as you all may know, the situation in pakistan as of today is as such. and as per the new regulation and peace agreement between the taliban and the pakistani government, the taliban has basically been given the mandate to extend sharia law over the whole north western frontier province (NWFP) region as well as the SWAT districts.
initially, our plan was to take a bus from islamabad up to gilgit, a region which is home to many beautiful mountain ranges and is supposedly the inspiration for shangri la. this plan would mean that we would be taking the karakoram highway up to gilgit, which in itself is part of the old silk route linking pakistan to china and mongolia.
observe, if you will, how and where the karakoram highway traces its path across pakistan:
if you are observant enough, you will realise that the highway passes through certain areas which are now strongholds of the taliban. now that's interesting.
the highway itself is also prone to landslides which can "disrupt traffic for a few days" assuming of course that you aren't already buried under a pile of rubble. this leaves us with the alternate option of taking a flight from islamabad to gilgit itself.
although various forums have confirmed the existence of said flight, it doesn't exist on PIA (pakistan international airlines) websites. that being said, it also has the tendency of being cancelled or overbooked at the last minute so we actually still do not know if its possible to reach gilgit by air. an alternate town of Skardu is reachable by air (they even say the air ride is thrilling. "the planes wings almost appear to scrape the walls of the canyons but of course they never do") and gilgit is then a mere 5 hour drive away.
the cost of this flight (round trip) is 7730 pakistani rupees, which works out to about 154.6SGD. not good for the wallet at all.
so now, the question is : how to get to gilgit at the least cost to our wallet and lives. (25 marks)
we welcome all creative (and sound) answers.
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