TRAVERSE 167
TRAVEL- PAKISTAN
LEIGH WILKINS
NO ONE DRINKS TEA ALONE
There’ s a particular rhythm to riding in Pakistan’ s far north, a tempo that is set not by the motorcycle beneath you but by the people who step out from the roadside, wave you down, and insist— absolutely insist— that you stop for a cup of tea. It doesn’ t matter if you’ re in the bustle of Gilgit’ s bazaar, the stillness of a Shina-speaking village, or on a lonely dirt track that twists into the high folds of Shimshal or Chapursan. The invitation is the same: chai, always chai.
I learned quickly that declining is almost impossible, and perhaps foolish. A shopkeeper will smile, pour you a steaming glass and sit shoulder to shoulder with you as though you’ ve been friends for years. A police officer at a checkpoint will lean on your bike, grin, and produce a battered thermos of sweet, milky tea as he checks your papers, turning officialdom into camaraderie. Even a fellow traveller— an old man riding a donkey down from summer pastures in Chapursan— will stop, unpack a tin mug and a small stove, and share his brew at the edge of the trail, as though the act of drinking together is more important than the tea itself.
The first thing you learn riding a motorcycle in Pakistan is that your journey is never measured in kilometres. It’ s measured in cups of tea. Chai is the currency of friendship here, the true passport that gains you entry to valleys, villages, and even the occasional police checkpoint. The Karakoram might rise in jagged drama above you, glaciers might snarl across valleys like frozen rivers, but it is always the small, steaming cup in your hand that defines the rhythm of the road.
I discovered this on my second day in Gilgit-Baltistan. Dust still clung to my boots from the Karakoram Highway, that legendary ribbon of
TRAVERSE 167