About Gilgit

Gilgit is the administrative capital of Northern Area Pakistan, consisted of six districts namely Ghezir, Gilgit, Diamar, Astore, Baltistan (Skardu) and Ghanche. It is accessible by road and air from Islamabad. It has an area of 14,680 mi (38,021 km ). The region is significantly mountainous, lying on the foothills of the Karakoram mountains, and has an average altitude of 1,500 m (5,000 ft).

Gilgit has spectacular scenic beauty. The peak tourist season is from May to mid-October though the tourist season is round the year. The maximum temperature in May is 33 C and minimum 16 C In September.

Gilgit is the gateway to China and Central Asia. Gilgit is also the hub of various valleys to the North Hunza and China. To the South, Diamar, Kohistan and Swat. To the East Skardu and Kashmir, and to the West Ghezir and Chitral.


Local currency is Pak Rupee but foreign currencies are also accepted by the hotels and gift shops. Exchange facilities are available with all banks and local moneychangers. Shina is the language mainly spoken and understood in Gilgit Northern Area of Pakistan. Beside Shina people can speak and understand Urdu and English.

Gilgit is called the capital and heart of Northern area of Pakistan because it is hub of economic activities. A commercial route opened with the China has boosted multidimensional economic opportunities. Gilgit is the only town in northern area of Pakistan which facilities traffic to different valleys and to the capital area of Pakistan Islamabad. Gilgit is well connected by air with Islamabad. You can take a flight to Gilgit from the capital of the country and reach Gilgit. The airport at Gilgit is just a mile away from the main bazaar and you can take mini-vans or some other vehicle to reach Gilgit town.

Tourism And Transport In Gilgit

Gilgit city is one of the two major hubs for all mountaineering expeditions in the Northern Areas of Pakistan. Almost all tourists headed for treks in Karakoram or Himalaya ranges arrive at Gilgit first. Many tourists choose to travel Gilgit by air since the road travel between Islamabad and Gilgit by Karakoram Highway takes nearly 18 hours, whereas the air travel takes a mere 45-50 minutes.

Places Of Interests In Gilgit

Just 10 kms from the town of Gilgit, is a Buddha carved into a stone face. Buddha is a victory monument of Taj Mughal, built 700 years ago. The beautiful valley of Naltar in the south eastern side of Gilgit is 35 km away from the main town. It's lush green pastures and green carpeted ground make it a jewel of the Gilgit. It is a forested (pine) village known for its wildlife and magnificent mountain scenery.
Gilgit Buddah

Naltar Valley Gilgit

Hunza region 113 km, from Gilgit. It takes tow or three hours to reach Hunza from Gilgit. It is the one of good place in Gilgit region. It offers historical view of Altit Fort, Baltit Fort, Ganish Fort and skyscraper mountains. It's covered by high peaks namely Rakaposhi (7,788 m), Ladyfinger (6,000 m) and Darmyani Peak (6,090 m) and Lady Finger mountains. In Hunza Three major languages are spoken, Shina in Lower Hunza, Burushaski in Central Hunza , Wakhi in Upper Hunza and Burushaski Nagar..

Nager Valley is very famous for hunting animals such as Marco Polo sheep, brown bears, show tigers etc. Gulmet, Faker and Bar are the popular tourist attraction places in Nagar. Golden peak Rakahposhi is situated in the Nagar Valley.

Modern Hunza

Hunza River Valley was improved in the mid-1950s to accommodate Mir Jamal Khan's newly acquired used Jeep. John Clark traveled on foot and horseback during his visit in 1950 and 1951. Dr. Allen E. Banik travel via Jeep during his visit in 1958 as did others thereafter.

The dangerous road was improved over the years to become the Karakorum Highway. This picture is overlooking the village of Ganesh near the capitol of Baltit. The road winds down the side of the valley as it traverses the terraced fields. Rock slides in other areas continue to require constant attention in order to keep the road open.

Hunza is a common destination for tourists traveling to Pakistan because of all of the past hype about the longevity and exceeding good health of the residents. The contrast between the spectacular Himalayan mountain peaks and the lush terraced gardens makes Hunza the photographers' paradise.

A fruit tree in the foreground can be seen in full bloom with a glimpse of the Hunza river in the top left. The tall and narrow Lombard poplar trees have been grown here for centuries because they are fast growing, provide good firewood and don't shade the vegetable gardens.

Hunza exports people. The valley will not support the growing population. Many young adults leave Hunza to other areas of Pakistan for employment. They send money and goods back to their families in Hunza. The farm can be passed to a son but is to small to divide between more than one son.

Tourism provides another source of income. Exports and natural resources are severely limited. Without an export a country or area does not have the money to purchase imports. This economic truth has kept Hunza from progressing.

Summary.

Mir Muhammed Jamal Khan enjoyed a good show of deception. His visit with Dr. Allen E. Banik in 1958 was a good example. The Mir invited Dr. Banik to witness a mock trial in the Old Palace (Fort) that had been built centuries before high on the side of the valley in Baltit. As they left the Mir's new Palace the Mir said "to start without him, as he wanted a little time to dress for the occasion." Dr. Banik and his photographer struggled up the long, steep climb to the Old Palace and rested for a couple of minutes before entering. They were shocked to find the Mir of Hunza seated on his throne beautifully attired in his ceremonial robes, plumed cap and ancient sword. Dr. Banik had a 15 minute head start, but the Mir sat cool and comfortable, with no sign of fatigue. Dr. Banik ask if the Mir had come by horseback. He replied laughingly, "Why, of course not! I walked - it was just a short jaunt." Naturally, the Mir has ridden a horse. This was a show of deception attempting to trick Dr. Banik into believing the people of Hunza were super-human. Dr. Banik believed the trick by convincing himself and the readers that it was possible because the Mir had a longer stride. See Dr. Banik's book page 107. The scientific fact is that having a longer stride does not reduce the work required to hike the hill. Short-legged people do very well climbing mountains. Dr. Banik must have failed his college physics class.

We really shouldn't fault the Mir for deceiving people about Hunza. It is always a strong temptation to play with the minds of the gullible. He did a first-class act on them. The Mir also said there were Abominable Snowmen in the mountains around Hunza, and Dr. Banik apparently believed that as well.

The Scientific American Mind magazine in the July 25, 2005 issue ran a front page story titled, The Joy of Telling Lies - Everybody Does It - Because It Works. Deception runs like a red thread throughout all of human history. The Hunzakuts were no different. The Hunzakuts excelled in falsehoods about their ages, state of health and happiness because they benefited. The Mir encouraged the deception because he thought the people would be happier. The Mir prevented John Clark from taking two students to the United States for further education because the Mir feared the boys would be dissatisfied in Hunza after their return. He was shielding his people from the world.

Hunza was not a democracy as falsely reported. The Mir (King) was a strong dictator. His meetings with the ministers from each village was called a Durbar where the ministers brought up concerns and problems. The Mir ask for their opinion but in the end they were simply "yes" men. The Mir had such control over the subjects of Hunza that a farmer refrained from correcting the river channel when the river had begun eroding his farm land. The farmer had to get permission from the Mir before trying to save his farm.

The Hunza people did not enjoy exceptionally long life as falsely claimed. It is doubtful that anyone in Hunza ever lived to be 100 year of age. The ages claimed by the Hunzakuts were simply lies. They considered age to be a matter of wisdom and achievement, not calendar years. They kept no written records and did not know their calendar age.

This picture was taken in 1961. Queen Rani is on the left. Mir Jamal Khan is third from the left. His age was accurately known because he was royalty. He was born on September 23, 1912 and died in Gilgit, Pakistan on March 18, 1976. He was only 49 when this picture was taken but looks much older. He only lived to age 64. He certainly was not a symbol of longevity.

The Hunza people were not healthy or free from disease. They suffered greatly from a multitude of disease. They had poor dental health and infections. They lived in a very unsanitary environment. The one benefit was the extreme isolation that reduced the number of contagious diseases. Cancer and heart disease may have been rare, but it is unknown for certain because the dead were never examined by a professional.

The Hunza diet was not the perfect diet as claimed. Diet deficiencies abound. The diet was seriously deficient in iodine, omega-3 fatty acids and amino acids from proteins. Many of the diseases treated by John Clark were the result of the a nutritional deficiency.

