Joe, another trav­el­ler I had met in Lahore, and I decided to check out Skardu. Dur­ing high sea­son this little sleepy town gets to see a lot of ser­i­ous trek­kers and moun­tain­eers on their way to K2, argu­ably the toughest moun­tain on our planet.

Just alone the drive there is worth the effort. At times the road gets so nar­row and the sides fall away so steeply that it’s prob­ably bet­ter to just close your eyes and hope for the best. On the other side of the val­ley you can see miners going about their work, for­cing their way with dynam­ite into the moun­tains to look for semi-precious stones.

And then sud­denly a huge broad val­ley opens up and you get a first glimpse of Skardu. First we had planned to fol­low the road even fur­ther and then go on a trek, at the end of which you can see K2 on a clear day, but we soon gave up on the idea and spent all of our time in and around Skardu.

In the early after­noon of our first full day we decided to explore the val­ley a bit. We went down to the Indus River and fol­lowed it upstream around the moun­tain behind Skardu. It’s a really nice walk that takes around four hours includ­ing many leis­urely breaks.

There are people fish­ing, big sand twisters on the other side of the river and huge snow covered peaks all around you. Most of the time you don’t hear any unnat­ural sound and, just sit­ting on a rock watch­ing the scenery, I haven’t felt that peace­ful and relaxed in a long time.