Pakistan: The Road To Shangri-La with David Adams (Utopian Mystery Documentary) | Timeline

[Music] up in the Himalayas on the northern fringes of Pakistan you find some of the most intimidating high mountain peaks on earth it's why the great Explorer Marco Polo named this place the roof of the world and below these mighty Peaks live valleys untouched by modern civilization [Music] this is a world where supernatural forces and ancient mysteries control people's daily lives one Valley in particular has captured the imagination of the world a place so perfect so harmonious that had brought health long life and enlightenment to all who lived there to find it I must climb rugged mountain peaks cross glaciers and snow fields as I search for the truth behind shangri-la [Music] [Applause] [Music] hello I'm David Adams and this is the mighty Indus River it flows from high in the Himalayas down across Pakistan and up near its source there's supposed to be a place called shangri-la so my search starts in northern Pakistan a country sandwiched between Afghanistan India and China from Peshawar I head Northwest into the Hindu Kush then East to the Windsor Valley in the heart of the Himalayas [Music] Beshara is a frontier city and that's what it's name means the frontier town [Music] you can get anything in for shower and I'm here to do a bit of research [Music] I'm looking for a book called Lost Horizon a British novel that provides the inspiration for my journey and in peshawar there's a shot that should surely stock books by British waters the London book company [Music] Lost Horizon is an escapist fantasy about a utopia hidden somewhere in the Himalayas it was written in the 1930s by James Hilton and it quickly became a best-seller basically it's the story of four travelers escaping from war-torn Afghanistan who get lost in the Himalayas they're rescued and taken to a Buddhist monastery called shangri-la there they find a modern-day utopia a haven of peace and harmony a place where people live to be over 200 years old their adventure starts in a plane high over the Himalayas of course there was no shangri-la Hilton himself claimed it was a fictional place but with the Western world on the brink of World War two people wanted to believe it and so and myth grew up maybe Hilton was hiding something maybe shangri-la was inspired by a real valley somewhere down there but the only clue that james hylton gives us as to the whereabouts of shangri-la is to say that the plane flew past k2 and nanga parbat two of the highest mountains in the world after that simply disappeared [Music] Nanga Parbat is a tantalizing landmark but for anyone who survived an aeroplane crash in the 1930s the chances of survival up here would have been slim but have had to track through deep snow fields and treacherous glaciers that have had to breathe in a rarefied atmosphere at altitudes of 20,000 feet 6000 meters or higher and then there are the crevasses deep holes below the ice ravines covered for centuries by ice and snow every footstep must be planned every footstep could be your last nanga parbat is the mountain that was James Hilton's last connection with reality the place where the plane crash of Lost Horizon and the real world come together well we didn't quite make it to the viewpoint of nanga parbat the snow is getting a bit too deep I can tell you it's very cold I'm sounding a bit funny because my mouth is freezing up this is about minus 20 this is without doubt one of the most extreme places on earth but despite these dreadful conditions people have been coming here for centuries looking for shangri-la the first was Alexander the Great two and a half thousand years ago his armies came in search of the Fountain of Youth [Music] [Music] his quest started where mine stars in the Bamba at Valley a remote corner of Pakistan from the border of Afghanistan [Music] this is the home of a remote mountain tribe called the Kailash that seems a very peaceful life here yeah before my guide Juna takes me to see the living Kailash he takes me to see the dead this is what's left of their graveyard bones and coffins scattered by grave robbers and vandals the reason Pakistan is an all Muslim country and the Kailash are the last surviving non-muslim minority is very old Ellis brought them for a thousand years their Muslim overlords have called them kafirs the non-believers as a result they are an oppressed people this desecrated graveyard just one example of their persecution but these were not Kailash people they took away the bones no an alkalis don't take but Islamic people yeah once 80,000 of them lived in this valley today there are barely two and a half thousand if anything the calash look more European than Pakistani there's an amazing prevalence of blue eyes and blonde hair amongst it and there may be a good reason why they say that even if Alexander the Great didn't find his shangri-la some of his soldiers did they stayed on and intermarried with the Kailash who still carry their genes not only that but they're remarkably hospitable any visitor to this Valley must drink the obligatory cup of tea so have you heard of the name shangri-la a place called a mystical place called shangri-la the name I know that symbolizes the people saying one so do you think it's possible to find so if I'm to find shangri-la I must seek elsewhere I cannot stay long in this beautiful Valley Jinna is heading south to chitral and there's an event on in town that he wants me to see but there's another more compelling reason why I must keep moving as the great snow cleared Peaks glow in the alpine light they send out a chilling warning winter is approaching my search for shangri-la will be a race against time as the early snows of the Himalayas threatened to cut me off and imprison me in this remote corner of the Hindu Kush every autumn the wild Horsemen of northwest Pakistan with their strength courage and horsemanship to the test [Music] this is a game as old as Central