Tuberculosis is a good example of a disease that causes death for those with a protein deficiency. The Hunzakuts suffered and died from tuberculosis as reported by John Clark. The immune system is made entirely from amino acids derived from eating protein. Meat is the best source for amino acids. The Hunzakuts developed tuberculosis and died as a result of protein deficiency. Dr. Weston E. Price in the 1920s and Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson in the 1910s discovered that Eskimos who developed tuberculosis while living in the white mans' settlements and eating carbohydrates were cured after being transferred to live with the natives on their traditional all-meat diet. Moving the sick Eskimos out of the settlements to return to the native way was a proven cure for diseases.

The Hunzakuts were not a wonderfully happy people as claimed. The women in Hunza were treated harshly. They were not allowed an education and were highly restricted in public. The women endured hard labor in smoky dwellings and suicide was not uncommon. They would either eat the poison pits from the bitter apricot or jump from a convenient cliff.

The grains did not mature faster in Hunza than other places as false reported by Dr. Allen E. Banik. The vegetation and trees in Hunza showed signs of nutritional deficiency as reported by John Clark. Hunza is an artificial environment that depends on hard manual labor to keep the terraced gardens watered and fertilized. The silt used to make the gardens is not organic soil. It is ground rock that originates from the grinding of the glacier as it moves down the high mountain valley above. The silt contains many minerals but lacks phosphates and organic matter. Fertilization with animal dung and human excrement is required several times during the growing season to keep the plants and trees healthy. Even so, the growing conditions are not ideal. Luckily the glacial milk does not contain harmful minerals or metals in sufficient quantities to cause health problems for the vegetation, animals or humans. No two glacial milks are the same. Glacial water from other areas of the earth are each different from one another. The content depend completely on the composition of the rock over which they flow.

The Hunza people were no different from other people who lived in isolated high mountain communities. Most of the books written about the Hunzakuts are simply fiction and myths flamed on by the imagination into believing the Hunza River Valley was a magical Garden of Eden where people never got sick. The people of Hunza recognized a century ago that pretending to be centenarians brought visitors bearing money and gifts. They certainly must have been laughing after retreating to the privacy of their homes. Primitive people the world over have been known to tell tall tales about themselves to strangers visiting their land. Lying about one's age is as old as mankind. The people of Hunza are known for their consistent exaggerations of age in order to gain respect and social status. The social structure of Hunza encouraged lying and cheating as a profitable way to better one's self.

Scientific facts about Hunza have been impossible to obtain. Since the British first entered Hunza the ruling Mir has placed a severe restriction on visitors to the valley. Permission was required from both Pakistan and the State of Hunza. Scientific studies or independent investigations were strictly forbidden. An invitation from the Mir of Hunza was essential to obtain a special-entry permit. As late as 1960 there were no hotels, no restaurants, and no stores to buy food. Chosen visitors were generally guests of the Mir in the capital of Baltit where they were a make-believe story instead of the truth about Hunza.

The Mir of Hunza never provided verification of the longevity of the Hunzakuts and never allowed others to investigate. The Hunzakuts of the past were no older than they appeared and may have actually been younger than they appeared. The longevity was a hoax from the beginning, and the diet did not produce a super-human race. Hunza could best be described as an isolated high mountain kingdom founded on betrayal and struggling for existence by deceiving the world.

Hunza has been mostly ignored by the surrounding nations because it has no strategic importance whatsoever. The valley is simply inconsequential except for the myth that the people had record longevity on a near vegetarian diet. However, the Hunza River Valley did provide many health benefits. The Hunza people of the past were forced to adopt a lifestyle that has been shown to have many healthy features.

• Babies were nursed at the breast for several years. The weak and those that could not nurse simply died.

• Obesity caused by excessive calorie consumption was unknown, although malnutrition was a serious problem.

• Work and physical activity aided in overall well-being.

• Isolation prevented many communicable diseases.

• Dry air at a high elevation reduced the incidence of many communicable diseases.

• Rodents and insects that transmit disease were rare in the isolated high mountain valley.

• Processed and refined foods were non existent.

• Sugar was a very rare commodity in 1950 because of the extremely high cost and unknown earlier.

