By
Lt Gen (R) Sardar Hasan Azhar Hayat
MD Pakistan Land Port Authority
Ex. MD Green Tourism Pvt. Ltd
It seems our mind is stuck with Gilgit Baltistan when we listen to the word Air Safari! Yes we are blessed. But having travelled in Balochistan I feel other air Safaris exist and are unique in landscape, than any other part of the world. Balochistan has been blessed with immense beauty of a different type it seems you are surfacing over the moon. My quest to open new routes and oversee border crossings led me to travel to Taftan, I have travelled different land and air routes in Balochistan and felt the urge to write on Balochistan and I write what I see without any prejudice!
As we take off from Khalid Aviation base we are immediately over Quetta city leaving behind Koh e Murdar and the famous sleeping beauty a lying lady like mountain seen almost from everywhere in Quetta for anyone not familiar with Quetta. All who have stayed in Quetta has fond memories of these mountains overlooking Quetta valley. I remember as a young officer when I was doing my staff course my children were small and always fascinated by sleeping beauty and my younger one always believed this was a real lady sleeping, as told by mother, it was a mythical fairy tale that lingered in the mind! As I flew over Bawani lines, my memory lane ticked, it was the year 2001 and 9/11 happened while I was returning from high tempo class in staff college as a young officer to my small quarter in Bawani lines a two room vintage accommodation, where half of the time me, my wife and our Batman Khalid Chacha were busy taping our broken window panes to stop the creeping cold winds from getting in, we hardly had any water and how precious a bucket of water was when all pipes were choked in winters; with no gas, how difficult it was to warm it! Military life has beautiful memories.
What kept us moving was the shadow of sleeping beauty and bed time stories to tell and bed time for children was maximum seven without any mobiles and as we could not afford heating the whole night other than my study which was a compulsion. Leaving Bawani lines the flight takes you over Quetta city with mud houses and now more roads and most surprisingly more green. I could notice Green playing grounds and high rise. The city from sky is beautiful and almost anyone who visits Quetta is in love with it. A question you would ask anyone as you reach Quetta, how have the rains been this year? As everything depends on rain in Quetta, This year has seen unprecedented rains and snow! I also remember the days of drought in 2004 when we had to save big oak and cypress trees by digging trenches around them to keep soil moist. Today it is different the Koh e Murdar and Chiltan mountain are undergoing massive afforestation with the help of GoB and Army and will be the biggest gift to Quetta.
It is a long flight where ever you go in Balochistan; ours was 2:20 minutes with wind stable; on return was 2:45 minutes such could be turbulence – anyone who wants to understand Balochistans geography, demography, anthropology, economics or politics has to sink distances into their mind. Balochistan is 40 percent of Pakistan and with excellent roads around and less traffic Quetta to Taftan our destination a truck may take 12 hours and car a few hours less. As we fly past the suburbs of Quetta keeping Kuchlag and Hazar Gangi National park beneath, while Khawaja Imran range and Khojak pass on the right; your eye can’t miss green orchards in patches mostly famous for apples, grapes, honeydew and water melons. The population around Quetta is scattered and mostly around water or check dams in abundance! The Karez system does exist which is a wonder of the world and a must see how water is moved underground to distances far apart.
Balochistan has many faces and most important are its mountains as we flew half an hour the landscape changes the mountain ranges of Char Kohan and Ras Koh Range on your left and right! Dry and barren with intermittent population seen. I was lucky my pilot was an enthusiastic photographer and had publications to his name, Ras Koh are those famous mountains, our pride of nuclear tests of 1998, he explained! Sometime you tend to see underneath a straight highway over miles cutting the barren valleys with some trucks the N40 highway.
As we approached first dwelling of Dalbadin in an hour’s time the land scape changes, flying over Balochistan is like flying over extra-terrestrial land! I looked for place called Koh Much this is a small settlement famous as birth place of famous Queen Noor Jehan, she was born under a date tree while her family was travelling from Iran to India, that is why it is called Koh Much means ‘lone date tree’. Still the areas have old date trees. The Pull Choto also called Maikh – e – Rustam are strange formations while there are no clouds the formation is such you are mistaken for clouds on the ground! Black in colour. Subhanallah. As you cross further Gawo Koh starts with unimaginable Hamun – e – Lorah a vast vast open space you will forget Arizona, in between is a seasonal lake called Playa Lake. These spaces are beyond imagination and give hardiness of people who still live here.