Asia itself it's called Bush Kazi and the object of their attention is a headless legless [Music] I'm in the frontier town of Chitra up near the Pakistan Afghan border [Music] this ancient Afghan game isn't for the faint-hearted once a horseman has to go the opposition does everything in its power to get it offered which means a melee of grabbing struggling horsemen until someone makes a break [Music] [Applause] [Music] as far as I can see there are few rules anything goes Gina tells me a lot of old scores are settled on the bush cozy feel mikaze started as a practice for warriors to pick their wounded comrades from the field of battle and new heroes are still created with every game [Music] but if I'm defined shangri-la I must keep moving the first Wharton snows are already falling and there's only one Road out of the chitral Valley time didja ride we just coming up to the Lowery pass which is about 2,800 meters high we had four or five months of the year it's cut off by meters of snow and that's what makes these valleys so separate from each other and why the cultures are so different because you just can't travel for many months of the year it should be open now even though it's November and the snows have started to fall but he doesn't ever know in this country if you can get through or not I've now left the Hindu Kush and I'm entering the Himalayas proper my destination is the Swat Valley that's if we ever get over this pass [Music] because of the snow the road is too narrow for passing and since there's no regulation of traffic up here vehicles going up come face to face with vehicles going down and there they stop and argue eventually they managed to dig away the snow they tell me that this happens every autumn it's crazy but that's the way it is [Music] well we made it but it was slow at nearly eight hours to travel just 50 miles or 80 kilometers [Music] I'm passing through the Swat Valley which should by rights have had a claim to being the inspiration for shangri-la because this valley was the birthplace of tantric Buddhism not that long ago there were over 1,400 Buddhist monasteries in this one Valley alone today Islam hold sway and the relics of its buddhist past have suffered accordingly this is one of the sad reality of this part of the world this was once a Buddhist civilization and these sculptures are all over the place and sadly because in Islam you can't portray a deity they stone them and all the stones around here so one of the sad things about this part of the world where once there was a peaceful Buddha's face the icons of Western consumerism have been pasted so how did James Hilton envisage shangri-la the words have Lost Horizon come flooding back shangri-la was touched with mystery listening intently he could hear gongs and trumpets and also the masked wail of voices he found the traditions both Buddhist and Christian very reassuring the whole atmosphere was more of wisdom than of learning the high Lama had skill in telepathy and powers of healing the monks had discovered the key to longevity to semi immortality thirty or so years after Hilton wrote those words another group of people searching for shangri-la flocked to the swath the hippies [Music] [Music] this was one of the stopping off points on the hippie trail leading from San Francisco to Katmandu in fact this one's always been something of a haven for foreigners 100 years ago the British came seeking relief from bustling towns like Bashar WA it was they who stalked its rivers with trout my companion Moe embarked on has benefited from both associations he likes fish and he used to run a boardinghouse catering exclusively to hippies even if you didn't always approve of them woman like if woman legs is looking legs this is bad in Islam when the woman here looking this also bed in Islam but if you take your trouser out and you put shut trouser and when you walk now also the people put in stone or said look the stupid man so if I was wearing short pants with I throw stones yes and they're thinking by a very bad man because like you like any man no understand go in the street and no clothes the hippies are long gone free love and Islam we're never going to mix nor were the guns to valleys east of the Swat is the town of Bishop no one bats an eyelid here as gunfire racks the streets [Music] guns are a way of life blood feuds are an institution these inter-family intertribal battles for thousands of deaths every year the penalties of the ancient system magnified a thousand times by the killing power of modern weapons [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] machine guns rifles shotguns pistols all made right here despite what the labels say this is made in Italy here not made literally made in visa they make ammunition here too it's estimated that 60% of all Pakistani men own a gun in fact the more children will learn to use a gun here and then we'll finish school [Music] so a valley that makes so many deadly weapons is hardly a place of harmony and boundless peace like the hippies it's time for me to go but my next stop is hardly shangri-la Rida I'm about to come face-to-face with the supernatural at a pakistani exorcism [Music] [Applause] I'm high in the Himalayas on the main road linking Pakistan to China but Karakoram highway [Music] each year in Pakistan they hold a competition to see who's got the most beautifully painted truck trucking here is a family affair and each family takes pride in making its truck more gaudy and highly decorated than the next [Music] but there's a religious side to it too the paintings are spiritual symbols that will hopefully protect their tracks from the dangers of the road and it's in one of these mobile art galleries that I hitch a lift of the Karakoram highway the highway takes me deep into the Karakoram Rangers a part of the Himalayas which boasts some of the world's highest peaks as we drive I follow the valley of the Indus in James Hill was novel Lost Horizon shangri-la was supposed to be somewhere near the source of this great river [Music] so in theory if I follow the Indus Valley I should find shangri-la [Music] [Music] at the wheel is a pattern my traveling companion is also over time a member of another warlike tribe that lives up near the Afghan border all across Pakistan it's two batons who dominate the trucking industry I've traveled in Srinagar in India and also in Afghanistan but not here so do they think that if their truck is very beautiful they will get more business no this is overlooked business this is part of the pride pride yes I've never seen anything like them they're wonderful trucks very comfortable good way to ride [Music] the higher we go the closer we get to the roof of the world the lofty Karakoram Rangers with a world's second highest peak k2 reaches over 28,000 feet that's over eight and a half thousand meters [Music] [Applause] but if I want to get to my spiritual shangri-la I must abandon the truck where I'm going there are no roads as I draw closer to my destination I'm warned to be careful the locals believe powerful spirits fairies live on the snowline keeping on the right side of these fairies spirits is very important indeed this is a superstitious world this man is believed to be the subject of a curse he's not responding to conventional doctors treatment his favourite and his body's wracked with pain so they call him a Shaymin a medium who communes with the spirit world it's hoped he can locate the cause of the problem the shaman inhale smoke from smouldering juniper leaves juniper smoke and deep breathing induces a trance [Music] [Music] this seems almost theatrical not real but it's not to be taken lightly [Music] people here have an unshakeable faith in the supernatural those who believe themselves to be cursed often die [Music] [Music] all at once the Shaymin runs outside at first I admit I suspect a trick but the ground is understood i watch carefully how does he know to dig here obviously the Shaymin thinks there's something here causing the old man's disease and then he finds it a piece of skull wrapped in a rag an evil spell placed by an enemy a curse [Music] [Music] but the trance isn't over he continues his communion with the spirit world until totally exhausted he face I was told that a few days later the old man started to show signs of recovery as for the Shaymin his job isn't over yet tomorrow in an extraordinary public sales he becomes a prophet for the whole village maybe through his Otherworld a contacts he can help me find my shangri-la [Applause] much of Pakistan is Islamic in the extreme but up here in the countries far north villages still often commune with a supernatural today the Shaymin uses his spiritual powers to establish contact with the dreaded mountain spirits he's trying to find out what they have in store for the village for the rest of the year [Music] once more the Juniper smoke does its work inducing a deep trance in the shaman who's now hallucinating in his ecstasy he translates the fairy prophecy if he looks sad the news is bad if he looks happy the news is good fortunately for the villagers he looks happy at pagan rituals like this they slaughter a goat and in a calm twist the Shaymin grabs it [Music] here the blood of a goat's head is said to be fairly new [Applause] I had half a mind to ask the fairies through the Shaymin if they could help me find shangri-la but I guess this was their reply the trance lifts the Shaymin leaves his fairy world and is back in the world of reality and totally exhausted his party may be over but it's only just starting for the villages as he washes the blood from his face they celebrate the fairy message it'll be a good season and a prosperous year for the farmers of this valley as for me I have an appointment further up the Karakoram highway towards the Chinese border my destination Gilgit [Music] gilgit is a town little known outside Pakistan however to the locals it's known as the home of a game which has become associated throughout the world with the rich and famous polo oh no I'm just I like to get a horse to know me how I get on him he smells me good but you don't have to be rich to play polo in gilgit you just have to be a good rider and while I've ridden horses all my life I've never played polo [Music] actually the game had its origins in Persia but it was gilgit that gave it its name polo means ball in the local language and hitting Apollo isn't easy back in the days of the Raj when the British Army was here the cavalry officers were captivated by this game that's our Polo traveled to England and then on to the rest of the world but it just doesn't seem to be my game and if you can get me better these guys are just brilliant riders [Music] well at least I got to hit the ball once well I got so I've done anything like this most fantastic game this time really bad I tell my companions why I'm here to search for the lost value of shangri-la they tell me that they know of a crashed plane near a town called scar doom maybe it's the one that inspired James Hilton according to Hilton's novel Lost Horizon shangri-la was supposed to be near the headwaters of the Indus River it's also supposed to be somewhere not too far from the mountain nanga parbat that makes skardu a cantor [Music] this hardly looks like paradise on earth the upper Indus Valley is one of the most barren places I've ever seen it's also Kashmir disputed territory land claimed by both India and Pakistan a war zone is an unlikely setting for shangri-la [Music] but it's hero right [Music] it's a 1970s themed resort and it's where I'm staying as we drive closer there's the remains of the crashed plane I was told about the buildings have a Buddhist air about them but closer inspection reveals that my journey is far from over and out of season tourist facility cashing in on the Lost Horizon myth might be someone's idea of shangri-la but it's hardly mine [Music] mind you delight does lend an air of peace