Take Me Back

^{Take me back to Luxus Hunza}

If you ask me where I want to spend the rest of my life, I'd say - Hunza.

Assuming, you are not bored of my travel story, I'm back with the details of another day from my adventurous trip. (Even if you are bored, I'm enjoying writing it down and reliving each moment. You, however, are allowed to ignore it. ;-))

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As we got ready for the next destination, my heart didn't want to leave the beautiful village of Karimabad. We had one last scrumptious meal at another restaurant, run by a couple, where the head chef was the wife. Soon after, we rolled the wheels further North to another village in Hunza Valley - Attabad.

Actually, not a village anymore. It's famous for the lake.

ON JANUARY 4, 2010, A massive landslide thundered down the sides of the remote Hunza Valley in the Gilgit Baltistan Region of Northern Pakistan. The village of Attabad was buried, killing 20 people and destroying 26 homes. The disaster, however, was far from over. The landslide had dammed the Hunza River, and the rapidly rising waters of the newly formed lake threatened villages both below and above the dam.

Atlas Obscura

We traveled on the famous Karakoram Highway which connects Pakistan to China. It's built on the picturesque Karakoram mountain range whose highest peak is the savage, K2 - the world's second-highest and deadliest mountain.

My eyes were glued to the window, trying to take in the gigantic mountains outside. It was interesting to see the variety of mountains as we traveled further towards the North.

Green - Greener - Greenest - Slate Gray.

We crossed a couple of tunnels, and in between the tunnels, there were only gray giants outside. I couldn't even see the sky from the car because the peaks were so high.

For straight two hours, this was the pattern of scenery:

Gray mountains.
Black tunnel.
Gray mountains.
Black tunnel.
Gray mountains.
Black tunnel.

And then, Woah!

^{First glimpse of Attabad Lake (no filters)}

Literally, like a bolt from the blue; grazing the mountain base was a lake so blue... turquoise, maybe.

I can't forget that moment. If you see the monotonous and monochromatic scenery for two hours and then a vibrant colour pops into the scene - it's got to be a big O moment.

I could only mumble - SubhanAllah (Glory be to Allah).

We had planned to stay there for two hours. First, we went on a boat ride in Attabad Lake. There was Jet Skiing too but we had to do it in turns, not in the group because kids weren't allowed and someone had to stay with them at all times.

^{Attabad Lake from the boat}

The boat ride turned out to be more fun. The slower speed gave us plenty of time to absorb the beauty of the lake.

Despite its beauty, I couldn't shake off the fact that once there was a village there.

After the boating, we walked towards Luxus Hunza - the lake resort, to have some afternoon tea. The place was stunning and what you call in GenZ language - Instagrammable. We took tons of pictures. Kids were also happy to finally have a bigger plain area for playing.

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Next, we traveled a little further to Passu Cones. Passu is also a village on the Karakoram Highway. It's famous for its gigantic cone-shaped mountains which are 6000 meters high on average.

^{Passu Cones}

^{I had to take one with the cones. Excuse the quality. I couldn't find the original.}

You are probably tired of me admiring the gigantic beasts of every village I visit. I have attached the pictures for you to get an idea.

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It was another 2-hour drive to Khunjerab Pass (Pakistan-China border). It is the world's highest border at 4693 meters. We had to make the hardest decision of skipping that from our itinerary because of two reasons:

• the extreme weather at the border
• we wouldn't be able to make it back to our guestrooms in daylight (it was too dangerous to travel in the dark on the tricky mountain roads)

Visting Khunjerab Pass has been on my bucket list, for a long time; getting so close to it but not visiting it, was such a turn-off for me.

However, safety comes first. So, the consensus was to ditch it.

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I forgot to mention another adventurous place which we visited that day. We had to go a little off-track to visit a famous suspension bridge.

Yes, another suspension bridge.
(What wrong did I do? :-'))

Husseni Suspension Bridge is a famous bridge built over the Hunza River which connects two villages. It's famous because its planks (in alternate patterns) are missing.

It was poorly maintained in the past and also got washed away in floods once. But now it's more of a tourist attraction. People love visiting it and the daring ones cross it, just for fun.

The husbands wanted to cross the bridge. I forbade mine to even think about it. ;-P

Missing planks weren't hard to cross, however, when you start approaching the middle, strong gusts of winds swing the bridge to and fro, not to mention the vicious river underneath that too full of rocks.

So, we just took pictures. I crossed only 4 or 5 planks, there was still some land beneath us but I instructed my friend to take the picture at such an angle that made us look like we had gone too far. ;-D

It wasn't the highlight of the day but we managed to check it off from the bucket list.

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Tired but happy, we made it back to the guestrooms in time.

To be continued.