Over the Shandur Pass
The Shandur Pass is probably most famous for its annual polo tournament – a three day festival held in July with teams from Gilgit and Chitral competing for honours in fiercely contested matches. The grounds were established in this most unlikely of places by a British major in the 1930s, apparently based on his predilection for playing polo by moonlight. With the difficulties of reaching the place, it should have remained a whimsical indulgence, but the sheer romantic folly of it all was clearly shared and the tournament was established soon after. It’s also an extremely beautiful, if stark, nature reserve and still a contested area between several Pakistani states. Police presence here is palpable, with many stops and checkpoints along the route to and from the pass.
We’d decided to splash out on this journey and opt for a private 4×4 to take us over the pass, starting in Gilgit and ending in Chitral, though we ended up striking a deal with a driver recommended by Rehman in Ghulkin – we got a pick up in Minapin and drop off all the way into the Kalash valleys for the same price. We were happy to take his son Ali with us so he could see the pass and the valleys just for the sake of experience.
Our driver, Ejaz, turned up on time in a pleasingly less than pristine Toyota Land Cruiser and we spent the initial part of the journey meandering down to Gilgit over the smooth roads of the KKH. Once past the town, however, the roads quickly deteriorated into a patchwork of rough tarmac and dusty gravel tracks, punctuated by frequent police checkpoints. We’d prepared well for this, having multiple copies of our passports and visas to hand over and save the painfully laborious wait for our details to be registered (known to take up to half an hour).
We’d also been warned that a good deal of construction work was going on over the entire route, ostensibly to widen it and eventually lay tarmac, though from what we saw it was random and piecemeal at best. There’s a protocol at construction points. Every day, the construction company decides to shut the road both ways for a specific period of time and only allow traffic through at set times. Nobody knows what these times are until they turn up. Our first delay was about 40 minutes. We waited in a shaded garden-like area, then played the quick and intense game of ‘dash to your car as quickly as possibly, cut across every vehicle you can in a mad scramble to get as far along the queue as possible, whilst flooring the accelerator to create as big a dust cloud as you can muster‘. It was like a live action version of the Wacky Races.
The mad and dusty dash….
As the hours passed we found ourselves getting excited by the random and unexpected. An abandoned yellow pick-up truck, herds of goats and yak shepherded with scant regards for traffic, anything to break out from that strange otherworldly semi-trance you fall into on long journeys.
Our second delay was also around 40 minutes, but this time our only shelter was under a rock-face perched on arse-numbing boulders. The crazy ‘eat my dust’ charade was even more amusing this time with several cheeky players purpusely causing false starts by leaping on motorbikes and revving loudly. Clearly we were not the only ones trying to break the monotony.
Construction site near Gilgit
Waiting for the road to open…
Day one finished 12 hours after setting off with an hour-long search for acceptable digs for the night in the stunningly beautiful Phander valley. Alas the beauty of the scenery was not matched by the quality of the hotels and guesthouses. We rejected the first place on the basis that the owner had to be persuaded to turn the water on and had matresses made of concrete. The second was worse – we were shown three shacks in a field. Only one had a bed, the others had skanky mattresses on the floor. All had recently been slept in and had overflowing ashtrays and strewn about half-eaten food. Even I drew the line on this one. Third time lucky though, a clean place with both water and electricity – all our Christmasses at once!
Phander valley
Phander valley
A quick early breakfast for a 7am start to day two. We thought the roads were rough yesterday, but that was nothing compared to the rutted tracks, crater sized potholes and raging torrents we faced today. We’d thought the trip would be difficult in parts, especially as the snows were just starting to recede, but these roads were truly terrible. This was serious off-roading for miles and miles and miles.
We ploughed on, wondering how on earth anything other than 4x4s could make this journey. We saw several saloon cars nonetheless, somewhat beaten up, bouncing dramatically. We saw several shared jeeps with occupants crammed into the u-shaped rear, backs to the plastic windows or exposed to the dust-laden air. This was our original choice of transport – very cheap at less than 3,000 Pakistani Rupees (about £8 for a two day trip) but the price being paid by those in back-seat purgatory looked far higher. They couldn’t even see the view.
The roads sliced through hills and mountains, sometimes skirting sheer drop-offs, sometimes flirting with gentle inclines. We forded many a gushing stream, ice still just about clinging on around the banks. The scene changed as we gained altitude, gradually becoming more alpine, but with surprising landscapes appearing around the corner. Out of nowhere we discovered an oxidised scree slope, bright rust orange glowing in the sunlight, only to be replaced by drab, dusty grey slate after the next bend.
