Snowy peaks all around, rivers flowing on one side and blue sky above. This is the environment in which Tariq Ali and his colleagues serve hot food in front of you.
From kadahis to burgers, pizzas and steaks, Tariq’s restaurant serves all kinds of dishes.
The restaurant is located at an altitude of about 15 thousand feet above the sea along one of the oldest highways in the world and is famous for the meat from which all the dishes are prepared.
This is Yak Grill, a unique restaurant located in Paso along the Karakoram highway, where the meat of the local animal yak is cooked, not beef or mutton.
Although this animal is found in the mountainous areas of Gilgit-Baltistan, its meat is not as common there as you might think.
Tariq explains that every dish here is made with local ingredients and region-specific methods.
We are three brothers in this work. My brother worked as a chef in Dubai until two years ago. But something happened in 2015 that the flow of tourists increased here and we started to see that new employment opportunities have been created here.
According to Tariq, his brothers who were working abroad also returned to Pakistan to take advantage of this opportunity and now all the brothers are running their restaurant together. At the same time, they are providing employment opportunities for local people.
In the year 2010, the flow of water in the river stopped due to a landslide in Hunza river passing through Attabad village and a lake came into existence.
Locals say that they have been expressing their concerns about the crack in Attabad Hill since the 2002 Astor earthquake, and finally in 2010, a part of the mountain collapsed and fell straight into the Hunza River. .
In this incident, not only 19 people were killed and many were injured, but the 24 km long section of the international Karakoram highway connecting Pakistan and China was also flooded.
Passing the road through this area was not an easy task. When the road was inaugurated in June 1978, hundreds of Pakistani and Chinese laborers and engineers participating in its construction were killed in landslides and other accidents.
For a long time, the Karakoram Highway was considered to be the highest highway in the world and was even nicknamed the ‘eighth wonder of the world’ by some tourists.
But after the Attabad incident in 2010, there came a time when the people of the area became seriously worried about their future.
But then the days of this area are gone.
National Highway 35 was declared as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project and five new tunnels were dug here with the help of China, which made travel on the Karakoram Highway even easier.
Work on these projects began in late 2011 and the new road was inaugurated in 2015 by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
The Karakoram Highway is said to have been built on the route of the ancient Silk Road, that is, the same difficult mountain route through which caravans to and from Central Asia and China passed in ancient times.
This road is about 1300 km long from Khunjerab Pass in the north to Hasan Abdal in Punjab province in the south.
According to local journalist Zubair Ayub, even before the construction of the Karakoram highway in the northern regions, this highway used to be a major source of political, social, business and other contacts with China in the region.
“Even then, China used these routes for business purposes and communications and will continue to use the new Hazara Expressway and the Karakoram Highway to its advantage.”
But its business importance is not only limited to the trade between China and Pakistan, but the reconstruction of the Karakoram Highway has benefited the local residents the most.
Shamim Bano runs a carpet manufacturing company ‘Korgah’ in Gulmeet area of Gojal. He started this business in 1998 and according to him, despite working continuously till 2010, he could only sell two or three carpets every month.
“When the road was destroyed due to the Attabad Lake, the situation was such that sometimes if a single carpet was sold, it would be a profit, but after 2015, when the expansion and rehabilitation of the Karakoram Highway was completed, our business doubled.”
Shamim Banu says that she has got a place on rent in her native area. Some women come and work in this factory while some make carpets from their homes and send them.
Currently 12 women are working with Shamim Bano. According to him, most of his customers nowadays are foreign tourists.
Rehan Shah is a member of the Coordination Committee for Victims of Gojal. According to him, the economic situation of the area from 2010 to 2015 was very difficult.
Don’t ask us about the conditions of that time, children were being born in boats at that time. But after 2015, when the tunnels were built and the Karakoram highway was rebuilt, men as well as women in our area got many new job opportunities and they benefited a lot from it.
As the road improved, not only did customers walk to them, but the products made in the area, such as traditional hats and other handicrafts, left Gilgit-Baltistan and reached the markets of Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad and other big cities.
According to Gilgit-Baltistan government spokesperson Imtiaz Ali Taj, the importance of the Karakoram highway for Pakistan is in its place, but this road is a ‘lifeline’ for Gilgit-Baltistan.
According to his estimates, after 2015, the number of local tourists visiting the area has increased by more than 800%, while the number of international tourists has also doubled.
The expansion and rehabilitation of the Karakoram Highway not only boosted tourism, but also provided access to new markets for local fruits, dry fruits and other locally grown or produced goods.
The best example of this is the famous fruit here, the cherry.
11, 12 years ago, Mazhar Ali used to work in cherry orchards. Today, apart from trading, they acquire cherry orchards on contracts.
He recalls that he first took a contract for a cherry orchard in 2010 for Rs 75,000 in which he cultivated 400 kg of cherries.
In this contract, I got seven hundred boxes of cherries weighing 600 to 700 grams. Compared to this, in the year 2020, I took the same garden on contract for seven lakh rupees and it produced ten thousand bins.
According to Mazhar, how much he has benefited from the restoration of the road can be estimated from the fact that last year the volume of cherry business in this region alone was up to one and a half billion rupees.
While the supply of cherries has improved, demand has also increased. Mazhar points out that before 2015, there were three coasters running daily from Dinur to Rawalpindi. In comparison, today the number of vehicles plying from the same place to Pindi daily is 25 which increases or decreases depending on the season.
“When the road was bad, traders would rarely take cherry contracts because in those days the landlord would get Rs. 45 per box. Now a box is worth 150 or more.
Javed Hussain, the former president of Gilgit-Baltistan Chamber of Commerce, says that until the Karakoram highway was rebuilt, there was less traffic of tourists and people in the area.
At that time, it was difficult to transport these fruits and dry fruits from one area of Gilgit-Baltistan to another, but now most of the time the tourists who come, some of them business people take our local souvenirs, fruits and dry fruits to their areas. I buy according to the market capacity. In this way, business relations are also being established in other parts of our country.
Importantly, the construction of the road to Khunjerab has also created opportunities for those living in the remotest areas up to the northern corner of Pakistan and the people of high altitude communities, who earlier had to migrate to other areas and larger areas to earn a living. They had to go to the cities, now they are establishing businesses in their native areas.
According to Javed Hussain, the concept of guest houses in and around Khunjerab Pass has become very common.
Government spokesperson Imtiaz Ali Taj says that the number of hotels and restaurants in Gilgit-Baltistan has increased by 100% in the last five years and many new hotels have been built in the Attabad area alone.
At the same time, the construction and development works are going on very fast here. “The workers who used to go to Punjab and Karachi to earn money now work in their own areas, but many experienced workers have also become contractors with their hard work.”
According to the government spokesperson, good roads and road networks play an important role in the development of any region.
Yak Girl’s Tariq Ali seems to agree.
According to him, the day is not far when the dishes of Gilgit-Baltistan will reach every city and corner of Pakistan like Shinwari restaurants and ‘God willing, skilled workers of Gilgit-Baltistan will find employment there.’
He said that after tasting the unique taste of his food, many visitors ask him if these foods are also available in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad etc.
“Many people have invited us to work with them in major cities of Pakistan.”
After that, we have also started thinking of providing more training to our local people so that if there is a demand in other big cities of the country, our people can go and work there.
