Cast of Characters

Me on Bei Bei, Mr Ren, Guo Sheng, Zorbee, Megan Lewis on Jing Jing

Mr Peng and his pony – the previous year he and his ponies had been all around China.

Mr Peng's ponies

Just to show that Rowena was born for her challenge, here she is aged 2, already heading East:

And here she is already riding in China.

All is set in China, Megan's got the horses, guide, support, equipment, fodder, etc. it's all on.  Rowena is doing this not just to escape me and the kids, but really to raise money for School Children for Children, a charity funding basic improvements to schools in developing countries, see:
 
www.schoolchildrenforchildren.org
 
It would be great if Rowena can feel that her sore backside has actually achieved something, so if you could possibly donate something to this charity it would make it worth all the effort.  Rowena has set up a very simple web link, so it is easy to contribute with a credit card, and get gift aid:
 
www.justgiving.com/rowenagulland

Thanks so much, we would really appricate it.
 

On 1st October Rowena flys off to Beijing to join her cousin Megan for the first month of her 4 year horse ride to London.  They are raising money for Schoolchildren for Children, a charity supporting local schools on her ride. Megan is presently busy in Beijing sorting things out.  Read more at:

www.thelonghorseride.com

Horses are already bought, here is Rowena' stead for the next month, any suggestion for a name?  I recon that after a month on this Kazakhstan will seem like paradise

Not quite exciting as Peshawar, but still quite interesting, here are some photos of the older Atyrau, about 5 minutes walk from the hotel.  In fact you can walk from one side of the town to the other in about an hour.  I believe these sort of houses are rapidly being knocked down to make way for more modern buildings.

Life may now not quite be so interesting for the rest of the world having left Pakistan, but as we have this blog I thought we should keep it up to date with the excitements of a small boy.

Being 4 means presents, and the bigger the better:

We returned to Charlbury last December, and on 13th Febuary Gwendolyn Aisha Moira was born.

Mum is doing really well;

.. and Dad is very prowd.

.. but John is very pleased with his new sister..

Its great to have a live toy,

Now there are two to torment mummy..

Back in England means enjoying the rain with cousin Isabel who came to visit from Hong Kong.

Have we found the pixi at the end of the rainbow?

It is hard to believe that it is already December and we have waved farewell to our final visitors and are now preparing to leave Pakistan in less than two weeks…. Time has raced by and we are experiencing a mix of emotions about our departure.  Pakistan, and Peshawar in particular has been an exciting and unique experience, not always wonderful but never dull.  We have learned a lot about ourselves in the process and have created some unique memories for us as a family that we will treasure. 

Our final visitors were my father and step-mother (Brian and Ida) and they made the trip from Australia to coincide with the celebrations for John's 3^rd birthday.  Having told them the weather was warm and sunny the day prior to their departure – there was a complete turn around and when they arrived 2 days later it was cold and wet and stayed that way for some time.  Sadly the poor weather meant that our planned trip to say good bye to all our friends in Chitral was cancelled as it was too risky to fly up as the road pass was closed with snow and if there were no incoming flights or limited ones then we would be stranded there for some time.  So Plan B was rolled out and we set off to see Swat.

Enroute we stopped off at Takht-i-Bhai which will be familiar to anyone who has been looking at this blog (if you feel it is over familiar imagine how we feel!  It has practically been our second home in the past months and now the chowkidar lets us in at a reduced rate – customer loyalty counts here too!)

Clouds and view on the way back down the mountain – it was a beautiful evening.

Below are two photos that escaped the sequence – they belong to Malam Jabba but who cares – a rarely seen shot of the family Gulland – usually I am taking the pictures.

Ida and John enjoying that Pepsi moment – or was it Coke?

Sunday is always a bad day to travel down the Malakand Pass and our trip was no exception – but it did provide us with opportunity to meet this charming gentleman who allowed John to try out his truck.

Small boy heaven, the inside of a Pakistani painted truck.

Dealing with the police at the check point

Talking of police Brian and Ida did the Kyhber pass trip and had the usual armed escort up the pass.

Now the main event of the visit was a small boy's 3^rd birthday party.  Lots of smiles all round.

A birthday party means more presents

And Party games

Even pass the parcel.