and after 10 days on the road this team is wonderfully therapeutic and as this commercial shangri-la works its relaxing charms I planned the last leg of my journey tomorrow I travel to the Hunza Valley a place where people live to be well over a hundred years old and where I find my own private shangri-la [Music] hidden deep in North Pakistan not far from the world's second highest peak k2 is scarda this remote town is a mecca for climbers this is where they hire camping and rock climbing equipment before attempting some of the world's highest mountains and it's not far from here that I hope to find the inspiration for the mythical valley of shangri-la I've traveled more than 500 miles from Peshawar on the Pakistan Afghan border from Skardu I head north towards the Chinese border where I enter the Hunza Valley but first a game that's penetrated the remotest corners of the old British Empire cricket the crew and I are challenged to a match Australia vs. Pakistan and it's not long before they have us on the ropes [Applause] [Music] back in the days when the British Army ruled India and what's now Pakistan this was literally the ends of the earth or the earth as the British knew it some seventy years ago below this fort walls was the known world cities order civilization beyond was the great unknown the setting for James Hilton's and Lost Horizon [Music] as you can see this fort commands quite a presence over the valley these were actually the last bastions of the British we owned here who was unknown when James Hilton wrote his book in the 1930s if anybody traveled even this far was eminently possible that a place like shangri-la could exist because no one knew what lay beyond so if I'm to find the place that provided James Hillman's inspiration I must enter this great beyond the hands of Valley is on the other side of these ranges the roads are rocky and few people pass this way or certainly the way I'm going [Music] and as I enter the valley I immediately get a sense of the timelessness I'm looking for [Music] so what other clues are there it's beautiful and there's an air of peace to it there's also a great many old people in fact the hunter is legendary for its healthy old population [Music] it's said that up here people regularly live well past a hundred years of age if not older but if this is the valley of shangri-la there must be a Buddhist monastery and there it is at the head of the valley sits a building with a distinctly Buddhist look a building that fits the description of shangri-la better than any I'd seen anywhere in the Himalayas seeing at first it was indeed a strange and half incredible site a group of pavilions clung to the mountainside with the chance delicacy of flower petals impaled upon a crack an austere emotion carried the eye upward to the gray rock bastion above under the pavilion like features of this ancient building I enter unsure as to what I'll find is this a place of enlightenment could it be a place that once entered we never want to leave I said some alone and then again I'm not sure [Music] as I traveled through the narrow corridors and caught glimpses of vistas that showed how beautiful the valley was I felt that it may well be the place that inspired shangri-la [Music] in the book the trebles who finally arrived at shangri-la always had a sense that they were being watched that the monks and other residents never had more than a faint physical presence as I wander the corridors and rooms of this strange deserted building I too get a faint sense of the people who once lived here history relates this fort was built in the 15th century by a family that ruled the Huns oh when a daughter got married craftsman came here from Tibet to create the beautiful buildings seen today so perhaps that explains this building that's more forth than monastery but the question remains was this the inspiration for James Hilton's fantasy called shangri-la as I read on the terrace above the valley as if by magic the answer appears be chairs is the custodian of this building of God he's lived in the Hansa all his life if anyone knows of its links to the shangri-la myth surely he does before the arrival of British this was a independent Kingdom finally the British were feeling of a possible Russian movement through this valley down to India that is why we had a better with British troops in December 1891 and so what happened after the British came did it do a change no until 1938 probably this was the time when James Hilton the writer of do you think he came here I suppose he came here so this might have been what he this Messiaen shangri-la Rose this might have been an inspiration for writing his famous novel [Music] djs may believe that james hylton could have come here but I'm not so sure though it doesn't matter either way [Music] I set out on this journey knowing that shangri-la was the invention of a master storyteller and it does no harm to believe that heaven could exist on earth [Music] James Hilton believed each of us needed a place like shangri-la to escape to even if only in our imagination a place of hope a safe haven from the rigors of the world so for me this has been as much a search for inner happiness as it's been an external journey to find shangri-la my heaven at the ends of the earth [Music] [Music]

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

Views: 225,429

Rating: 4.7218227 out of 5

Keywords: History, Full Documentary, Documentaries, Full length Documentaries, Documentary, Documentary Movies - Topic, 2017 documentary, BBC documentary, history documentary, documentary history, the earth pakistan, david adams documentary, journeys to the ends, pakistan country, david adams films, timeline documentary, travel to pakistan, david adams journeys to the ends of the earth, road to shangri la pakistan, shangrila resort hotel skardu pakistan, shangrila pakistan

Id: -BZHL-g4uDA

Length: 50min 22sec (3022 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 13 2019