---
type: Video
title: "Travelling on the 2nd Most Deadly Road in the World"
description: Twelve hours back down the Karakoram Highway from Hunza to Islamabad — controlled rock blasting, a landslide closure, and Harry and Mac picking their best moments of the whole trip.
tags: [pakistan, karakoram-highway, hunza-valley, islamabad, roads, landslides, hot-springs]
timestamp: 2026-08-06T12:00:00Z
resource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUN6g8G3zII
video_id: RUN6g8G3zII
upload_date: 2022-01-15
duration: 921
---

# Travelling on the 2nd Most Deadly Road in the World

The journey back: twelve hours down the
[Karakoram Highway](/places/karakoram-highway.md) from
[Hunza Valley](/places/hunza-valley.md) to
[Islamabad](/places/islamabad.md) with [Mac](/people/mac.md), leaving
[Akram](/people/akram.md) and the northern crew behind at the point where the
4x4 gets swapped for an ordinary car.

**The road's actual hazard is on display twice in one afternoon.** They reach a
closure minutes before a controlled blast — the road is deliberately blown to
bring loose rock down — and get through on a wait that would otherwise have been
two hours. A landslide stops them again shortly after, for five minutes.

The other half of the video is a debrief. Asked for their best moment of the
trip, Mac picks [Attabad Lake](/places/attabad-lake.md) and gives the reason
carefully: a disaster that buried villages and, over eleven years, became the
thing that supports the local economy. Harry picks the previous night's music.

*Obs: this page is based on auto-generated subtitles. The "second deadliest road
in the world" is the video's own framing and is not sourced in it; recorded as
Harry's claim.*

## Key moments

- [00:00] **The Passu cones** and a glacier above them on the way out.
- [00:30] **−10°C, and no running water for two days** in Hunza because of it —
  he has not washed his face and says so.
- [02:02] The chai correction he has been getting in the comments: *chai tea* is
  saying tea twice. He takes it.
- [02:34] **The 4x4 is swapped for a normal car** now the rough terrain is
  behind them, and a new driver takes over. Goodbyes to the northern guides.
- [03:09] His summary of Hunza on leaving: **hospitality second to none, the
  best food in Pakistan**, and views he never got tired of.
- [03:39] **Twelve hours to Islamabad**, he hopes — *if we don't have any police
  escorts*.
- [03:39] The Rakaposhi viewpoint, with an *I love Pakistan* sign and **the
  second-longest zipline in Pakistan**, which he never manages to find.
- [04:44] **The guide's timing advice, and it beats Harry's own**: summer has the
  best weather but the crowds; **come in spring or autumn** for decent weather
  and no queue.
- [05:14] A point where **three mountain ranges meet**.
- [06:51] Getting warmer and greener heading south, and a river the same
  turquoise as everything else up north.
- [07:21] **Hot springs at the roadside**, said to help joint pain after about
  twenty minutes in the water. Harry flags it explicitly: *this is not me
  saying that.*
- [07:51] **The blasting.** Loose rock is brought down deliberately, and the
  road closes for it. They get through at the last moment; the alternative was a
  **two-hour minimum wait**.
- [08:21] **A landslide stop** immediately after — five minutes, against the
  hours he was braced for.
- [09:24] A roadside stop he calls the Pakistani version of a service station:
  small shops, food, chai.
- [11:12] **Mac's best moment of the trip**: Attabad Lake — a natural disaster
  that buried villages and then, over about eleven years, built the local
  economy, with hotels still going up. He is careful to hold both halves of that.
- [12:44] **Harry's**: the music night in the village studio, and the people in
  the room.
- [13:16] Arriving very late at a hotel they are told is the best in Pakistan —
  the contrast with days of no heating and no wi-fi is the point.
- [14:17] The end of the drive: stars the whole way because there is no light
  pollution, and a back in real pain.

## Extracted pages

- [Karakoram Highway](/places/karakoram-highway.md)
- [Hunza Valley](/places/hunza-valley.md)
- [Attabad Lake](/places/attabad-lake.md)
- [Islamabad](/places/islamabad.md)
- [Pakistan](/countries/pakistan.md)
- [Mac](/people/mac.md)
- [Akram](/people/akram.md)
- [Travel in the off season](/tips/travel-in-the-off-season.md)