The mighty gorge of the Lower Indus is just as we remember it, although now, in late summer, the crops are full and harvest is in full swing. The slips that we had to dodge our way down from Besham in January 1992 are still there.
Besham has the same air of squalor and isolation. We stay a day, and I visit the family whose photo I took in January 1992.
Author’s Note: When we were in Besham back in January 1991 I walked up the hill behind the town and met a family of farmers living in a mud house overlooking the Indus Valley. I took a photograph of the of the entire family gathered outside their house and promised that one day I would return and bring them a copy.
So now, on this day in 1994, I retraced my steps back up the side of the Indus Gorge to the small farm perched on a flat piece of land presented them with the photograph. The family was incredulous that I had come back, just as I told them that I would, and they handed the photograph of their family around like a treasured possession that would take pride of place on the wall in their small house.
CurseOfTheTraveller 