In the beautiful Hunza valley, we reached the Karimabad area. It is also known as Baltit town. This place won the World Award for tourism in 2000 where countries like Indonesia and India also competed. The Guardian ranked it as one of the top 5 tourist sites in Pakistan. The town, overall, is tourist friendly. It has several hotels and restaurants built by locals to promote tourism in the valley.

We decided to stay at Hunza View Hotel. It was a medium size, low budget hotel situated on one side of a hill overlooking much of the valley. The left side was blocked by the mountains so only view available was to the right side of the hill. Many hotels covered the hill and reached as far as I could see. All the hotels had outstanding view because they were built on the same hill but separated by much distance as per different elevations.

Different hotels in the less expensive Karimabad hill side area offered extremely beautiful and entirely personal view sites from their rooms and balconies. Something like that was better than any of the luxurious hotels in Los Angeles Hills or Spain’s La Zagaleta Hills, Marbelle city could ever afford to provide their customers. The only issue was of resources and lack of facilities in the area being a part of third world. But the affordability factor was impressive. Spending a quality time looking at wonderful sites for just 20 to 30 dollars a day in these hotels is something special.

Our Hotel, the Hunza View, was a recently constructed hotel with three floors, one large dining hall, a terrace, and an accessible rooftop. The Hotel was a simple deal but had all the necessary specifications. Of course, the view was among the top attractions about it.

My room was on the second floor. They had a lovely view from the gallery. Many mountains of different curvature having Snow Covered Peaks were visible. The clouds were moving around and below them. Sometimes they stuck as low as half the size of mountains. The Hunza peak was one of the most prominent and another peak known as lady finger was standing next to it. The Ultar Sar Mountain, a seven thousand meter giant, was just 10 km away from the settled area of Baltit/Karimabad town.

From the reception to the dining hall on third floor, the entire hotel was decorated with pictures and paintings. The paintings were not too expensive but had a perfect view and concept. One side of the stairway was full of small pictures covered in glass frames. They were their elders in cultural dress and rural lifestyle. My room had a huge portrait of Hunza’s traditional woman in cultural dress and ornaments. It was so big a picture, I am sure every person who ever lived in that room must have had spent a lot of time staring at it.

The hotel provided with plenty of food choices. Mostly, they had regular dishes, the ones we have in Pakistan. I don’t know why but I vomited in post breakfast time. I am still not sure the reason, may be travel sickness. I can’t entirely blame on the food though. 

Many visitors had drinking water dilemma in the entire Hunza Valley. The local Hunza water is unusually different than rest of the places. It has a different gravity. I think maybe it’s because the water comes directly from glaciers, but then it has unusually different gravity from the rest. Our waiter explained that a research has been done suggesting Hunza water to be healthy but some of us were not comfortable at all. Some liked the taste while others hate it, so we had a divided opinion. Many just preferred to use mineral water bottles including me.

Hunza has a famous drink also known as Hunza water. But it’s not water. It’s actually a unique kind of “Wine” produced locally in the region. The Hunza water/wine is now prohibited by the government as per Islamic rules but limited access is granted to the foreigners. It’s not easily available. During our visits to ancient forts we saw that they had several hidden pits and cellars for making this specific wine in those places. Some of the chambers were many centuries old. It suggests that Hunza wine has been a part of their culture since several hundred years.

The terrace view in the hotel was beautiful but the one from rooftop was simply special. The access to terrace was from the dining hall at third floor while the way to rooftop was from backside of the terrace. Roof was difficult to climb. There were no permanent stairs, just a wooden ladder which was broken from some parts. It was potentially a risky job to climb but we did it anyway.  And we were rewarded with splendid view at the top.

The whole Karimabad area and multiple other distant places were also visible from our hotel’s rooftop. In general, we were surrounded by ultra high mountains from all sides. A sizable settlement though covered the space around us but only as far as the nearby mountains allowed. Hunza River was flowing from right to left. It was like the river flow took a U-turn from some place we were looking at. Multiple hotels were visible on my back side or from the side we climbed the roof. They all had separate space in the hill with nearly similar views.

Hunza looked pleasing to eyes from anywhere we saw it. Misty mountains appeared unusually tall. Their snow covered peaks looked gorgeous from the river banks. Clouds move all over them but they were moving ever so slowly. They stopped for a while to prolong their stay in the beautiful valley. Many flowers were blooming there, many fruits hanging in the trees. During springtime and pleasant summers, beauty of Hunza is simply overloaded.

Hunza’s natural atmosphere gives a pleasant feeling. It’s so calm and quite there.  It’s an ideal remote area, a worthy escape into the nature. Hunza contains all the qualities of a rural atmosphere. But the infrastructure is also up to the mark though not the most luxurious. People have found their ways to survive and sustain their lifestyles. They care about their history and culture. They have preserved some of the ancient villages and are taking care of their heritage.

Despite of their individual efforts, these people require government support. The electricity shortage and gas supply issues were one of the major concerns. The hotel administration where we stayed were all the time busy in providing alternate power supply and warm our water supply lines but that was not enough. They were struggling to keep up the standards.  Often we were led down because they couldn’t run generators 24 hours a day. The cold water made it difficult to visit the washrooms. They had electric heaters but were useless because of no electricity. 

Issues were there but we as a nation have become used to them in Pakistan. We have become immune to these troubles. We don’t seem to feel the pain anymore. Ghalib, the famous Urdu language poet says, “Ranj Sey Khugar Hua Insan Tu Mit Jata Hai Ranj, Mushkilein Itni Pari Key Asan Hogayeen.” It means that when human being becomes used to the problems, then they start fading away. When difficulties become sufficiently severe, they lose their intensity and vigor.

So, we just continued looking at the positives during our visit. History, culture, and natural landscape were some of the positives about Hunza. People were also very nice. Our stay at Hunza View hotel gave us an idea of all that. Hints of their history and culture were everywhere in the form of pictures and paintings they had in the hotel’s reception area, stairways, halls, and living rooms. In general, they responded to our needs with utmost urge and hospitality which gave us an idea of Hunza in general. 

Tourists matter to the people of Hunza because they help their economy to sustain. There is not much else to do in the mountainous area especially when the land is reduced in size by nature. Therefore, one of the permanent things about Hunza is that it will always remain the same. 

At reception area of our hotel, one of the staff members told, “We have eight months of winter every year.  Few manage to visit even in summers because of our remote location far away from mainland Pakistan. Whereas, hardly anyone visits during winters since all the roads are most of the time blocked due to snowfall. Even then, somehow, if you ever manage to make it to Hunza during winters, then we ensure that the hotels would charge so less, you’ll almost feel like living for free.”