Walking around the village I met wonderful, friendly people, most speaking a very good english. In the north here, the locals are mostly Wakhi and Ismaeli Muslims, the same people I ‘ve got to meet in Tajik Pamir and the Wakhan corridor a few months before. As I mentioned then the Islamelis are all very progressive Muslims, well-educated, with women fully integrated in the social and economic life. However, even though they are the same people, it is striking to see how more open, curious, reliable and just simply happy people seem to be here in comparison with Tajikistan. And it something I could generalise to the all country, not only with Ismaelis. I have tried to understand why that is and the only conclusion I could come up with was that in Tajikistan (and Central Asia) people have until recently lived under the debilitating forces of communism and dependence from Moscow. They now live under repressive regimes with corruption endemic at all levels of society. In contrast, while the Pakistani regime is maybe not the most transparent in the world, the people of the Northern Areas have been more or less left to their own device so far and proudly built their economy by themselves (and lots of help from the Swiss based Aga Khan Foundation). Personally after just a few hours there I knew I was dealing with a very different kind of environment and people and it was a real relief to feel that I could trust most (if not all) the persons I would deal with.
Ismailimail 
Is there any problem for an Indian American traveling Karakoram highway?
rudranagar@aol.com
LikeLike