Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
A few years later though, the wali
was
assassinated. The old Swat
is no more.
Four hours after leaving Peshawar, we were pulling into Saidu
Sharif, still capital of Swat in 1976. With a population of under
twenty thousand, it was hardly surprising to find the place wasn't
very large. Cheek by jowl with sturdy stone dwellings boasting
elaborately carved lintels and window frames rose newer concrete
structures, some bizarre and fancifully space-age in style. Two towers
flanked the Jahan Zeb College like gigantic monopod bar stools,
with open staircases that streamed down and around the outside.
Hadji and Ray considered stopping, but Ray preferred to keep his
low profile. So we continued north-east and climbing. After about
twenty miles, we reached Khawazakhela and turned right onto a dirt
road that ran level for a while, then started the most drastic ascent up
a 1-20 grade incline of hairpin bends. A few inches further the rock
face fell sheer all the way back down to the emerald valley. After ten
miles we'd snaked up to an elevation of seven thousand feet, emerging
onto a terrace that overlooked a breathtaking view, clear and
uninterrupted all the way up to the vast opalescent mass of the Hindu
Kush, with the borders of Russia and China just beyond. There were
passes there at sixteen thousand feet - between twenty-five-
thousand-foot peaks - where camel caravans still travelled to and
fro with their cargoes, both licit and illicit.
'Home sweet home,' sang Ray as we veered off down a track toward
a broad and distant copse of pine trees.
I looked at him, hoping my expression seemed puzzled.
This
was
the heart of his underground empire? A mountain top?
'The village actually
is
called Shangla,' he told me. 'Just a
coincidence, though. Shangri-La's a valley, isn't it? Probably
Kashmir, anyway.'
The track wound through the pines, and several hundred yards
within I saw a clearing with a high-walled compound. The stone
houses in it looked ready to survive anything less than a direct hit
with nuclear weapons. Hadji's driver honked, as did the Range Rover
behind us, and Pathans wearing traditional medieval Swati caps and
thick vests over baggy shirts and shalwar trousers, every man clutching
a rifle, rushed out, hauling open the massive wooden gates before
