Off-roading to Hingol
I stood there amongst the trees, the wind moving through the leaves, making a whistling sound. The entire campsite was bathed in bright moonlight, so bright that you did not need a torch to cook something. Before me, the Hingol River flowed along lazily between the mountains, a silver serpent in a landscape that is otherwise harsh.
This reads like an excerpt from a fiction novel, does it not? Well one need only travel 240 kilometres from Karachi to make this fiction a reality. That is, if you have the gumption to make it out to Hingol National Park in Balochistan.
I recently had the chance to do so with the team of adventure travellers known as Offroad Pakistan. I refer to them as a team and not a group of individuals because that's what they are, and that's what one needs to make it through the terrain of Balochistan, which comprises bogs, jungle, mountains, and quicksand with a few wahgus (local slang for crocodiles) standing in as an audience. On this trip, the team included inventors, photojournalists, lawyers, doctors and a few lowly scribes such as myself, all with one thing in common: "the love of nature."
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March 19, 2010 | Blog | Comments (0)
The goddess of Taliban country
Baluchistan, purported home of the Pakistani Taliban, offers much more than a wide open road.
KARACHI, Pakistan -- The road into Baluchistan is dual carriage, the topography is flat. There are fronds in the sand, an occasional crooked tree and the intimation of the sea. Narrow scratched paths lead inland and close to the horizon, we can make out clusters of structures -- mud rooms, thatched tents -- and the local population: tanned fishermen and women and children.
Not more than two hours into the journey, we turn left at a solitary petrol pump attached to a roadside restaurant. After announcing ourselves at a checkpoint -- hum Hingol ja rahay hain -- we cruise down the Makran Coastal Highway.
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March 19, 2010 | Blog | Comments (0)
Expedition Poldat: The Laidback Show
In Eposide 17 of the Laidback Show, Dr. Awab Alvi and Faisal Kapadia head towards Hingol National Park for a three day Expedition with offroaders from OffroadPakistan to conquer a natural gorge called Poldat in the Hingol National Park.
March 3, 2010 | Video | Comments (2)
Concordia: The world's greatest museum of shape and form
"The world's greatest museum of shape and form" is how Italian mountaineer/author Fosco Maraini described Concordia in his book, Karakoram. Galen Rowell called it the "Throne of the Mountain Gods". Come 2007, somehow or the other, 5 of us from Karachi ended up hiking to Concordia, and on to K2 base camp.
Click here to see the pictures of the hike along with captions, and go here to see the travelogue of the hike.
July 2, 2008 | Blog | Comments (4)
Vehicle Preparations before and after a trip
Road trips don't require much preparation, but 4×4 trips off the beaten track are a different thing altogether. There is no help available off the highway, so the vehicle has to be in good shape and the driver must be well prepared to deal with any eventuality. Of course, the idea is to avoid breakdowns in the first place, so a number of things have to be looked at when setting out on a 4×4 trip out into the wild.
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April 2, 2008 | Tech | Comments (4)
Recent Pictures
j s pande says in Salman Ali:
pl tell me if the toyota dyna 5 speed gearbox always has provision for attaching a 4×4 transfer case?does it have a plate for the purpose? am thinking of matching it with a toyota land cruiser 2.8 litre tranfser case . the vehicle has a 4 litre 4 cylinder hino diesel engine.
Syed Ali Raheel says in The Red Car - First Pakistani Car:
Absolutely amazing .... I am totally impressed gr8 work guys. We have all the talent here in pakistan but unfortunately we are not been supported by the government.
Best Regards
Ali Raheel
Qasim Saidhi says in Expedition Poldat: The Laidback Show:
Just saw the video of your amazing trip, excellent area for off roading.
The white Pajero seen stuck from 14:15 minutes of the video upto like 15:15 miutes, is that the vehicle of Maj. Osman? If yes, what happened to the Pajero cuz as far as I know it has a V6 3000 cc engine which, on paper, should be powerful enough to take out such a sand climb.
tedSeibe says in Abid Omar:
Not sure if it is actually me mainly because I yet previously had absolutely no time to upgrading and am continue to using Opera 9 but while seeing the web site I have spotted some type of weird letters all around the page . It says that along with loads of extra things following it, similar to Attention: Cannot change footer information ... etc. It Is a little bit weird since for me web sites just like by way of example google.com and yahoo.com or simply my personal one forex make me not any problems. I am sorry, the english language isn't my mother language.
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