Life in Last Village at Afghanistan & Tajikistan Border in Chapursan EP.17 | North Pakistan
How many villages in total are here? 11 My shoes are wet now because I had to place my foot on the ground. Look at the flow of water. The locals have brought tea for us. Assalam Alekum. Good Morning. Namaste. Sat Sri Akal. To Everyone. From Sost. We got here last night around 8 pm.
And today we got up at 6:30 am. Because we are going to a very beautiful valley... Chapursan. Ali hasn't been there before. No. I haven't. I covered half the valley last time.
And I liked it so much that I can't stop praising it ever since. So today we are gonna go there. It's either 72 km or 86 km from here. Not confirmed at this point in time.
So if we leave by 8 am... We are sitting at the breakfast table right now. Let me show you our breakfast. We are a hotel called Roomy Khawana in Sost. You can say that Sost is the last city of Pakistan. Because after this city you can just enter China, after getting customs and visa clearance.
Also it's the first stop for the trading goods coming from China. That's why it's a rather busy place. Like always, we have parathas for breakfast. And bread... we were lucky to get some bread today.
Along with half fried eggs. Some home made apricot jam. And tea.... That's our breakfast. Let's do the breakfast now. Ready? Ready. Shall we leave Yasir? Let's go.
Bismillah... In the name of Allah... *Prayer for the journey* We ask Allah for a safe and memorable day for us. Really excited to see the valley again.
We are hoping we could go all the way till the end of this valley. And explore the whole valley. That was our hotel. And the area towards our right side is the port area. For customs and other related stuff.
This is KKH and main bazaar of Sost. Our hotel was about a couple of kilometers back up there. Please fill the tank. This is a relatively longer track so we want the tanks of our motorcycles to be full of fuel. We may also get the fuel from some shop along the way.
But it's always a risk. You may or may not get it. Here you can easily find banks... Other than that, you can get almost anything you need from this bazaar. You can say that almost everything needed by a traveler is available here. Good enough to get you going. We'll take a turn when we reach that bridge.
And this road that runs in parallel is the road to Chapursan. Here's a signboard saying Chapursan and that's where we have to take the turn. We have to do the registration? Where exactly? Ah ok. Over there. Ali has taken care of the registration. According to the guys on this check post, it's almost a 4 hour track.
But we have to record videos as we go... especially on our way to our destination... So, for us, it can take up to 4 to 6 hours. Hopefully we'll be back this evening. Check this out... Straightaway you can see the beauty of Chapursan. You'll see that its landscape is very much different from that of Shimshal.
I'll keep on sharing bits about it. Compared to Shimshal, this is a much bigger valley. The mountains here are very colorful.
You notice it when you look around. It's quite dusty as well. Its landscape feels very similar to that in Pamirs in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. So if we go all the way to the end, its border touches Tajikistan. We'll ask if the locals go there or not. These valleys are unique because the landscape here is very different from all the other valleys in Pakistan.
So unique that you don't see it anywhere else in Pakistan. Check out this track... It's running along the river, in a zigzag manner, through the vertical walls on the mountains on both sides.
That's the beauty of this area. This unique landscape ... That's why foreigners really like to visit Chapursan and Shimshal.
Overall this a rather easy track. I feel that it is better than the one we saw in Shimshal. Because there aren't many rocks on the track. Unless there is a landslide at some point.
Wow... That's one beautiful curve... I did some internet research about this valley. According to that, there are almost 550 houses here.
And the population is about 3000. Consider Shimshal that had a population of 600. You can see the size of this valley in comparison.
The locals speak Wakhi as well as Burushaski. Burushaski is the language that is also spoken in Hunza. Wakhi is the language spoken in Wakhan corridor and Wakhan region in Afghanistan. Also in Tajikistan... Did you see how beautiful that water stream is...
Since the border on this side touches Tajikistan... The language and culture of this region is quite similar to that from Tajikistan. Anyways, we'll share any new info that we get with you.
