze is impossible, and soon we find ourselves surrounded by plots, houses, haystacks.

6. Type ago. From there we went.

When we approached the majority of women, hiding face, immediately go into the house, but the kids, by contrast, runs to meet him. Trying to know how to get to the hill, turns into a long conversation - rebyatnya surrounds us, young men and what it is gratifying curiosity later pulled up the girl and even a few women. Girls do not hide those, apparently, they still do not have fourteen. Many children are barefoot, although the evening was very cold.

The idea of ​​the hill has to leave - no one knows English, the conversation is conducted mainly through gestures and a dozen words. While Xenia tries to answer the questions in pidgin Inglish, trying to photograph the crowd. Useless! Children and the male part of the population willingly poses, but girls and women when the mouse lens instantly or turn away, or conceal a person handkerchiefs, or hiding behind the fence.

7. Ksenia laughs from attempts to explain himself, and the woman immediately turned away.

Girls admire complexion Ksyusha (white skin is considered beautiful Pakistanis), and especially her hands. "Beautiful", - they say, feeling her hands and show their own. Many girls from the hard work and lack of hot water is great coarse hands.

I keep trying to catch a woman's face at the camera and it becomes a game - girls, laughing every time, time to close. Twilight on their side, because you can not put a high speed shutter. Women's game is not to your taste, they go away. But girls like to look at the pictures, gathered in a circle, they are loudly discussing the display, and then point the finger at another subject, asking him to take pictures. Once they indicate the height of the house, near the walls of which we stopped.

On the roof sits an old man with a very stern face and compressed lips, apparently, one of the most respected elders of the village. It seems that watching for these foreigners is nothing superfluous currently not allowed. We meet his gaze, I raise my camera and do my questioning gesture. The old man nods his head in silence negative. Old age I was taught to revere - omitting the camera and read in the eyes of the old man's approval.

The girls, seeing that the camera remains out of work, ask to photograph a young boy. In the frame immediately stuffed the children. One of the girls helps a child to climb the fence, and until the court so the case, trying to catch her in the frame, but it is adventure, conceived, instantly crouches behind a fence.

8. The boy, who right, is seen between the legs of something blue. This handkerchief curtsying girl

Soon, very dark, it's time to go, but we do not let go. In the end, all on the same pidgin Inglish I declare that it was late, and tomorrow we go-go up Very Long, We bestowed candy everyone and leave. On the way home not just turn around - standing on the fence, the guys waving to us for a long time. Discuss with Ksyusha that will need to print photos for them and pass through a conductor.

In the guesthouse is dark, even if the eyes, wind blowing through the cracks. But the Chinese are very thick blanket. The owner brings the gas cylinder, which acts as a lamp - the end of the pipe is wearing some kind of a translucent substance. If you turn on the gas and set fire to the substance, it smolders, giving scant light.

Some time sitting, staring at the light and trying to drink fanta, then go to bed. Tomorrow go-go up very long ...

9. What a man feels when it comes to the borders of habitual world and discovers that front a world that is impossible to feel, to predict, explain? This is not the life of coffee in bed before the evening newspaper, which lives everyman, and not even a change of cities and countries, a familiar traveler and impose on him the stamp of the lack of gloss, which is more than compensated by a gleam in her eyes, but, if anything, another dimension in which you are only a temporary guest, not more.

In the mountains, the sea is losing ground to disappear three pillars whale measured everyday life - peace, stability, predictability, and the rocking deck or vertically recoiled land for which should suffice, depriving the fulcrum and the mind, making me the angle of view, beliefs, habits.

Pakistani Kashmir was a place where were the first to clearly feel the contrast of the junction of two worlds. And only due to the terrain.

***

Morning. Box rooms at the lodge overlooks the east, and the early sun completely transforms the surroundings - yesterday it was cloudy. Today is here and painful to look at the sides, a ridge of peaks Hongra (or Chongryon) is quite far from the village, but I want to wear dark glasses.

10. Hotel Nanga Parbat (many stars:)), true, behind the peaks Chongra.

Come two porters. Name of a young lanky guy we do not remember, but the second uncle of small stature with dark skin and Mongoloid-eyed looks a lot looks like a Tibetan. His name is Abdul unexpectedly. Small increase is compensated, as is often the case with the mountaineers, not so much physical strength, but an enormous endurance and working capacity.

Our backpacks carry yourself, kitchen, food, luggage porters and conductors are distributed among the porters. Third Porter yet, he will catch us in one village, and his role is a donkey. By donkey attached to the pursuer. In the evening they both come back.

