The periphery is now in demand, and the Baltis have got ideas.cr
Billed a primitive place, unchanged, isolated, remote, with the greatest concen tration of high mountain peaks in the world and the longest glaciers outside the polar areas, Baltistan actually has for centuries been the crossroads for trade and for Asian religions: Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam. (Baltistan´s ´capital´, Skardu, or Iskaraldu, is said to have been founded by Alexander and the name of the town derived from the name he is known in this part of the world, Iskander/Sikander.) Despite their illustrious past, however, the Baltis today remain at the periphery of the Pakistani nation-state, their voices smothered under the cries of the plains Pakistanis.
Baltistan is more easily recognised in the West than it is in Pakistan itself.The adventurous Pakistani tourist who makes it up the Karakorum Highway to Gilgit in his 800 cc diminutive Suzuki car (the Mehran) and then along the Rondu gorge to Skardu is more impressed by the number of Westerners about than by the mountains. They delight in having their photographs taken with foreigners.
Distance, however, is a limiting factor, for it is a two-day trip to Skardu and few city bred Suzuki owners will risk their cars on the weather-plagued roads. When planes do fly during patches of good weather, foreign tour groups manage to command priority as they spend hard currency.