On one side, we have a water stream whereas on the other side we have a river. Look at that waterfall over there... Isn't it beautiful...
Actually the track looks much more beautiful now. And so is the case with the villages. We'll be going straight.
Even I haven't been here before. But I think we need to go straight from here. I felt that the other road goes to some village. How awesome is this scenery and landscape...
If you are coming here in June, July or August... You'll notice that the villages seem rather empty during these months. You won't see many males here. Even the elderly... Actually the locals here go to higher grounds in some green meadows and pastures.
They can easily find food for their cattle there. That's why they go there. So you'll mostly see women and young kids here. That's why, passing through these villages, we have a sense of emptiness around us.
We observed the same phenomenon in Shimshal as well. The road here has been swept away by powerful water from the river. I think we just need to do this water crossing here.
We are comfortably gonna get to the other side. There are rocks in the water but that's alright. As we are moving forward, the villages are getting smaller.
I think most of the population lies in the first 15 to 25 km. As a matter of fact, the first village comes after 15 km or so. But there are another 3 to 4 villages there. They seemed relatively bigger. There's another village in front of us. Check out this village of Chapursan.
This one is really beautiful. It's quite serene. Greeted by a cool breeze. And this village ...
'Home of LUMS' Quite possible that people from LUMS university might be coming here. We saw two hotels in this village. This village has school as well as health care. At least there are boards saying that.
Assalam Alekum. How are you? How far is the shrine of Baba Ghundi from here? Almost 1.5 hours from here. Okay. Are we halfway through? More than that.
Okay. What's the name of this village? Reshit. This is Seher Sabz. That's Reshit.
How many villages in total are here? About 11. Alright. Thank you Sir. Do you guys speak Wakhi or Burushaski? Wakhi. Right. Thanks very much. It's spoken in Hunza. Okay. Allah Hafiz We have just spotted a small shop here. Let's stop by.
Assalam Alekum. How are you? What's the name of this village? Kumpire Dior Okay. Can we get something to eat or drink? We try. No problem.
Tell him which biscuits you want? They are watering their crops. There is no shortage of water here because mostly it comes from the glacier. They had less rainfall this year though.
So far, all the villages that we have passed, had electricity. There's network coverage of SCO as well. There were a couple of bigger villages back there and they even had internet. However, here we can only make a call. The name of this village, as I read from the board, is Zood Khun.
There was a primary school back there. When there's power outage, there's no signal or internet anymore. We also noticed that at many locations.
For instance, your call gets disconnected while you are still talking. Because there are no signals at all. Then we found out that it's dependent on electricity. The peaks that you can see right now are actually from a glacier.
This water is coming from underneath this glacier. What a landscape this is. It appears like cones.
Similar to the landscape of the canyons... But that's red in color. There's a lot of water here. You keep going while I follow you.
I don't think this water is too deep. Okay? At the moment... My shoe is wet because I had to place the foot on the ground.
May be the tire slipped... But no worries. Boy that was a lot of water back there. I'd be coming from the right side? Well, that was my left side. I think we'll be crossing that wooden bridge. Check out the water, guys.
Look at that powerful flow of water. Wow you go first, Ali. No problem. I can go first. Be careful, man. I can see some nails on the bridge. The track has now become slightly tougher.
Not too tough though... but it's not easy. Because of rocks and lack of traffic on the track. Well... Finally, we have laid eyes upon these green meadows and pastures... That's where people bring their cattle for grazing. We are there now.
And I think Baba Ghundi's shrine is also along this same road. This is the last section. It's been a long track. It took us 4 hours to get here.
And we also took a couple of breaks. I'm not sure but I think it's close to 80 km. On our way back to Sost, I'll tell you the total length of one side on this track. Because now I have marked the mileage of my motorcycle. It's probably one of the longest off road tracks that I have ever done in a single day. Looks like we are not alone here.
