The road tracklog 
from Gilgit to Peshawar
from 03/07 to 08/07/2007 

I remained three times in Gilgit at the PTDC Chinar Inn. Tourist Information Centre is located at the PTDC, the personnel is helpful and gives useful advice. The city is not of great interest. But it is the hub of trips into the adjacent valleys and an important stage either towards the Central Asia or towards Karachi. The bazaar is the largest of the KKH between Rawalpindi and Kashgar. It is not typical the East, no scent of spices, no animation, no colour, but a long dusty street polluted by exhaust fumes of badly regulated diesels, by nauseous odours of the gutters filled with refuse of all kinds and the location of religious tensions between Sunnites and Shiites. After Srinagar it is the city where the army is most present, certainly for different reasons.

Leaving Gilgit the 03/07 I had envisaged making the way up to Besham in two days. I was thus to go ahead of Chilas and make a bivouac on the road. Halfway I found a platform which satisfied me. The temperature increased gradually with the descent of the Indus Valley. It was of more than 40°C during the day and it was still of 31°C in the early morning in spite of a strong wind going up the valley. In Besham I stationed again at the Besham Midway Hotel where I had stopped the 10/06. I was to decide to go to visit Swat Valley by taking the road over the Shangla pass which is in bad condition.

I had thus decided to go to visit Swat Valley while passing over the Shangla Pass at 2134m high. I started in the early morning because the road is degraded and sinuous. The landscape is, according to some commentators, dramatic, to see the LP. It is true that the spectacle was sumptuous. I arrived at Alpuria after 4:00 of road for 34 km. The police asked me to stop to obtain the permission to continue. After more than half an hour the authorization was given to me going to Shangla Pas with an armed policeman in my cabin. At the check post of Shangla Pass after a conversation by walkie-talkie of a policeman with a “higher” authority, it was given me the order to go back to Besham. The road to Mingora by the Shangla Pass was prohibited foreigners for security reason. The policeman returned with me to Alpuria then to Karora where I took an other policeman who accompanied me up to Besham where I arrived around 18:15. The manager of Besham Midway Hotel asked me to pay the carpark, I refused and I went to the exit of the city little before the PTDC on a carpark for truck drivers in front of a graver of catering where I dined.
I was to change my road plan. The new plan was to go to Peshawar by Highgway while driving by Abbottabad then Taxila and Attock.

The 06/07 I left the carpark of Besham about 10:00 to go to Taxila. With pleasure I saw again the green mountains of Hazara before the plain of the south of Abbottabad. I arrived in Taxila around 19:00 to set up the bivouac on the carpark in front of the PTDC where I dined. The menu and the prices were the same ones in all the PTDC, except some of them did not invoice taxes. However quality and seasoning of dishes depended on the “chief”.

In the late morning of the 07/07 I visited the museum of Taxila. The exhibited objects cover the period of 6^th century BC at 5^th century AD. They are representative of the Art of Gandhara influenced by the Greek Art brought by Alexander the Great in 326 BC. Heat being too intense I remained in the garden of the museum. During my visit several people came to shake my hand by asking me for my nationality. Having rest in the garden two forty-year-old men with their children, four boys and two girls, required my impression on Pakistan. Wishing to keep one’s distance I made them read paragraphs of Lonely Planet guide book giving its opinion on Pakistan, Corruption, Women in Pakistan, etc. The discussion which resulted from this was very enriching.

After a stormy night with an abundant and refreshing rain, I went to Peshawar by the Grand Trunk Road built by Sher Shah Suri in the 16^th century from Kabul to Calcutta. Currently it is a very beautiful two-lane road separated by a central platform. Some parts are under repair. It is toll road, but as a foreigner I did not pay the tax. The entry of the carpark in Tourits Inn Motel is too narrow for my truck. Escorted by a Pakistani I went to the carpark in the Spogmay Hotel where I had to take a room.

The purpose of the followed week consisted in visiting Peshawar then the Khyber Pass before going to Islamabad.