The Doubt

‘Going to Pakistan? With eight strangers, are you ok?’

‘Pakistan? Are you crazy or what?’

‘Going to Pakistan? Don’t you have better place to go?’

Those words were ringing in my ears as the ‘fasten your seat belt' light came on.

I stared out of the plane window blankly, wondering if it had been a mistake. I then turned around studying the expressions of those unfamiliar faces, wondering what was on their minds! Were they in the same predicament as me?

There were no answers to my questions, and there was no turning back!

I was on my way to northern Pakistan – to travel far and wide along part of the 1,300km long Karakoram Highway, or Friendship Highway as the Chinese call it.

We arrived at the Islamabad International Airport at 10.00pm. The hot summer heat of 40 degree C kept my enthusiasm burning, paralysing the initial doubt and uncertainty.

A 1-1/4-hour journey the next morning on a Fokker Friendship took us to a place called Gilgit, the administrative headquarters for the province of Northern Areas. This was the starting point of our 275km ‘epic’ journey along the Karakoram Highway. The highway, the name which seemed a misnomer to me, brought me lots of surprises and to places well beyond my wildest imagination.

Five days later, I stood at the border, one leg in Pakistan, and another, in China. The doubts and fear of: ‘Is this going to be a one-way journey?’, ‘Will I get killed in the supposedly hostile foreign land?’ dissipated like the early morning mist.