Paul Darlow visited the Shandur Polo Festival, the scene of the world’s highest polo match, where he experienced “legendary” Pakistani hospitality and a familiar match-day atmosphere.
Shandur Polo Festival has been held annually in Pakistan since 1936. Every year the top polo teams from Gilgit travel there to pitch themselves against their opponents from Chitral. At an altitude of 3,700 m, the Shandur plateau is claimed to be the highest polo ground in the world – sadly, it’s not unknown for horses to perish from over-exertion at such altitude.
Until a few years ago there was no road to Shandur, meaning that people walked (or rode on horseback), often for days on end, to get there. Now though there is a road the whole way from Gilgit to Chitral via Shandur, so most people take the bus. Most people, that is, apart from mad travellers…
Two weeks before the festival was due to begin I was in Gilgit chatting to other travellers about their plans. Attending the polo festival was top of everyone’s list, but no-one really knew what to do beforehand. While skimming through a Pakistan guidebook one guy noticed that by combining a few trekking routes through the Karakoram Mountains, it might be possible to go almost the entire 220 km from Gilgit to Shandur on foot. Checking the route on our Pakistan maps it looked like an adventure not to be missed, so the following day we booked a jeep to take us to the trail-head, and off we went.
For the next few days we trekked through the most breathtakingly beautiful scenery you can imagine – animals grazed on emerald green pastures situated next to azure lakes, eagles soared past snow-capped peaks, and glaciers tumbled down from seemingly every mountain.
The only other people we met were goat and yak herders who spent their days looking after their animals, and who lived in primitive wood structures. Food was a few essentials that we carried with us together with whatever we could lay our hands on en route: wild rhubarb gathered from the hillsides plus bread, cheese and yoghurt purchased from the herders.
En route we were invited to stay for four nights with a family in the village of Pakora, where days were spent swimming in streams and strolling around the apricot groves munching on fresh fruit. Evenings were spent eating, singing, dancing and playing cards. Among travellers, the hospitality of the Pakistani people is legendary because of numerous acts of kindness such as this.
As for the polo festival, apart from the fact that women and children were segregated from the men it wasn’t that dissimilar from, say, watching a game of rugby at Twickenham. Of course there was no beer on offer and no pies available, but the intensity of the action, the engagement of the audience and the general atmosphere was strangely familiar.
The other main difference I suppose was the fact that the final match was delayed for around an hour while we waited for the VIP to arrive in his military helicopter, who managed to spook all the horses by buzzing the pitch on arrival. You don’t often get that at Twickenham.
Paul Darlow manages Nepal Trekking Holidays, a travel blog dedicated to walking holidays in Nepal.
If you’ve been inspired by his experiences, you may be interested in one of these Nepal travel guides and maps: