Hunza Valley

A valley in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of northern Pakistan, surrounded by snow-capped jagged peaks. Harry had wanted to visit for a long time and saved it for near the end of his Pakistan trip — panoramic views from his hotel, a turquoise river, and what he describes as breathtaking golden- and blue-hour light over the mountains. The stargazing at night is exceptional.

What Harry did

Visited in winter with Mac on a custom tour arranged by Akram. They browsed a dried-fruit and nut shop (apricots, mulberries, walnuts, blackcurrants, fruit oils), toured Baltit Fort and Altit Fort, tried locally available non-alcoholic beer, ate a traditional Hunza dinner at the Hunza Food Pavilion — noodle soup, a thin “pizza of Hunza” flatbread with chicken, walnut oil, liquid local cheese, and green tea — which Harry calls probably one of the best meals he had in Pakistan, and spent two hours at a traditional music evening dancing with a local band.

Practical facts

• Winter is very cold: around −2°C by day and −7 to −8°C at night during Harry’s visit; locals say summer is the beautiful season. Asked outright whether Hunza is worth coming to in winter, his answer is yes — summer is the obvious choice and winter is just as good, provided you know it is around −7 to −9°C in the evening and about 2°C in the day, and that with the sun out it is genuinely comfortable.
• The valley’s connection is poor enough to plan around. At one hotel the staff physically carried the wi-fi router into Harry’s room so he could upload a video at all.
• Local specialities to look for at breakfast: a very thin many-layered crepe, and Hunza bread — hard, dense and heavily buttered, unlike anything Harry gets at home. Mac rated that breakfast the best he had in Pakistan.
• Locals told Harry the crime rate is essentially zero — lost wallets get found and returned; he felt completely safe with bags, drones, and cameras.
• People are notably kind and friendly, even by Pakistan’s standards.
• A mixed bag of dried fruit and nuts cost 200 (from video – unverified).
• Local food (as opposed to general Pakistani food) is a specialty to seek out — locals themselves often eat non-Hunza food day to day.

Khunjerab Pass

Two and a half hours further north, the road ends at the Chinese border: Khunjerab Pass — $20 to enter, −20°C in the mornings, and the world’s highest ATM.

Hussaini Bridge

The rope-and-plank suspension bridge in the upper valley has its own page: Hussaini Bridge — still a working footpath for the people who built it, and the place Harry lost a drone to the river.

Attabad Lake

The valley’s main attraction sits in its upper reaches and has its own page: Attabad Lake, created by a landslide in 2010 that drowned a village and, in doing so, built the area’s tourism economy.

The old settlement and its crafts

The valley’s oldest settlement holds a house more than 400 years old, no longer lived in and kept for visitors. Two things about it are worth carrying away: the doorways are deliberately low so that you bow your head going in, as a mark of respect — the same design as at the two forts — and one room is given over to storing dried apricots. The mud construction keeps the inside cool through the summer.

Next door is a hand-loom carpet workshop, where several weavers work the same rug at once and the thread is dyed by hand. A rug takes about fifteen days. Smaller goods are made from the same material: Harry bought a handmade wallet for 1,000 rupees, six or seven dollars.

Eating in a Hunza home

The most local food of the trip is not in a restaurant. At his guide’s family home Harry is given molida — bread and cheese with apricot oil poured over it, which he describes as porridge-textured but savoury, the oil coming through strong and sweet at once. Alongside it: chips from potatoes grown here, a chicken dish with chapati, and dried fruit from the garden including dried apple, which keeps far more flavour than he expects.

Houses are heated with firewood rather than electricity, and rooms are shut up for the season when part of a family goes down to the city for the winter.

Why the English is so good in the valley: the people a visitor meets work in tourism. One man at that table speaks seven languages plus Urdu, and understands Chinese — which is the concrete version of the “seven languages in Hunza” claim the fort tour makes in the abstract.

Music, and what there is no school for

Musicians in one of the small villages record in their own studio and are well known locally. They are entirely self-taught from YouTube, because no Pakistani institution offers a degree in music production or sound engineering. Harry is invited to a live session that ends with about twenty people in the room, and stops filming partway through.

Hot springs

Up the road from the upper valley there are hot springs, with some volcanic activity behind them, where people soak for 15 to 30 minutes for back and knee pain. The account Harry is given includes its own caveat, which is worth keeping: many people get relief, and it depends on what you believe.

Why people here live so long, according to the valley

The account Harry is given by a guesthouse owner, and the one the valley tells about itself: life expectancy in Hunza is well above most of the world, because the food is organic and fresh — the yak eats nothing but grass — and because farm work keeps people physically active into old age. His own grandmother is 97 and, he says, entirely capable.

Recorded as one family’s account, which is all the video sources it to. Harry adds a theory of his own about cold exposure on top of it; that is on use cold exposure and breathwork, separated out because it is his rather than theirs.

Getting there

The valley is reached by the Karakoram Highway, which has its own page for the road itself.

A ten- to twelve-hour drive from Swat on the estimate Harry was given in January 2022, mountain road nearly all of it — a distance that would be short as the crow flies and takes a day because the road winds. There are flights from Islamabad, he is told, but very few of them.

In practice it took fifteen hours, and the extra three were the security. Harry counted 21 police checkpoints and 19 separate armed escorts between Swat and the valley.

Foreigners on this route are escorted, because of the dam. The road passes a Chinese-built hydropower station under construction — a bridge on the way carries a long live Pak-China friendship sign — and there had been an incident involving a Chinese worker at the plant (from video – unverified; Harry says he does not know exactly what happened). Since then foreigners on the stretch are escorted as standard, which is also why there are so many patrols to spare. Each takes a few kilometres and hands over at the next checkpoint, because no single patrol can cover a run this long. The officers are hospitable, sharing biscuits and chai while clearance is called through.

The last stop before the valley already sells Chinese food, because the border is close — mutton dumplings and a chicken rice dish that Harry rates as a real mix of the two cuisines. 1,000 rupees fed four people, about $5–6.

Where he stayed in January 2022

A hotel high enough that the mountains fill the window, with a curtained picture window facing Rakaposhi at first light and an outdoor seating area for morning chai. Staff brought mountain tea up on arrival, offered for the digestion and for the cold.

Two caveats, both of which Harry accepts without complaint on the grounds that it is how people live here:

• The heaters cannot be run, because the hotel is on generator power. He wears a hat indoors in January.
• The wi-fi is very slow — slow enough that he says on camera he may not be able to upload at all, which is why he and Mac spent the Swat evenings banking edits in advance.

Harry’s tips

• Try the local dried fruit and nuts — far more flavour than you’d expect.
• Seek out a dedicated local-food restaurant (Harry ate at Hunza Food Pavilion) rather than generic Pakistani menus.
• If you can, catch a traditional Hunza music-and-dance evening — one of Harry’s best experiences in the valley; hotels can help arrange it.
• Pack for serious cold if visiting in winter.
• Stay for the stargazing — far better than in the cities.

Source

• First Impressions of HUNZA VALLEY, Pakistan 🇵🇰 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLjDnYzkOyE
• $8 Designer Shoes in Northern Pakistan 🇵🇰 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS6jAHPQLfc
• Crazy Glacier in Hunza Valley🇵🇰 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR2_um8_8GE
• Travelling on the 2nd Most Deadly Road in the World — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUN6g8G3zII
• The Pakistan the Media Does Not Show You 🇵🇰 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7smFzHE_Do
• -20 Degrees at the China - Pakistan Border 🇵🇰 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yElvKLDSMHI
• I Had an Accident at the Most Dangerous Bridge in Pakistan 🇵🇰 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uawEjUw9Vs
• I Can’t believe this is Pakistan 🇵🇰 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vsIqSZ1xVo
• $80 Northern Pakistan Homestay 🇵🇰 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYebqTrpGU4
• $6 Jet Ski in Hunza Valley, Pakistan 🇵🇰 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yfhIIb5Tk4
• Road Trip to HUNZA VALLEY🇵🇰 (Part 1) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqKoCynRol8
• We Had 19 Police Escorts - Hunza Road Trip🇵🇰 (Part 2) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqErq9nNY7w