I had hoped this was going to be a report on Prince Charles' visit to DOST on his trip to Pakistan.  Sadly the excitement of him coming to us as his only local NGO visit turned to disappointment when he cancelled the morning of the visit.  It was not too great a surprise.  We heard the helicopters flying over our home on their way to attack the madrassa two days previously and knew immediately something was amiss (we didn't however hear the rockets flying over our heads in the opposite direction a week later in retaliation.  They didn't hit much and only appeared in the back pages of the local newspaper, missiles with 15km range were reported as just a bit of accidental 'over exuberance' from our tribal friends).  The last straw was the night before the visit, a friend of mine from the US consulate called me to say he had received a specific threat on the Prince's life.  I tried to persuade him to keep quiet, but he insisted on calling the Prince's security team, and the visit to Peshawar was off.  Whimp.....

Oh well who needs a Prince when we had my sister visiting.  As usual a trip to the 2000 year old Buddhist ruins in Takht-e Bhai.

John got down to some of his own excavating..

Emma and I went for a drive down to Lahore.  We took the old Grand Trunk road and stopped at Rohtas Fort.  A huge Mughal fort with 4km circumference walls, 12 gates and 68 Bastions, built in 1543.  A fair sized village is situated inside and does not even stretch to the walls.

 Apparently the architect was nearly put to death after the emperor saw the first construction because it was too small.  I think he got the message..

Then onto Lahore and the fort.  We saw that a VIP was visiting and so hung around the closed off Hall of Mirrors.  Sure enough the VIP was invited in, and so we begged the guard to let us in too.  Although still under restoration it was spectacular.

Lahore of course meant a meal on the rooftop of Coco's den overlooking the mosque

However I still prefer the street food.

We also went to the border closing ceremony where I got my first glimpse of India.  Well the sight of a large well constructed spectator stadium.  On the Pakistan side it was incomplete and pretty dangerous, but still the crowd was very enthusiastic.  Both sides cheer their border guards as they close the gate each evening.  Quite a display.

We also went to Jahangir's tomb near Lahore, the only Mughal mausoleum in Pakistan.  Dated 1627, it is beautiful and very peaceful.

Interestingly there were a team of restorers making new marble screens.  Almost exactly as they would have been made 400 years ago, but maybe without the crafty bottle of superglue to fix any breaks!

Finally, VSO wanted to make a film about me to encorage others to volenteer and come to Pakistan, so for 2 days I had a film crew follow me around and interview friends and family.  Not sure what they will produce, but here is a photo they made of me cycling home from work. 

Matt's parents came in September, and we all flew off to Skardu in the Northern Area for 10 days of jeeping adventure.  With Rowena due in February and us now planning to return to UK in December, this was going to be one of our last trips.

The scenery around Skardu is beautiful, surrounded by spectacular mountains on the banks of the Indus with huge sand dunes. The town is a strange mix of purdah bazaar and lots of evidence of foreign tourists in a way that you do not see in Chitral.  It is a central hub for the K2 and other adventure trips that draw people to Northern Pakistan.

We drove up the road towards K2 to Shigar, a lovely old village.  The fort, around 400 years old was originally built on a huge bolder.  It has been restored and is now a wonderful hotel set in delightful gardens and orchards.  The fort and village was built by a tribe fleeing from Ganesh in the Hunza valley and the similarities in the architecture is striking. Our bedroom was the window at the top.

As you can see the boys were busy being useful again

There are lovely gardens just right for some daddy wrestling.

The local mosques show a strong influence from Ganesh with strands from Tibetan and Kashmiri culture as well.  The mosque had been restored by the Aga Khan Foundation (who do a lot of impressive work in these areas) as well as other houses in the villages.

On the road towards the Indian boarder is Khapulu, also with a wonderful old fort, still being restored but with some wonderful Kashmiri carved and painted ceilings and window fret work.  The fort commands a great position above the town under the shadow of the mountains where it was situated earlier.

We took a jeep over the Deosai Plains, a huge plateau all well above 4000m, in fact it is the second highest plateau in the world – second only to Tibet.  It is was a wonderful open landscape – reminiscent of Scotland in a strange way.

 It was the end of the summer and the locals were on their way back off the plains before the snow started falling.

After a long dusty day bouncing around in the jeep we eventually reached one of the most remote PDTC motels we have been to yet – Rama which lies on the Eastern side of Nanga Parbat.  The hotel had great views of the peak but limited hot water and no heating – it was getting cold by now so fashion not an issue when you are wearing all your clothes..

Then on North up to Hunza.  We stayed at Eagle's Nest a hotel with wonderful views.  Here is John with the sun just setting on Golden Peak 7024m

The view of Rakaposhi (7800m) from our hotel room

Further up the Karakorum Highway towards China we came across an amazing bridge over the Hunza river.  As you can see Matt is taking great care of his pregnant wife – again!