welcome to shigar the gateway to k2
it's quite early in the morning and i'm heading to shigar looks like it's going to be a nice day
but it's pretty cold right now and the shawl so if you come here even in summers it can get
quite cold in the evenings in the mornings so make sure you bring some warm clothes with you
it roughly takes between two to two and a half hours to come from khaplu to shigar
or if you're coming from skurdu it will take roughly an hour
the road is actually not in a bad shape and they're building a new one from skardu that
will cut the time shot into half you can't go to shigar and not stop at this beautiful spot
this is the sarfaranga cold desert and it's quite early in the morning the light is very
low i honestly am a little speechless because it's really weird how this looks without light
and surprisingly i'm not cold so i'm gonna enjoy this a bit more walk around play around and then
head to shigar but if you if you're going to shigar this is on the way
and you should definitely definitely do this is such an interesting landscape see you in a bit
shigar is the last town before k2 base camp and it is quite famous
with the mountaineers but it has a lot more to offer than just that welcome
no visit to shigar is complete without a visit to the shigar fort it's been taken over by serena and
it's an amazing place to stay but even if you don't stay i would definitely recommend having
one meal there and definitely going around the place they do organized tours
this is a four and a half centuries old building and they have renovated it it's
actually a community project it's not just a hotel because they employ local people
they use local recipes they use all the local produce whenever they can because obviously
there's nothing here in winter so i'm going to show you my room i'm actually not sure if
they made up i'm a messy sleeper let's just hope they have done that come with me
oh and before we go i want to show you something so these are all
the original rugs from this area and they have also taken the time to basically bring them in
and display them i really love that let's go i really hope it's made up
now they've seen the room and i love it i mean look at these cute boxes they're like the original
ones and look at that oh my god the window is even and it's really nicely made that's the best part
so i am gonna show you the terrace which i have exclusive access to let's go there
come
this one's my favorite by the way this is my private terrace for the next two three days
and i'm the king here i almost fell asleep and then i realized i didn't actually tell you the
history so this place was built four and a half centuries ago the name of this place means palace
on the rock because it was built on the rock you can still see a bit of it protruding when you
come into the residential area with time it sort of fell into disrepair so this is still part of
the royal heritage of shigar it was donated and it was renovated and converted into a nice hotel and
a museum so even if you don't come here to stay i would still suggest you come here for food because
they have amazing amazing food here honestly oh i just love it and they're trying to preserve
the recipes which have been running in this area for ages so i hope that was a bit of history the
rest you can read online i'm gonna go to sleep now and i will see you guys in the morning night night
good morning slept like a baby there's a stream flowing right
by the hotel and it's so soothing to hear the sound when you're sleeping and i think there
was part of it which was sleeping in this amazing four and a half centuries old fort
i just loved it and i feel so fresh i can't wait to explore this place a bit more i'll show you
so i requested the chef to prepare some local food for me
and the most amazing thing about this is all of this is locally sourced from yogurt to granola
i mean they make everything from local ingredients they even have their own little orchard here
but the thing that i love the most about this place the view
i'm gonna go eat and i'll show you the food after that i'll see it a bit
the fort is really intriguing some of its walls are as thick as a meter and made of
solid stone and it's a labyrinth of small ways that go through different buildings
with beautiful little terraces tucked in and it even has its own little mosque
i'm sitting in the orchard of the serena shigar fort
it's really peaceful and the day is really beautiful
i love this little pavilion in the middle of the orchard it just has like a really different feel
so i'm going to explore shigar a little bit more there's a couple of mosques there there's a cold
desert that will do as well so come with me i'll also show you a little bit about the fort
it is time to head out and see a bit more of shigar so we'll start with the khilingrong mosque
and it's entirely made of wood something very specific to this region so i want to go inside
and see what it's made of khilingrong is a small mosque from 17th century it has two
levels and in its design and architecture the influence of buddhism is pretty obvious
and if you're coming here you gotta say hello to some special friends there
to also locals oh she doesn't want to say hello let's go to the next one
hello all right i'm not getting a lot of traction here sadly so i'm gonna go
our next stop requires a bit of traveling within the streets of shigar
this is amburiq mosque and it's special because it's one of the first few mosques in the shigar
area and it was built by irani and kashmiri craftsmen and it's also a mosque built with wood
really beautiful and the backdrop of mountains is spectacular
amburiq mosque is actually the oldest mosque in the entire gilgit baltistan area
part of the fun is to try local food and i've come to a local family who've made food you know
sort of like old recipes and stuff so i'm kind of excited to try that and it's also a nice way
to meet local people you know get to know about their lives and all and honestly like after that
amazing breakfast at serena i have high hopes and i'm pretty sure they will be met by the way
food here is nothing like food you see the rest of pakistan because there's quite a lot of you know
influence on how things work in winter so let's see what it is and let's go because i'm hungry
i'm sitting in the kitchen of haseena haider and she's a local lady he's preparing some
local food for us i'm quite excited it looks really great let's see what comes out
so haseena has gone like way above and beyond i can't believe all of this is just for me
uh it looks really great i'm not going to waste any time talking to you while this
is waiting but before you go this is something interesting it's a utensil entirely made of stone
and they use it to cook food here i'll talk to you in a bit after i've eaten all of it so thank you
gonna finish off the food with some tea it is actually something interesting it's like green
tea but it's made locally um there's a herb that they use for it i'm going to try that
and then i'm going to take you around shigar so i'll see you in a bit we've run out of petrol
so this is us refilling the petrol fun isn't it outside the city this is the bridge of hang koi
it's abandoned there's a new one right next to it but the views from here apparently nice
let's go see if that's true it is quite a beautiful spot with this absolutely calming
and serene shigar river just passing by and these beautiful mountains all around you
i'm not done with shigar yet we have one more spot to explore
the last stop for the day is blind lake it is a little bit of a drive outside shigar city but
i've been promised good things so let's see the view is already amazing on the way so i'm hopeful
the road to blind lake is actually quite rough and i would definitely recommend going on a 4x4
and you can also camp there if you want
so it took us about 30 to 40 minutes to get here
and the place on the way i mean you could see in the entire valley it was
wow i love it this is a good place to come for sunset a big part of this experience for me has
been to see how small i actually am compared to the landscape i mean i'm in a huge valley
and some of the boulders here are bigger than me truly stunning oh life lessons like these eh
so it looks like i left it too late and the sun has gone down and the lake has
become dark but it's still a spectacular view like you can see the entire valley from here
all the way at the back so i'm still happy i came here
look isn't this gorgeous
after that long beautiful day it's time to get some food and then head to bed because i am tired
here
it's my last evening here in shigar honestly the food has been amazing so this is mutton this is an
interesting version sort of like a pide but a local version of that and this is a local
pasta made with spinach and obviously a staple of every pakistani table fresh roti so i'm gonna go
munch on this and then go get some sleep because i'm really tired after all that trekking
this is sadly all my time in shigar i've had such an amazing
time honestly i didn't really expect that much but oh my god this place is just so
amazing so bye-bye
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