Naran Warnings Or Dangers Tips by l_joo

No taking photos of women

While strolling into the hillside to look for photos, I was shouted by a young man from quite far away, he shouted at me when I was about to snap photos of three local women carrying woods on their shoulders, a very unwelcomed kind of shout, I quickly put down my camera and walk away. Then later when I go near the riverside, I saw some villagers doing work in their farmland, I try to walk near to take some photos, suddenly some young boys hurling stones towards me and shouted loudly. Honestly I don't know anything about Naran the relationship between local villagers and outsiders, but it seemed the local villagers/farmers were so poor, I recalled 4 times I saw them asking money from me, three were small kids, one adult, looks like the life here is very tough. Anyway, photo is taken from a view of the farmers stone-fences/wall, click to see their houses were also made by stacking up stones.

Beware of Malik !!

I must tell you a guy with name Malik in army outfit with a Hunza cap and a walking stick. He is a retired soldier, most of the time hanging around the street of Naran to search for tourists to threaten them for money. He is about 55 years old claimed himself as the only official tour guide and he has big long beard similar to Mr. Osama. He has strong voice and fierce unfriendly eyes when talking to tourists. We were too bad luck to be there for him to fool around. The way he approaches us was almost the same way he did in the battle field with extreme unfriendly face plus unfriendly words to force us to pay him a certain amount of money to see the Saiful Maluk Lake a few hours' trek from the town. We tried so hard to tell him that we already had another guy who came to us much earlier to guide us to the that lake but he refuse to accept and kept threatening us with his reputation of retired soldier. We spent almost two hours to send him away with 50R as consultation fees. Before he left, he warned us not to let him saw us going with other guys to the lake.

Malik is the king
We stayed 2 nights in just Naran town without going anywhere, just because of Malik. If you come to Naran, please avoid this person. Believe me, he has a face I haven't seen for many years in horror movies able to make you run away. Me and Andy spent the daytime strolling on the street to pretend very enjoying but full of fear actually because we didn't see any foreign tourists in the whole valley. Luckily the scenery was so beautiful, otherwise this trip is a complete waste of time and money. Please forgive me for this, I like the natural environment of Naran but how the hell on earth has a tour guide such as Malik. I repeat again, the natural environment is just stunning and spectacular.