Freestyle Polo

8th July.
Since arriving in Pakistan we've been travelling up rivers, mainly the Indus, for 9 days finally reaching the top of the watershed here at Shandur Pass. At 8130 metres the pass is higher than New Zealand's highest peak, Mt Cook. It's a wide pass, wide enough to hold a good sized lake, a polo field and plenty of room to house the 10,000 odd people who come to watch the comp. Last year there were over 14,000 but the trouble at the Red Mosque in Islamabad is thought to have scared many away. The army and police are in large numbers with rifles slung over shoulders. We never thought of being affected by altitude sickness but have had bad headaches since arriving and shortage of breath.
The style of polo they play here is called Freestyle Polo or Wild Polo. As far as we can ascertain there are only to rules: change ends after scoring a goal and if a player or horse has to retire injured the other team drops one of their team. There are no change of horses, there is no referee. There are 2 chukkas each of 25 minutes with a 10 minute break. The action is hectic and dangerous with both horses and men suffering fatalities in the past. One horse had to be put down on the first day. It is full on action with wielding mallets liable to damage the other opponents or their horses. On quite a few occasions horses ended up amongst the spectators and riders nosediving over the rock barrier on others. The playing field was grassed though after the earlier games the dust was coming through to accompany the dust churned up by all the vehicles. The horses they use are not just farm hacks but beautiful animals that have been bred in this rarefied air. The don't come in horse floats but walk all the way from their homes often many kilometres away.
Actually the final on the third day was an anticlmax. Some VIP's were coming and security was ridiculously tight. The way the army and police treated the spectators was appalling We were even threatened with a police horse charge. We had decided to leave at half time to beat the hundreds of vehicles heading east or west only to find we were banned from leaving the area until the VIP's had got back into their helicopters and toddled off. They must have thought one of us had an anti aircraft gun. There was a lot of consternation with the locals who also wanted to head off early. Knowing that the hold up might last for a couple of hours we decided to stay another night here. We are parked b the lake watching an endless stream of vehicles heading east down the pass.