Baroghil and Yak Polo

Where the Hindu Kush and Pamir ranges meet there is a valley called Baroghil. The valley shelters a high altitude pasture where Wakhi nomads graze their yaks and on top of every ridge sits a marmot ready to squeak at passers by. It also boasts a superabundance of wild flowers, including the Himalayan edelweiss. All in all it is a pretty blissful place.

I didn't have a very blissful time getting to it, however. Nearly falling down a crevasse, getting drenched up to my armpits in a fast flowing river, spending a night with no cover in the snow and a horse which could sense my fear and repeatedly bucked me.  Still, it was a great adventure and the local people I was with were very kind, although a bit bemused by my calamity proneness. Why did I keep on falling into rivers? Was I doing it on purpose?

We were all heading to a polo festival where matches were played on the back of yaks. Yaks are too stupid to be any good at polo. One problem is that they are frightened by the ball and often run away from it. Another issue is that they don't obey their riders commands and when tiring of the game will charge off the pitch scattering the audience  and ploughing on towards the horizon with their hapless riders still attached. They do look spectacular though, like something out of Star Wars.

Having just crossed a glacier with Guja nomads.

The Guja nomad's summer camp.

In convoy with the Guja nomads. (Note the polo mallets wrapped up in the bedding roll).

Approaching Baroghil polo festival. I could see the plume of dust from miles away.

An elegant polo player.

Dancing in the evening. Aficionados can dance with a full tea cup balanced on their heads. Regretfully, I didn't manage to photograph this daring feat.

Frequently yaks would disappear over the brim of the hillocks with their riders powerless to stop them.

Buzkashi, a gentle game whereby players wrestle for a headless goat carcass (you can see the carcass in the right of the picture).

This yak nearly got me. But I did manage to capture its rider's psychedelic cardigan and shell suit combination.

Yark, the man who owned more yaks than anyone else in the valley. His turban, tweed jacket and aviators combined signaled very clearly who was boss.

Pressed flowers from the high altitude pastures. Edelweiss is bottom left. I also recorded their Wakhi names and some basic medicinal uses. The drawing is of a traditional spinning wheel.

A mountain that we walked past on the way to the polo festival. The sky was turning dark and the weather was coming in quickly.

Chitral Style

Winters in Chitral are brutal, the landscape is very rugged and infrastructure is poor so people in Chitral tend to dress practically. Traditionally Chitralis wore felted wool garments, a topic which deserves several posts of its own. Today Chitralis still wear a lot of locally made wool, but in the bazaar you can get practically anything (the best I saw was a London Underground hi-vis vest which the seller told me came from Kabul). So de rigueur in Chitral tends to be a fantastic mix of the traditional and the global...

A man of the Wakhi people at the Baroghil polo festival... note his handmade mallet, his maroon cardigan and the matching scarf around his waist. 

Psychedelic cardigan and shell-suit top at the same polo festival. The yak nearly got me.

     NFL team Oakland Raiders jacket as sported by a Guja nomad on his way to the same festival.

Yark, the man who owned more yaks than anyone else at Baroghil. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of Yark, but he did deign to sit for me. Yark being a traditionalist and a man of importance wore tweeds, which are called "tweeds" in the Wakhi language. Some of his buttons were old brass shackle types from British army uniforms. His aviators and turban left me in little doubt as to who was the boss. 

Images to reproduced only with the permission of Hindu Kush Ltd.