• Honey was not available.

• Imports were unavailable because of the isolation and the lack of any exportable commodity.

• Everyone struggled equally. There was not an overworked slave class or lazy ruling class in the social structure, both of which tend to reduce life span.

Many people have tried to capitalize on the Hunza myth by writing books and selling diet programs. Many of these people actually believed the Hunza myth themselves and tried to duplicate the diet in their own lives. The result was always failure. Good health was never achieved. A typical fraudulent diet program called the "BioCalendar Health System" was advertised in The Kansas City Times on May 18, 1978, on page 18D by a group calling themselves The American Health Institute, 125 American Health Institute Boulevard, Canton, Ohio, 44767.

The Honesty, Court System and the Social System in Hunza.

The Mir told Renee Taylor that Hunza had no police and no crime. He described Hunza as Perfect Land. This story was also false. The "Durbar" was an open court of ministers lead by the Mir. Each village also had a Durbar led by three judges for the trial of less serious offenses. Hunza had a penal colony at Shimshal Valley where inmates attended to flocks of sheep owned by the Mir. It was a dreadful sentence to be banished to Shimshal. The winters were icy cold and the high winds blew continuously.

To the credit of the Hunza people, the social system made premarital sex a serious taboo. The couple would quickly get married if a girl became pregnant, otherwise couples got married at the same time in December in a great community ceremony. Murder, adultery and homosexuality were much more serious with the death penalty as punishment upon conviction. Therefore, there were no homosexuals or cheating spouses in Hunza and very few murders of fellow Hunzakuts.

A winter feast called the Tumushuling was held following the December Wedding Day. The meal consisted of chapatis (bread), meat, rice and plates of butter. Animals were killed for the winter festival as a special treat and because of the shortage of grain and dried fruit. Only the village chiefs, other prominent men, new bridegrooms and the Mir attended, and a song of the history of Hunza was sung. It lasted for several hours and ended in a food fight with flying pieces of chapatis and gobs of butter.

Hunzakuts were not above murder and theft in past centuries when they continually raided trade caravans traveling through the nearby mountain passes, but that practice was discontinued in the late 1800s.

Honesty was another problem since the social system made dishonesty the best policy. Life in Hunza was highly competitive and unorganized. The people cared only for those in their immediate family. One man could not be trusted to take his neighbor's farm produce to the market in Gilgit. Each farmer had to take his own produce. Since cheating, lying and stealing were the norm, a Hunzakut would lie or tell any fable that would give him an advantage. It is no surprise that many of the people falsely claimed to be over 100 years of age. The crime rate was so bad that John Clark had the shoes stolen off his horse in Mount Ultar Nullah (canyon) by the Mir's own sheepherders, and his personal items were stolen from a locked room in the old palace by one of the Mir's servants who had a key. The village chief stole some of Clark's medicines that were critical for his treating the people. The Mir would do nothing about these incidences. See page 98. The picture is of the Old Palace where John Clark lived and had his school. It was also known as the Fort.

A Hunzakut could not be trusted to pay an agreed amount for a service or material goods to be delivered. Neither could a Hunzakut be trusted to deliver a service or goods if the payment were made in advance. For these reasons the people did not deal much with each other. Most of the dealings were only within family groups where the people were more hesitant to cheat a relative. John Clark assigned one of his students the task of purchasing food from the villagers. The student would only contact his family members and reported that the food item was not available if his family did not have it. He would not seek the food any other place in the village. John Clark gained the trust of the people by his fair and honest dealings. He paid the agreed amount upon completion of the work or delivery of the goods. He also paid well and frequently gave a bonus for good performance.

The unusual practices in the Hunza court or Durbar promoted dishonesty as well. Guilt was not decided by the one who started an incident but by the one throwing the worst insults. The guilty party was fined for minor offenses with half of the fine going to the judges and the other half to the Mir. The innocent party was also expected to pay an equal amount as a gift to the judges. Therefore the guilty and the innocent suffered equally. As a result, few complaints were brought before the authorities.

The Hunza villagers paid taxes to the Mir on their farm produce. They were also required to work part time on the Mir's personal property and projects without pay. Two boys the same age as the Mir's son were assigned as companions to the Crown Prince and were to be servants for life.

