Hunza Charm: in northern Pakistan.Sheila Teh discovers the rugged beauty and friendly people of Pakistan's Karakoram Highway, which follows the ancient Silk Road trade route.
The Karakoram Highway (KKH) winds its way through a landscape of spectacular rugged mountains, glacial rivers and beautiful green valleys.
A joint effort between Pakistan and China and an engineering feat that took 20 years of hard labour in the harsh terrain, the KKH - completed in 1978 - has turned Pakistan's remote northern frontier into a leading adventure and cultural attraction.
The Chinese influence is seen in bridges carved with lanterns and double happiness symbols over river crossings.
The KKH starts just before Abbottabad town, north of Islamabad, then runs parallel along the Indus River, a cradle of ancient civilization.
The highway follows the ancient Silk Road. Etchings of images of Buddha, ancient inscriptions and hunting scenes of ibex on giant rocks indicate its rich cultural past. Instead of Silk Road caravans, travellers today are likely to come across gaily-decorated trucks marked with feminine eyes, birds and flowers. Every now and then, herds of goats charge down the narrow mountain track, with goatherds in tow.
The KKH passes through several old market towns before it slices into the mountainous interior. At these towns, you may come across groups of men sipping tea as they relax on beds strung with thick ropes or see the locals watching the world go by from their rooftop seats.
From the Gilgit to Hunza stretch, the bare and rocky mountain terrain slips into a delightful mantle of snow-capped peaks encircling a labyrinth of quaint villages.
It is believed that Hunza's scenic cultural wealth had inspired the setting of the "Shangri-La" myth in James Hilton's book "Lost Horizon".
The Hunzas are famed for their longevity, some said to be over 100 years as a result of a healthy diet of vegetables and fruits, particularly apricots, and a physically active lifestyle that involves field work and walking. However, the longevity factor may not be that apparent today as the people have changed to modern processed food. A village school principal said it's getting harder to differentiate the Hunzas from people in other parts of Pakistan.
The friendliness of the Hunzas is something visitors will remember. Adults and rosy-cheeked children waved from the doorways as our jeep journey to the Hopper glacier passed through stone-walled terraced fields, orchards and village huts.
The Hunza women, their heads covered with colourful hand-stitched embroidered hats, are a sturdy lot. You see them working in the fields and carrying on their backs heavy baskets laden with fodder as they plod along the mountain road.
Until 1974, Hunza was an independent kingdom under the Mirs who are still the symbolic rulers. The current Mir owns the Darbar Hunza, the leading hotel in Karimabad, the town centre.
The Mirs' former palace, the Baltit Fort is now turned into a museum and cultural centre. The drive up the fort can be unnerving but the jeep drivers are experts in negotiating the extremely narrow sloping pathways that twist in and out of the rows of Hunza houses.
Above the Hunza river, the smaller and older Altit Fort was once used by raiders to prey on the Silk Road caravans. Except for some carvings, the fort's interior is bare but the fort provides a good bird's-eye view of the Hunza houses with their flat rooftops used for drying clothes, grains and fodder.
In village schools, English is among the subjects taught at the Royal Hunza academy, students are trained in cultural dances.