Donkeys in the area and at these altitudes perform basic gruzoperevozcheskuyu function. Typically, several animals in the caravan, accompanied by their driver, because donkeys are stubborn. But there were sometimes quite self-contained "eshachki" self-supporting cargo. Razminutsya on the sometimes narrow path with them is not easy, to the extent that we have to push off.

11.

12.

13. The fame of our guide is truly phenomenal, every counter, without exception, stops spread with a few other words, say hello and hug. Samandar Khan, a very dear person, many climbing expeditions to Nanga Parbat, he leads, and being the Sirdar, and at the same time liaison officer at the mountain itself, he also visited several times, rising to a height of more than seven miles.

Beyond the village the road immediately goes up. Judging by the nature of the terrain, the hill on which we rise, no more than a side of the glacier. So it turns out. We reach the edge, wincing eat sour grapes are small, which somewhere got hold of Samandar Khan, and look down. It's hot. Glacier Chungfar (Chungphar) is very old, dead, ice, practically invisible under the crushed rock. One feels that he is slow and not dangerous, even path on a moraine natoptana.

14. Upper moraine resembles a frozen river-bat.

Over the valley glacier begins Rupa. Initially, broad, to the west, with a set height, it narrows until until limited by the eponymous glacier. Until the end of the valley to go for another three days.

We pass through villages, invariably causing curiosity among the locals. Life here is somewhat similar to the life of mountain peoples of Nepal. Standard two-storey houses with basements for cattle and the upper for people. On the roofs of dried grain or hay. The walls are made of different materials, probably, depending on income. There are all stone buildings, there is a stone-wood. In many homes, no glass in the windows.

Only, no Buddhist flags on every rise, there is no stupas and mani stones - too long ago, Buddhism had gone away (though traces of it remain, and quite a few), instead of each village mosque. But mining the mosque are very different from urban areas. Since the money from the residents of small mosques without minarets, as a rule, it's just the biggest house in the village. In the villages, located below, where there is electricity on the roofs installed speakers believers to better hear the call to prayer.

15. Very strange, sunflowers do not look at the sun.

16. From climbing the home will be poorer

17. Outside the village of cloud suddenly appears something

18. To me more a feeling of peace descends. The benefits of civilization with every step farther; cellular communications, electricity, hot water, transport, international standing - all this has ceased to be relevant. My house I have with them, as well as food and clothes, I made my way between five and shestitysyachnikami and approaches the first eight-ridge in the Himalayas, walking barefoot, smiling at the counter to the peasants, and that may be more important and interesting than that?
We go to the peak appears on the horizon Shaigiri

19. In the next village school. Since there is no light and warm enough instruction in the street. The boys are dressed almost identically - they sort of form, all in the hands of generic pamphlets. Shoes and clothes, presumably Chinese. We see that the guys want to run up to us, but the lesson is a lesson ...

20. We stop near the school near the little shops with the products. We were immediately surrounded by free lessons children, but only the male sex. The girls are kept separate and aloof. Train them separately, too, taught by women. My bare feet make a big impression on children and adults, although many guys also run barefoot. I'm trying to take pictures of schoolgirls, but they form the lens instantly hide. We have to embark on cunning: Spin-telephoto, Ksenia is to supposedly pose, I took aim at the last moment translating the lens on the girls. They did not look like Pakistani.

21. Gradually the weather worsens, the sky is delaying low cloud. This Nanga Parbat's fault. Massif it sticks out over the plateau and "clings" All the clouds are possible. Yes, and the temperature difference in the Indus valley and the top turns a neighborhood in the eight-atmospheric boiler. Using still good weather, people harvest. Hay harvesting and drying of grain by women.

22. By the evening begins to noticeably colder. Have to wear sweaters. At this altitude (3500 meters) already appears a little shortness of breath, and that cold air is not the studio's throat, hiding their mouths. Over the next hill overlooking a small valley at the bottom of a very short legs and great difficulty walking horse. Come closer, and it turns out that the whole area near the lake swamped, and the horses standing in knee-deep swamp. , Near a rapid stream, almost stream.

23.

24.

Soon there is something strange: the sun is almost hidden behind the neighboring mountains, rises a little breeze and the temperature for several minutes immediately falls to fifteen degrees. Never before has not had such an experience! Eerie otherworldly piercing cold, which freeze the hands, they hold little worth in the air, comes from a large cloud at the end of Dolinky. The wind is blowing from the same place, and it seems that in front of a giant refrigerator.

