Kailash Travel Diary (Guest Post)

I am back with an exciting guest post written by @nena khan, she is not only my bestie but also a wife and a mother of three beautiful kids. I always wanted to travel Northern Areas in Pakistan and loved hearing stories about their simple and hard-working lifestyle.she recently visited Kailash Chitral, and I asked her to write a blog post to summarize her trip. Hope you will enjoy her trip as much I do.

I am from Pakistan and have got many opportunities in my life to travel through many areas of Pakistan and meet different people from all strata of society. I have seen almost all places of my country and lastly, I visited Bumburet Valley of Chitral.

It was a quite different and beautiful experience of life. There, I came across very amazing facts and history of Kailash Valley which is very rich in culture and traditions. The culture is very different from other parts of Pakistan. Their religion name is Kailash and the place is also named on religion. The three tribes and valleys of Kailash people i.e. valleys of “Rumbur and Bumburet” forming one, and Birir valley the other is known as “Kafiristan”. Kailash people are very simple, honest and peace-loving by nature.

They have a very simple lifestyle and don’t have vast ambitions in life as we do. They don’t spend much money on clothes, food and houses. Most of the people are very poor as they have to spend a lot on festivals and local traditions. They are supposed to celebrate the funeral and slaughter fifty goats to feed the entire community and serve them wine after as well. They sing traditional songs of mourning and ladies wear their traditional dress for the funeral ceremony.  In ancient times, people used to place their dead bodies open in a traditionally prepared Coffin at graveyard but since 200 yrs, they started burying dead bodies with coffins and place dead person Charpai (Jute-bed) ups and down over his grave.

As per local customs, the rich person makes the statue of his dead father or relative and in this way, a family expend five to thirty-five lac on after death events and customs. But now the new generation has gone against this tradition and desire to discontinue such traditions as these make them poorer but elders still insist to follow these centuries’ old customs and traditions which differentiate them from other tribes and people.

 Kalish marriages are also very different, the groom chooses his bride during a traditional dance party. The lady’s father or brother come to the male house and demands money which the boy provides them and marriage is done. Moreover, any male can even take along any already married woman to his house but has to provide a double amount of expenditure done on previous marriage to her first husband.

The people of Kailash live longer than average and their life expectancy is 80 to 90 years. Recently, a man died at the age of 125 years. The reason for long life is their pure and simple food, which also include local dry fruits and goat meat. The people of Kailash think that women are impure and due to same reason women are not allowed to drink water with the same glass of water or even touch. Similarly, during their monthly menstrual days and delivery of a child, they spend these days in a separate isolated house where their family members provide them with food and other daily use things.

 I would like to say thanks to my blessed nest who encouraged and supported me to write a blog as a guest post.