Hunza Glacial Milk

Many people jump to the conclusion that the water diverted from glacial runoff was the source of special healing and life extending properties. The gardens were watered with mineral rich glacier water carried by an aqueduct system for a distance of 50 miles (80 m) from the Ultar Glacier on the 25,550 foot (7789 m) high Mount Rakaposhi.

The wooden aqueduct trough was hung from the sheer cliffs by steel nails hammered into the rock walls. Rocks beneath the glacier were ground into a fine powder or silt by the pressure and weight to give the water a slight milky color, thus it was described as "Glacial Milk."

There are those who claim the Hunza water is rich in cesium and potassium thereby making it rich with caustically (alkaline) active metals that prevent and cure cancer. Some modern doctors are giving cesium therapy treatments to cure cancer, but cesium does not cure cancer.

The glacier water used to flood the garden plots did provide many minerals or trace metals. The minerals were in the ground rock and not in the colloidal form as many claim. The following link gives a chemical composition of the glacial milk of Hunza. It may or may not be correct. Most of the other information on the following link is false.

Hunza Apricot Pit

The Hunza people did grow apricots and eat the apricot kernel of the apricot pit. The apricot kernel does indeed contain vitamin B-17, and the people may have had a low incidence of cancer, but the apricot had nothing to do with the cancer rate in the Hunza people. Vitamin B-17 has never been shown to prevent or cure cancer. The dead Hunzakuts were never examined by anyone to verify the cause of death. It was never proven that they had a low incidence of cancer.

Hunza Vegetarian Myth

The Hunza people were never vegetarians or even close to it. They refrained from eating many of their animals in summer because animals were the main source of food in the remaining 10 months of the year. They ate a high-fat diet all year long, especially in winter when the consumption of animal fats increased. The butter, yogurt and cheese made from the goat, sheep and Yak milk was very high in fat, especially saturated fats. The Hunza people were somewhat vegetarian for two or three months during the summer.

The diet that vegetarian authors claim was eaten by the Hunza people can be found in other modern and primitive societies. The present people in Southern India are strict vegetarians by religious conviction, but they have the shortest life span on earth as scientifically proven. They are ravaged by disease, diet deficiencies and suffer from frail body structures. The children exhibit a failure to thrive, and the childhood mortality is very high.

The ancient people of Egypt in the days of the Pharaohs ate a diet almost identical to that claimed for the Hunza people by present day vegetarian authors, but the health of the Egyptians was a disaster. The Egyptians had a written language that described diseases such as tooth decay, obesity and heart disease. They lived on the fertile flood plain of the Nile River delta. Life was easy, and grains, fruits and vegetables were grown in an overwhelming abundance. The Bible tells of the abundance in Egypt while surrounding peoples were suffering drought and famine. The Egyptians mummified hundreds of thousands of people whose preserved remains are available for study today. The bodies can be examined today to identify diseases and diet deficiencies. Even though they had a abundance of food they suffered terribly from rotten teeth, osteoporosis, diabetes and heart disease. Soft tissue diseases such as cancer are more difficult to trace in the mummies. Heart disease would have not been identified had it not been for the Egyptian writings. The cause for the poor health of the Egyptians was the abundance of carbohydrate foods not unlike the abundance found in supermarkets today.

The Hunza Longevity Myth

John Clark did not make any mention whatsoever about the Hunza people living to an especially old age. The British general who first visited Hunza in the 1870s said there were old people but gave no indication as to the ages. At that time in history a person beyond 50 years of age was considered to be well beyond the average life expectancy.

This picture shows old Hunza men who proclaim to a visitor that they are more than 100 years of age. They appear to be 70 to 80 years of age which would be more accurate. Because this is a recent picture taken by tourists, these gentlemen were probably never born or raised in Hunza. They most likely arrived from other areas of Pakistan, drawn to the opportunity of collecting a gratuity from the unsuspecting traveler for the privilege of taking their picture.