25. Feverishly to put up tents, porters quickly gather wood for the fire, but before you ignite it, going under the protection of two rocks. Tensioned awning, seated near him, Gray water on a gas burner - you need to warm up faster because the wind increases. Then he danced around the fire.

26. From left to right Xenia, Samandar Khan, a porter, whose name is not remembered, and a porter named Abdul. In the background is a donkey and a stream of cold water so that the thought of washing dishes cause physical pain.

Of course, it is understandable why it's so cold. We are at base camp Herligkoffera, and nearby, just a mile hiding in the clouds of Nanga Parbat, on top of which is now colder than the Arctic. It was she who breathes unearthly cold. We eventually warms and standing near a fire immovable. Fire is heat, and the spins are freezing in the wind.

Occasionally glanced at the cloud. The presence of the mountains there are very clear - go up to the cloud and reach out kosneshsya it. I'm trying to imagine what it is - to see the highest vertical wall in the world. Rupalsky slope of Nanga Parbat up to four kilometers above the wall does not exist. Even on Everest will not see this.

However, in the evening the mountain and is not shown. Before nightfall, the wind dies down, and we decide to just go ahead, looking out of the mist appears the bottom of the wall. Return immediately. Because suddenly a mountain avalanche. Even in blue-violet twilight clear that an avalanche of gigantic - it appears from the mist rapidly and is a huge front, capturing the entire visible portion of the foot of Nanga Parbat.

All jump up and look like one of the mountain. Samandar Khan shakes his head: "A very large avalanche, really!" It's like instant developing cumulus cloud explosion, which is becoming more and higher than any skyscraper. But the most terrible, that everything is absolutely no sound, only when an avalanche hits the bottom, you hear muffled grunts uterine. After this, a cloud with a vengeance begins to spread in breadth and up ...

Suppressing the desire to escape far away and quickly, we ask in unison, will not come up to us whether the shock wave. Samandar calms, said that between the visible edge of the slope from the tents and a mountain glacier lies Batsinsky (Bazhin) several hundred meters wide (it to us to overcome the next day), the avalanche hit it and go out.

Samandar rights do not end up in a few minutes, a sharp gust of wind swooped down and starts horizontal snowfall: Mountain gave us our first hello. Soon the snow avalanche ends. Just around it was autumn, and now came the local winter.
***

Morning cloud gradually lifted the curtain, exposing the snow slope and protruding from the snow grim gray walls of eight-and suddenly the fog goes away. Becomes as bright as day - the sun, yet came into the valley, long light mountain, and spectacle is incredible! Grab a camera, but I understand that though will be able to cram more than four kilometers into the lens to transmit the grandeur and size eight-impossible.

27. Rupalsky slope of Nanga Parbat, the height of the mountains 8,129 meters height from the foot of the wall more than 4 km

28. This is indeed the King of the mountains (another name for mountain Diamir and translated)!

Going with the spirit and go to the foot of Nanga thinking get close as possible and safe. For the first time in my life I see a mountain that rises directly from the valley. In Nepal, to come to the same Mount Everest, have long been stomping through the mountains, which gradually become higher and transform into snow-capped giants, and thus obtain a gradual transition. Here, the mountain is completely apart, and this difference between the two worlds, terminator, clearly visible, like a knife cut. And it's crazy.

We go out on a torn and broken edge of the glacier. Nanga Parbat, like a giant, held a boundary between warm and cold, between color and black-and-white world, between life and death. Red grass on the slope looks like a warning.

29.Konets world. Batsinsky bottom of the glacier, Nanga Parbat is now behind me.
Gore is incredibly gloomy, sullen and unapproachable! With one glance at her get scared and cold and so wade to the bone. Blshaya part of the slope re-wrapped in fog (see first photo in the record), but it is still a painful impression: that mountain lurking and waiting. Ksenia out on a rock hanging over a cliff, and even smiles, although she was afraid, too - the stone is unreliable.

30. Worlds apart - literally: separated worlds. Some time wandering around, take pictures, but I am in despair - to convey the value of the slope is unrealistic because it does not compare to anything. Nanga still the same silent and lurking. An oppressive silence - no bird's cry, or the rustle of wind in the grass. Suddenly, the fog covering the lower part of the wall, as if released tentacle - swelling and swelling, the top rolls out an avalanche, and although she was quite small in comparison with yesterday, we inadvertently runs away back.

31. From the celestial phenomena do not block the board.

To be continued ...

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