---
type: Video
title: "$6 Jet Ski in Hunza Valley, Pakistan 🇵🇰"
description: A day on Attabad Lake — a $6 jet ski that breaks down and drops him in near-freezing water, a boat he ends up driving, and the drowned village still visible under a lake that is only twelve years old.
tags: [pakistan, hunza-valley, attabad-lake, watersports, winter, tourism, disaster]
timestamp: 2026-08-06T12:00:00Z
resource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yfhIIb5Tk4
video_id: _yfhIIb5Tk4
upload_date: 2022-01-09
duration: 1049
---

# $6 Jet Ski in Hunza Valley, Pakistan 🇵🇰

A morning at [Attabad Lake](/places/attabad-lake.md) in upper
[Hunza Valley](/places/hunza-valley.md) with [Mac](/people/mac.md) and the
guides — jet skis, then a boat, in about 2°C.

The scenery is the draw and the history is the substance: **the lake is only
twelve years old.** A landslide on 4 January 2010 blocked the river, the water
backed up over the valley floor, and a village went under. You can still see its
trees and buildings from the boat. Everything on the shoreline now exists
because of that.

It is also the video where Harry states the change in his own picture of the
country most plainly: he had no idea Pakistan was even cold, let alone that it
had snow-capped mountains and a lake this colour.

*Obs: this page is based on auto-generated subtitles; figures the transcript
leaves ambiguous are marked unverified. The tour operator whose booking links
appear in the description is not named.*

## Key moments

- [01:03] **About 2°C**, and pleasant with the sun on it.
- [01:33] **The drowned village** — trees standing out of the water, buildings
  in the silt, from the 2010 landslide.
- [02:04] The colour, which he gives up trying to describe: somewhere between
  green and turquoise.
- [02:35] A traveller from Syria on the shore, and the surprise on both sides at
  three weeks in Pakistan.
- [03:17] **1,000 rupees, about $6–7** for the jet ski. First time on one in
  winter.
- [03:49] **Nobody has measured the lake**, so the depth isn't known — which he
  raises while contemplating falling in.
- [04:52] Calm water means no bouncing and easy speed, unlike the sea. His hands
  go numb almost immediately.
- [06:01] **What the trip changed for him**: he had no idea Pakistan was cold,
  had mountains, had snow, had lakes like this.
- [06:32] **The jet ski breaks down and he goes in the water**, minutes after
  saying he did not want to. He takes it as cold-water therapy.
- [07:33] A local puts the depth at about 15 m, contradicting the earlier claim
  *(from video – unverified; neither figure is settled on camera)*.
- [09:10] The lake is **only ten years old**, as he keeps repeating in disbelief.
- [10:10] **Boat next: 4,000 rupees for 20–25 minutes**, split five ways. The
  first boat won't start; the replacement is a quiet electric one.
- [12:11] **In summer the boats are all taken and you queue** — the concrete
  argument for coming in winter.
- [12:42] Harry drives it, for the first time in his life, and finds the
  steering badly delayed.
- [13:42] **Before the lake there was no highway**, and upper Hunza was reached
  by boat. The Chinese-built road with its seven minutes of tunnels came after
  the 2010 disaster.
- [14:15] Flying the drone off a moving boat, which he calls risky while
  listing what could go wrong.
- [16:19] **The date the river was blocked: 4 January 2010** — and the guide's
  point that the disaster is what brought tourism to the area.
- [16:19] The shoreline restaurants, Chinese food and pizza among them, are shut
  for the winter.

## Extracted pages

- [Attabad Lake](/places/attabad-lake.md)
- [Hunza Valley](/places/hunza-valley.md)
- [Pakistan](/countries/pakistan.md)
- [Mac](/people/mac.md)
- [Akram](/people/akram.md)