Hunzakuts are known for their folklore and story telling as are most primitive people. After switching from being a warrior people to a peaceful people the Hunzakuts developed a highly over-inflated opinion of themselves. They thought the British soldiers had come to surrender to their leadership. They viewed themselves as living in the land of perfect, and they claimed theirs was the perfect society. They were and continue to be very much in denial of their true situation. This attitude is not uncommon among primitive peoples. Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson reported a very similar attitude among the primitive Eskimos who had never seen a white man. The Eskimos bragged that their Shaman (religious leader) could kill a bear on the other side of the mountain with a bow and arrow, and that he could travel to the Moon, converse with the people living there and return. The Eskimo considered themselves to be far superior to the white man who admitted to having never been to the moon. This was in 1910 before white man did travel to the Moon, walk on the surface and return, although not finding the people whom the Eskimo claimed lived there.

Exaggerations of the longevity of the Hunza people have exploded because the British General reported that the Hunza people lived to a healthy old age. Some claims are now being made that the Hunzakuts lived 150 to 200 years of age. These claims are pure nonsense. The claim that the people lived to 110 years of age is also false. The thought of a Garden of Eden has many imaginations running wild. The following is a typical example of the myths being propagated wildly.

"The Hunza of the title is a valley in the Himalayan foothills of northern Pakistan. The Hunza people are best known for their healthy diet and lifestyle that supposedly result in people living to the age of 150 and having an active sex life until the age of 200 — or something like that."

The health of the present day Hunza is known for certain. The following is a present day observation.

"As someone who has lived and worked in the Hunza and Baltistan region of northern Pakistan for a decade, it is important to first debunk the myth that the Burushushki, Wakhi and Shina people of the Hunza region are blessed with the lives of Methusula. This was actually a myth which gained momentum when it was written up by Dr. Alexander Leaf, in the January 1973 issue of National Geographic magazine. There is absolutely no scientific validity to his claim. People of the Hunza suffer from malnutrition and nutrition deficiencies just as much as any other remote mountain region in SE Asia. Although the predominantly Ismaeli faith (branch of Shi-ite muslims) are progressive and relatively better off than most of their neighbours in nearby regions, they will all tell any visitor, that their life expectancy is around 50 - 60 years, just like any other region of northern Pakistan."

The lack of resources left the Hunza people in a constant struggle to obtain their food, and the mountain farming on the sides of the steep rocky valley required a lot of hard work. The caloric intake was naturally low and never in abundance. This combination of factors prevented the Hunza people from becoming obese and lead to the avoidance of diseases caused by a diet with an abundance of carbohydrates.

The Mir gave Renee Taylor the secret to the longevity claim of the Hunzakuts, but she totally missed the implication. He said,

"Age has nothing to do with the calendar." See page 51.

Taylor confirmed that the people did not look to be as old as they claimed.

"He looked about fifty, but he told me that he was about eighty." See page 60.

The Hunzakuts had developed the practice of equating age with wisdom, experience and achievement. A wise farmer of 50 years of age who had accumulated much more than the average farmer could rightly claim to be 120 years of age instead of his truly 50 calendar years. Taylor said she saw a man playing and jumping at a game of volleyball who said he was 145 years old but looked to be only 50 or maybe 60. See page 63. Taylor ties to lead the reader into believing these men were very old. In fact they were not. It is doubtful that they were even 50 or 60. The dry, dusty air of Hunza and the nutritional deficiencies more likely made the people look much older than they really were. This man was probably between 40 and 50 years of age but claimed to be 145 years old.

Renee Taylor made no attempt assemble the descendants of any of the older people in order to gain some confirmation as to age. It certainly would have made a point if she had taken a picture, but it was impossible to take a picture of eight living generations because the man's age was a big lie. She could have easily taken such a picture if "nobody ever gets sick in Hunza." The picture would have been interesting and looked something like this.

• Man claiming to be 145 years of age jumping and playing volley ball.

• Son of 125 years of age.

• Grandson of 105 years of age.

• Great grandson of 85 years of age.

• Great great grandson of 65 years of age.

• Great great great grandson of 45 years of age.

• Great great great great grandson of 25 years of age.

• Great great great great great grandson of 5 years of age.

Many pictures have been taken in Hunza of family groups by visitors showing babies with their father and grandfather. These grandfathers are unlikely to be any older than they appear. They are perhaps 50 years of age as is common for a grandfather, not 120 years of age as some books falsely claim.