Pakistan 2011: The Preview

I haven't had much time to upload pictures and start blogging on what a meaningful experience it was visiting Pakistan. The past few days had been spent catching up with sleep and work. With that said, i had presented the slideshow of the photographs from our trip no less than 3 times. And there were about slightly less than 600 photos in all.

I've edited some of them and here's a preview of what's to come!

Scenic view of the Kunhar River and the Kaghan Valley

This is one of my favourite photographs from the whole trip. This was taken at one of the stops on our trip to Shogran - one of the mountainous destinations along the stretch of the famous Kaghan Valley. The Kunhar River flows through the valley. The water is ice cold, even though it is in the middle of summer. Drink stall owners selling carbonated drinks like Coca-Cola and Mountain Dew (a Pakistani favourite) will simply dip the bottles in the water instead of relying on ice. Cool, no?

The Kaghan Valley and the Kunhar River are the slightly more popular tourist attractions in Mansehra.

Essentially our trip can be said to be divided into two - Mansehra city and village Bandi Sadiq in Oghi (pronounced Ooghi).

My late grandfather, Syed Hayat Shah came to Singapore from Mansehra. To be specific, he came to Singapore from a village called Hado Bandi, which is only a few kilometres away from Mansehra city.

Both the village and the city are within Mansehra District. (Imagine a district to be like a state. In the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, there are 25 districts in all. Mansehra is one of them.)

There are many other Singaporeans (and even Malaysians) whose forefathers came here from Mansehra. My grand-aunt's husband, the late Syed Gulab Shah was also from Mansehra. I was told that Haji Mohd Ayub Mohd Yusoff was also from Mansehra. So too were the late chacha Kushal Khan and Syed Ali Akbar Shah.

View of Mansehra city and the villages surrounding it



My great-grandfather, Syed Mahmood Shah had four children, of which my grandfather was the eldest. My grandfather had two younger brothers - Syed Younis Shah and Syed Muslim Shah - as well as a younger sister Zuriya Sultan.

My grand-uncle Syed Younis Shah passed away in 1994, but his children and some of their families are settled in Mansehra city. On the other hand, Zuriya Sultan was married off to a syed from a village called Bandi Sadiq in Oghi. The town of Oghi is located about 30 km away from Mansehra city and as we found out is about an hour and a half travel by road. My grand-aunt Zuriya Sultan passed away only late last year.



The valley of Agror, as seen from the window of my uncle's house in Bandi Sadiq