Saturday August 16: Skardu

In the morning I had a touch of diarrhoea – I reckon it was from the lunch on the Deosi - but I cured it by only having water for 40 hours. As a result I decided not to go on the visit to the Shigar Fort which was a shame as according to Margaret it was beautifully converted into an upmarket hotel. Such is life!

Instead, I had a walk down from the hotel to the river. The Indus here is wide and slow flowing with sand banks, and indeed, sand dunes along its margins. At one point some cows that had been by the river’s edge came up the sand dunes and then wandered onto the road and off into town – such are the things of life around  here.

In the afternoon it was decided we would take a trip to Satpara Lake, and as I was feeling rather better I decided to go too; a mistake as it turned out. We drove through central Skardu which was utterly chaotic; traffic, carts, pedestrians (all men), and at the central crossroads there was a cow and a couple of sheep but no one seemingly supervising them. The road to Satpara Lake goes along the side of the slow flowing Indus and past the airport and army and air force base – it’s still very much a border area here, and Skardu was heavily involved in the last war with India. The lake itself is along a very rough track which winds through a couple of villages and past the up-market Shangri-La hotel. At the end of the track, before the walk down to the lake itself, is a small café where I waited whilst the others went down to the lake itself and Ehsan even went for a swim apparently (in his shalwar kamise). My stomach still a bit tender, I needed to go to the loo. You really cannot imagine how hard it is to to use a squat toilet whilst fully robed in a shalwar kamise. There is so much material in the shirt and the baggy trousers. I am sure you get used to it, and if you are not in a rush it is OK, but if you are not and you are, it all ends in disaster – trust me! Without going into too much detail, it is well that at that point the group came back and copious use of what little water there was and the best part of a packet of Wet Wipes cleaned up the worst of things. There comes a point when you just have to stop being embarrassed and get on with life!

The jeep rushed back into Skardu and we were just in time to see the second half of a Polo match. Polo is big in this part of the world, where it is reckoned to have originated. Entry seemed to be free, so we sat at the back of a decent sized crowd. I don’t know if it is the same at Cowdray Park in Sussex, but out here, Polo is essentially organised thuggery and chaos on horses. Nevertheless, it was clear to see that the blue team were the better, and apparently they did win.

All in all, I felt it was best to miss out on dinner!