‘half of what I have seen’
23 February 2014
In January 1986, I rode a Corps of Engineers truck loaded with a concrete mixer to Agore. My objective was the famed temple of Sri Mata Hinglaj in the valley of the Hingol River not far upstream from the river’s delta. Other than a journey of thirty-six hours by a beat-up pilgrim bus that I had already missed, this was the only available transport.
We had left Karachi in cold, pre-dawn darkness – at 2.30 AM to be precise. Near Uthal we gave off the old RCD Highway and swung west into a great desolation of sand and stunted grass. Thereafter we trundled along at about ten to fifteen kilometres an hour – for fourteen hours. That brought us to the banks of the Hingol River and the Engineers camp.
Read more »Labels: Balochistan, FWO, Makran, Makran Coastal Highway
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Civil Military Relations
22 February 2014
Over the past four months I have made two trips [1, 2] to Makran and have had extended exchanges with local men as well as with several defence services officers at various levels. These latter were from the navy and army. The lessons to draw were remarkable.
First off, most defence officers agreed that the people of Makran are simple, peaceable and friendly who appreciate developmental work in their district and that mischief does not come naturally to them. This would make them a community easy to work with and find acceptance from. Also, officers were of the view that the insurgents causing strife from time to time infiltrated into Makran from the more troubled districts of Balochistan to the northward.
Read more »Labels: Balochistan, FWO, Makran, Makran Coastal Highway
posted by Salman Rashid @ 01:30,
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Makran is a beautiful country
12 February 2014
On 26 Jan I was northbound out of Karachi along the old RCD Highway. At Uthal we turned west. FWO, the builders of the new Makran Coastal Highway, call this spot Zero Point and the road is designated N-10 in the grand scheme of National Highways Authority.
Agore, before the highway was laid out, was as remote as a village could ever be in Makran. But now despite having stopped at the mud volcanoes, we made it in a few hours. The landscape at the volcanoes was as surreal and eerie as ever. A bleak landscape of small tufts of withered grass, a flat, featureless sky, and, once we left the highway, not a sign of human intervention. In this dream world, the three cones rising out of the flatness were other worldly. In another country, this would be a spa with thousands of tourists flocking here to rub themselves with the mineral rich mud.
Read more »Labels: Balochistan, FWO, Makran, Makran Coastal Highway
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Makran Coastal Highway
08 October 2013
Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) have done a lot of good work in the country. But their work mostly goes unacknowledged. But then they got a good man in Lahore as their Public Relations Officer. Major (retired) Husain Qazi has sound notions on what needs to be done and he was fortunate to have Major General Javed Bukhari as head of FWO (currently GOC Swat). Consequently when Husain suggested a coffee table book be written about the Markan Coast Highway (MCH) the project was approved and I was asked to undertake the job.
Now, MCH takes off westward from the old RCD Highway near Uthal which sits about 100 km north of Karachi and stretches almost as straight as an arrow all the way to the Iranian frontier north of Jivani. It thus connects Karachi with Ormara, Pasni, Gwadar and Jivani – coastal towns that were once accessible only by air. Of course you could take the hard bus ride that lasted nearly forty-eight hours from Karachi to Gwadar. But for that you had to be a sucker for punishment.
Labels: Balochistan, Books, FWO, Makran, Makran Coastal Highway, Travel Photography
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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To Makran
23 September 2013
There was no direct connection between Karachi and Gwadar. You travelled up north to Lasbela, thought the desiccated Jhao Pass to Awaran (oh, so beautiful and picturesque) and then across 250 km of the most anxiety-making desert to Turbat where you arrived with much of the desert deposited upon your person. In between you spent the night sleeping on the sandy floor of an inn fearing some scorpion or centipede will get into your ears or, worse, your pants.
Labels: Balochistan, Books, FWO, Makran, Makran Coastal Highway, Travel Photography
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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