To a geographer, it must be an interesting conundrum; what are the precise boundaries of the Hindu Kush? Within the so called Pamir Knot with its series of parallel ridges, such boundaries can never be clear.

The region depicted in the photographs is that which laypersons generally call the Hindu Kush, but, which, amongst geographers and alpinists, is also known as the Hindu Raj. That is, the range that lies between the true left bank of the valley of the Yarkhun/Mastuj River in the West and North and the Northern watershed of Swat Kohistan in the South, is the Hindu Raj. The main range of the Hindu Kush lies to the East and North of the Yarkhun/Mastuj/Chitral/Kunar River system.

It is fortunate, however, that what ever one chooses to call it, it is a region containing many valleys that remain relatively unspoiled, relatively unvisited. It contains some of the best trout fishing anywhere, having been stocked with the wily Loch Leven strain of brown trout by the British.

Culturally, the linguistic mixture is interesting, containing as it does a mixture of Shina, Burushaski, Khowar, Gujar, and Wakhi speakers which reflects the complex history of the area. It has been ruled variously from Chitral, both by the Kushwaqt and the Ul Mulk dynasties, from Gilgit, from Srinagar, from Tibet, from Persia. The original inhabitants of its Eastern Valleys seem to have been Burushaski speakers, preserving, as they do, what is considered to be a purer version of that language as compared to that which is spoken in the Hunza region. The Yasin valley, the pass at the head of which served as a conduit for the Chinese to invade and conquer the Tibetan held Lesser Bolor, is also the valley where the explorer/journalist George Hayward was murdered, perhaps for being a tad too investigative. – Text and photos by Batholith Saltoro

Batholith Saltoro is a Peripatetic sybarite who revels in the Finlandization of remote cultures wherever his tent might be pitched. He can be reached at http://www.modminerals.com