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The "dead" city of Moenjodaro
some 510-km form Karachi was a metropolis in
a civilization that thrived upon a landmass roughly co-extensive with
present day Pakistan.
The bath-loving people of this city, representative of that age, had a
highly developed municipal system, large neat and clean streets, excellent
granaries, able jewelers, dyers, clothiers, and town planners. From the
river port of this city, cotton spices and silk were exported to contemporary
empires in Africa and the Arab world.
The city of Mehargarh
was already five thousand years old when Alexander the Great invaded
ancient Pakistan
in 326 B.C. From the figurines unearthed during excavation, it appears that
the beauticians and coiffeurs in this city were highly skilled. Women had a
fantastic array of hair-dos, wearing their hair in large locks and curls.
Such ladies of distinction could only have lived in neat and orderly
houses.
When Buddha finally broke his six-year
silence, it was here that his message was first received and spread by the
faithful. Relics dug out from the old Buddhist can be seen in Karachi, Lahore,
Taxila and Swat museums.
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Alexander the Great fought almost all his wars in South Asia
in the land of present-day Pakistan.
Amongst the many Kingdoms that flourished in ancient Pakistan,
was Gandhara. The geographical boundaries of this kingdom were the same as
those of the present-day districts of Rawalpindi,
Peshawar
and Swat. The kingdom is very highly renowned for its architecture and
sculpture.
Islamization of Pakistan
begun with the invasion of Mohammad Bin Qasim's army in 712 A.D. The young
Arab general conquered a vast region right from the sea-board of the
present-day Karachi to the banks of the Chenab River. Mahmud of Ghaznavi (1020 AD)
Muhammad Ghauri (1192 AD) and Zaheer-ud-Din Babar (1526 AD) attacked the
areas that make present-day Pakistan.
The Mughal Empire founded by Babar
produced four brilliant kings. Akbar, Jeha-gir, Shah Jehan and Aurangzeb.
They left behind a legacy of some of the most beautiful buildings in the
world, a treasured asset of mankind.
Aryans, Greeks, Scythians, Iranian
nomadic people from South Asia, Parthi
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PAKISTAN, THE LAND
OF MOUNTAINS
All that nature has bestowed upon mankind is in Pakistan:
lakes, rivers, streams, seas, deserts, glaciers, forests and meadows. Some
2000 kinds of flowering trees and shrubs grow here. The variety of fruit
that grows here probably does not grow in any other country of the world.
In Pakistan's
north are some of the most beautiful and spectacular mountains in the
world.
Their character can be judged from the fact that five peaks in these
mountains are over 8000 m, and dozens literally dozens over 7000 m high.
The Karakoram have some of the mightiest
glaciers outside the Polar Regions. The
Siachin glacier is 75 Kms long. The Hispar joins Blafo to make up a 116 Kms
long system. the dramatic Baltoro glacier that spreads over 120 Sq. Kms is
fed by some 30 other glaciers. Along the fantastic course of the Abaseen,
the father of the rivers, the mighty Indus
runs 753 kms along the 8th wonder of the world, the Karakoram Highway
(KKH). This most daring feat of engineering took thou-sands of lives and
hundreds of thousands of tonnes of dynamite to blast the rocks to forge
ahead. The highway follows the ancient Silk Route Thordden upon by
legendary travelers like Marco Polo and one camel caravan after another
groaning under the weight of silk, gold, jade rubles and pink corals, for
thou-sands of years. KKH connects Islamabad/Rawalpindi with the Xinjiang
province crossing over the 4600 m Khunjrab
Pass, perhaps the highest pass of
commercial importance, to China.
Still virtually unspoilt, the Northern
Areas of Pakistan provide an exhilarating choice for travelers who demand
the unusual and the spectacular. The region has a fascinating and varied
language and cultural mix. In Baltistan (land of the apricots), Tibetan
culture and language has left a strong imprint. In Hunza alone three
languages are spoken. Wakhi and Brushuski are two of them. Brushuski is
spoken with a different accent in Nagar just 20 miles away.
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