In the autumn of 2022, political stability having finally been restored to the region, Alan returned to northern Pakistan after an absence of 24 years and some 35 years after his first visit in 1987.

He drove for six weeks, off road and along rough jeep tracks, through some of the tallest and wildest mountains on earth - the western Himalayas, the Karakorum and the Hindu Kush. While revisiting some cherished old haunts, he also discovered other new, infrequently visited corners, hidden deep within this fabulous landscape, as he reached out towards the remote borders of Afghanistan and China.

In December last year, Alan headed back to Pakistan once again, this time travelling southwards into unfamiliar territory, from the magnificent grandeur of Mughal Lahore, to the cradle of the lost Indus Valley Civilisation at Harappa and Moenjodaro, then onwards to visit the sacred shrines and tombs of some of the country’s great mystics and saints, driving from the fertile plains of Punjab and through the deserts of Sindh to finally arrive at Karachi on the shores of the Arabian Sea.

In his talk Alan relives his adventures, some old and some new. He relates his encounters with tribal groups whose homes lie deep within the territory’s hidden high valleys, from the Pathans of Peshawar to the Kafirs of Kalash, and from the Afridis of the Kyber to the Ismailis of forgotten Shimshal, while not forgetting the times he spent drinking tea with refugee Mujahideen fighters on the outskirts of Chitral. All this while he kept an ear close to the ground, listening intently for any lingering echoes of Kipling's imperial Great Game.

Alan is founder and director of his own company, Yak Travel – www.yaktravel.co.uk. – which specialises in both gentle holidays and not so gentle expeditions to Pakistan, North East India and Morocco. He is a regular speaker at travel shows and travel clubs, both at home and abroad, and is a respected travel writer, too. He wrote Moroccan Atlas the Trekking Guide, co-wrote Insight Guide Pakistan, and has contributed to numerous other travel books and magazines besides, including The Rough Guide to The Best 100 Places on Earth

Yak herders drive their animals across the Shimshal river at the end of the winter kutch migration

Our jeep winds its way through another vertiginous valley

A Pathan nutseller looking comfortable in the bazaars of Peshawar

Tirich Mir (7708m), the highest mountain in the Hindu Kush

The majestic Baltit Fort, formely the seat of the powerful Mirs (rulers) of Hunza

Shah Jahan Mosque, Thatta, Sindh province.

Tomb of Bibi Jawindi, Uch Sharif, Punjab