Nearing two hours of flying you are over Naukoundi, could see mud houses from the air and hardly make out any decent building but on the west you can definitely make out Koh – e – Sultan Volcano and a little past it Koh – e – Damodim Volcano ! Mountains with ravines and cutting over hundreds of years what to talk of wealth underneath the landscape is a wealth over the surface. But probably unknown to many; it’s beautiful and yellow mud gives clear indication of volcanic activity maybe centuries ago, creating plateau along volcanos some mountains are like a ship with no peaks.
Past Noukoundi it’s altogether different landscape in different colour, probably this is a stony desert an extension of Kharan desert , I was told by pilot that this is spread from deep inside Afghanistan! This piece of land is definitely out of world you can find crescent shape sand dunes called Barchan, very very high, later I was told that this area experiences high velocity winds and within a night a dune may be created as tall as hundred feet and the troops on border have to dig out our fence, not an easy going, serving in this area is not easy. The tracks in desert are prominent and age old route connecting to Panjgur.
As we approach our destination the Juzzak airfield before landing I saw an isolated huge mound or let me say a mountain mound in the midst of the desert; I was reminded of Commander in Quetta who showed me picture of this in his office and explained the logic, it’s called Koh – e – Dalil meaning this is land of wisdom & wealth. With vast land on both sides the disputes are settled on logic on the high ground. This is Wisdom of hardy people of Balochistan. We had now entered the gold valley Rekodik Mountains to our South and Sandak to our West! For anyone who wants to understand the unrest & geo politics in Balochistan, he needs to see this place copper and gold and what not, sometime back I saw a stone which looked more like a gold than a stone, its all about underneath wealth in Balochistan. But my focus has been on the wealth of terrain and geography! I was thinking who stops private air safaris on different routes in Balochistan which has plenty of airstrips and small air ports, but probably such idea has not stuck the mind, one because of unawareness and other we have always looked upon Balochistan from prism of security! Like my friends and relatives who knew I was travelling said ‘ are you mad ! Stay safe! Safe travels.
It is an experience of a lifetime and should be known to all as Balochistan is always looked down. Anyway I would end with a paragraph on Taftan my destination, understating and what importance it carries for us in terms of economics! A small town of a population of 25,000 on the Iranian border. In remotest of areas of Pakistan on border which has just seen war and still lingering; the life of traders and truckers can shock you with hundreds of trucks lined up on both sides of border and buzzing with trade life! This lately we have declared as our TIR route to CAR countries! This small town and crossings gives you revenue in Billions and I think the potential is unjust and could be in trillions! Only if we are able to cash it. May be a one room dusty bank in Taftan has more revenue than our high end banks in posh localities in Pakistan with suited wouted English speaking bankers, who would never want to serve in Taftan, this may be case with all other departments. I would not get into professional discussion as I spent the whole day here, I wonder who else needs to see this and how many have seen it but Taftan deserves more than this and is Jabal Ali of Pakistan. I kept wondering that this place has so much traffic and is connected to Quetta, while it is much more near to Turbat / Karachi / Gwadar, but has no roads to connect, again the distances matter in Balochistan. The local commander, the traders and coustoms all are requesting for a 7 Km bypass can someone sitting in Islamabad to realise what this 7 Km means in terms of revenue which can be made. Another surprising thing is I found a cargo train on a cute Taftan RS, it goes to Zaydan which is about 70 kms from Tafton! We talk of trans Afghan Railway what about this existing Trans Central Railway 😊 Inshallah will see rise of Taftan as a regional land hub
I have made an effort to give you an overview of what this area has in terms of air safari potential! Don’t forget this was and is called the London Road and many tourists have been travelling through this and still travel it’s matter of revival, even today in Muharram around 10,000 people travel from Taftan. A question of security may be lingering in your mind, yes there is a security situation in Balochistan and answer also you get our enemies don’t want us to unlock potential of Balochistan Pakistan, perse the economic activity mitigates the security and if these potentials are unlocked the people need development not dust ! They will be the ones to stand against and I find that will in people as it’s all about economics!
A long day but well spent to give a different perspective – we took the air safari again to return but pilot did not look in a hurry when I asked, “are we good on time?” to my surprise he said the airfield is night capable so we have no issues 😮 so little we know about Balochistan.
