The sign at Thakot said: Skardu — 472 km.
I looked at it for a long moment. My odometer already read 847 kilometres from Lahore. My chain needed oiling. One of my panniers was making a rattling sound I’d been choosing to ignore since Mansehra.
I turned left toward Skardu.
The Indus, Your Constant Companion
From Besham onward, the Indus River rides with you.
Not beside you — with you. The road clings to the gorge wall and the river churns below, grey-green and furious, carrying glacial melt from the Karakoram at a speed that feels almost angry. There are stretches where the road is literally carved into the cliff face, a single lane blasted from rock, with a sheer drop to the river on one side and a mountain wall on the other.
I love this road the way you love something that frightens you.
The gorge eventually opens — gradually, then all at once — into the Skardu Valley. And when it does, you understand why they sometimes call this place the Roof of the World’s Courtyard. It’s not just the mountains. It’s the space. After hours of tight gorges, the valley floor feels impossibly wide, impossibly flat. You can breathe again.
Skardu Town — A Basecamp for Giants
Every serious mountaineer who has ever climbed K2, Broad Peak, Gasherbrum I or II — they all passed through Skardu.
This town is the last outpost before the giants. Sitting at 2,500 metres, it has the energy of a place that knows it’s the last stop before something much larger begins. The markets sell everything from expedition oxygen to fresh apricots. Porters with weathered faces drink chai alongside European climbers with thousand-dollar boots.
I spent my first evening walking the main bazaar, eating chapshuro — a meat-filled flatbread that is, without exaggeration, one of the best things I’ve eaten in Pakistan — and listening to a group of local men debate football with the intensity of people who have absolutely nothing better to do and are perfectly happy about it.
Shangrila Resort and Upper Kachura Lake
They call it Heaven on Earth. For once, the tourist brochure is not lying.
Upper Kachura Lake sits at 2,500 metres and its colour is something you’d reject in a photograph as too saturated, too unreal. A deep turquoise-blue that looks like someone coloured it in. The Shangrila Resort on its banks used the fuselage of a crashed plane as a restaurant — and somehow it works.
I arrived at dawn, before the tour jeeps started running. The lake was mirror-still. Nanga Parbat — 150 kilometres away — was visible on the horizon. I sat by the shore and drank thermos coffee and thought about how strange it is that a motorcycle from Lahore could bring me to a place like this.
Deosai Approach — The Teaser
Skardu is also the gateway to Deosai Plains (which gets its own blog — it deserves it). But even the approach road gives you a taste. Riding out of Skardu toward Satpara Lake, the landscape starts to shift. The greenery thins. The sky gets bigger. The air gets thinner.
Satpara Lake itself is worth the short detour — a deep blue reservoir ringed by barren hills, eerily beautiful in the early morning when the surface is completely still.
The Shigar Valley Detour
If you have an extra day — and you should make sure you do — ride the Shigar Valley.
Twenty kilometres from Skardu, Shigar is a revelation. The ancient Shigar Fort, restored by the Aga Khan Trust, sits above a village that looks unchanged from the 17th century. The surrounding orchards, the small wooden mosque, the children who wave at every motorcycle that passes — it’s the Pakistan that doesn’t make the international news.
I stayed at the Shigar Fort Residence — a heritage hotel built inside the restored fort. Sleeping inside a 400-year-old building with a mountain view from the window felt appropriately surreal.
Practical Notes for Riders
- The road from Besham to Skardu is long (7–9 hours), technical, and physically tiring. Do not rush it. Start early.
- Fuel availability is limited past Chilas. Fill up completely.
- The Babusar Pass route (via Naran) is scenic but adds significant distance. The direct Indus route is faster.
- Altitude: Skardu is at 2,500m. The surrounding areas climb much higher. Acclimatise before big rides.
- Accommodation: Options range from basic guesthouses to the Serena Skardu — book ahead in peak season (June–August).
What Skardu Does to You
Skardu makes you feel small. Not in a bad way — in the way that recalibrates you.
Back home in Lahore, traffic lights feel life-or-death. Deadlines feel catastrophic. Someone cutting you off in traffic feels like a personal assault.
After Skardu, none of that holds. You’ve seen what the world actually looks like at scale. The mountains were here long before any of us, and they’ll be here long after. That perspective — earned on two wheels over hundreds of hard kilometres — is the real thing Skardu gives you.
You can’t buy it. You have to ride there.