I can see some motorcyclists there. And this place is in fact wonderful. I mean it's totally different from the previous landscape. You can see locals here along with their sheep and goats.
O' there's an army check post here. I wasn't expecting that. Anyways...
Assalam Alekum Do you need ID's of all three of us or any one would be okay? All three of you. Wa Alekum Salam. How are you? Thanks to Allah. All good. What about you? I started riding after watching your vlogs. We watched your vlog and came here.
Well even I couldn't get there. But we got here today. You only did a part of it the last time. Right? Yes I came back from halfway.
Assalam Alekum Ali. How are you? Where did you stay last night? In Sost. This is the shrine of Baba Ghundi. It also happens to be the last point where a tourist can go. Beyond this point, only locals are allowed to go. There they have more pastures where they take their cattle to.
It's located right at the point where the borders of Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan meet. This is the Wakhan belt. That's why the locals are called Wakhi.
The locals may even have some relatives in Afghanistan or Tajikistan. So they visit each other quite often. Back there you saw the check post of Pakistan Army as well.
So if someone wants to go to the border... Mostly, it's only the locals who get the permission to go. So people have to come here with permission from Gilgit. I was told that they didn't always need the permission to move across. People would easily come and go. And Baba Ji came here from Afghanistan.
He has a lot of followership in this region. That's why on the annual celebration of the shrine, not only the people from this region... But also from Afghanistan and Tajikistan attend. And it's a grand festival here. Other than that, the locals still do trading with the locals from Afghanistan and Tajikistan. I was told that they bring yaks from there.
So locals can buy anything from each other's regions. There is no hotel or restaurant here. There's just a small shop and even that is closed. We'd like to stop here and enjoy because the scenery is really amazing. I'd like to share some footage with you. And then we'll start our return journey.
Thank you so much Uncle. You can see that a local has brought us tea. Thank you so much Sir. How many people are you? We are three. Yes three. Thank you so much Sir. You won't have some tea as well? No. Please you guys go ahead.
Sir, what's your name? Abdul Hameed. So you live here? Yes. I serve the people. Those who come here and I serve them tea. Are you from Zood Khun? Where's the other guy? He's just coming.
He went down there to drink water from the stream. Okay. We are on our way back now. There were some guys camping here. They did invite us but we had already had tea with the locals.
We'll just say our farewell greetings before we leave. The tents are ready now. We just had tea with a local. It was really nice to meet you all. Thank you. You guys enjoy yourselves. It's such a beautiful place. Ideal for camping.
Do consider camping here if you have a tent of your own. May be, the locals can give you some space to stay in their houses. But there aren't any hotels. That's the place. We were thinking about having dinner in Karimabad on our way back from Chapursan.
But as we passed by this place, we thought to try something new today. We have been eating pretty much the same thing everyday. We are having a yak burger.
It's called Burger of the House. It has a double portion of yak meat. There are fried and some sauce. And they said that they don't use any ketchup. I hope it will be good as many people have praised it. People from everywhere come here to try this burger.
We were really hungry. Done with our burger. It tasted really good. I cannot say that this is the most delicious burger of my life.
You should also not come here expecting the best burger. It tasted like any other beef burger. The price of one burger is PKR 1300/- including the drinks. Time to head to Karimabad. That's our hotel.
Let's park here for now. We have checked into hotel Roomy Dastan. It's built in a rather traditional manner. It looks like one spacious and comfortable room. And the washroom is also very clean. Hot water is also available.
It does get hot in here at times. It's not like you are in Hunza and it's always cold here. That's why there's an AC here and Ali is already in bed.
We had a really tiring day. Hopefully you must have enjoyed our vlog. Because we have worked really hard for it... Like we always do. And if you did, don't forget to Like, Share and Subscribe.
Remember us in your prayers. See you in the next one. Allah Hafiz
2023-09-15 08:38