On the road to the pass
Towards 9 am we started approaching the pass. The landscape changed again to lush green pastures, and beautiful blue flowing streams. Black yaks were grazing peacefully. It was a magical scene. We found more yak close to the road on a harsh plain of mud and stones. They seemed nervous, skittish even, of us humans and our clunking cameras.
Approaching the Shandur Pass
Approaching the Shandur Pass
Then a small set of buildings appeared, green roofed, and two stands opposite each other – the polo grounds at the top of the pass. We couldn’t go down to view the grounds, partly as the police at the pass checkpoint were not keen, partly as the polo pitch itself was partially flooded from the melting snow. Tourists tramping over the playing surface doubtless does it no good at all. No matter though – just being there and seeing it was thrilling enough.
Polo grounds at the Shandur Pass
The Shandur Pass on the road down to Chitral
The next few hours were wonderful. We’d got through the pass with no real obstacles (I was surprised there was no snow on the road though it appeared it had only just melted) and the views on the downward slope were just as spectacular as those going up. We came across an abandoned and engineless jingle truck, modified to pull an oil tank and Ali and I again amused ourselves taking photos & videos and generally acting like kids whilst Helen looked on shaking her head.
Abandoned truck
The roads continued to be difficult and at times descended into the almost farcical. Ejaz pushed on resolutely with supreme skill and tried to reduce our discomfort as much as possible. We reached a village around 20 miles from Chitral when we hit our biggest construction delay – two and a half hours long. We at least managed to take shelter from the heat in a local shop. Hundreds of vehicles littered the small streets – massive jingle trucks, scores of shared jeeps and countless motorbikes. When we did get going, we were stunned at the cause of the problem. Huge JCB-like diggers were shovelling huge quantities of dirt on top of four large concrete pipes to create a makeshift road. Each pipe was gushing huge quantities of dirty water as single file traffic hastily sped over them. Clearly this whole section of road had been washed away by water that was still cascading down the hillside above it and desperate attempts were being made to at least make it passable again. There was no way anything larger than a van was getting over. The car but one in front of us careered over the bridge and ploughed into the incline opposite. Several locals were on hand to manoeuvre it backwards, stick stones under the wheels and push it out……
Waiting for the bridge to be made
Rescuing cars after the makeshift bridge
Safely over but behind time, Ejaz turned into a demon, slamming the accelerator down, barging past those unlucky enough to be in his way and riding roughshod over everything in his path. It was quite a ride. Speeding through Chitral we entered the Bumboret valley, possibly the most accessible of the Kalash valleys and spent an hour or so on even worse roads in the ever deepening gloom of evening. It was pitch black by the time we arrived after spending just under 14 hours on the road.
We’ll cover the Kalash valleys in a separate post, but suffice to say our day ended with one and a half litres of local wine (in a plastic Coke bottle). A most welcome and merry end to what felt like a bruisingly epic two-day journey…..
Simon (7th May 2025)
I remain amazed at what you’re achieving but have a question…what do you do to wash clothes? You’ve mentioned toilets, eating and sleeping and showering but where does one do their laundry?
Ah well – depends what’s to hand. Buckets, sinks, showers, toilet bowls, dirty puddles, running streams, rivers, rain storms, hotel service sometimes, occasionally something called a ‘washing machine’ if we’re in an AirBnB. Don’t trust local laundries in these parts – on my first time in India I sent several shirts off to the local dhobi wallah and they came back with no buttons (or part buttons) having been whacked to death on stones….
What an eventful few days. Your photography is amazing, you are really capturing everything, it looks stunning. What’s more impressive though is all the photos with Helen in, knowing they will be posted for the world to see.😍. Keep them coming.
Thanks Tracy. Not sure Helen agrees with the amount of pictures she appears in, but I think they look good….
Great photos, the scenery looks amazing!
Photos never really do things justice of course. It’s a fabulous place I can tell you!
Wow. The journey looks amazing. Hoping you continue to stay safe and enjoy your adventure. Clearly once in a life time although I bet you must be missing LBS…
LBS….LBS….Oh yeah, that place we used to work….Staying as safe as we can in a pretty bonkers part of the world at the moment. Off to Afghanistan soon, so no risks there at all…..
Actually, wierdly, we are missing LBS a bit…..Hope you’re well too Tom and enjoying retirement