The last few weeks I have been travelling through the north of Pakistan with my family. We are driving through over thousands of kilometres of stunning landscapes with my parents and my brothers family together.

The stunning landscapes are fantastic and I can imagine specially impressive for my nephew who has never seen mountains. It’s different travel then I am used and lacks much physical movement but makes up for it with the incredible beauty of the landscapes around me.

Ever valley having its own glacial lake and stunning waterfalls, the beauty of this whole region is incredible. Even though this part used to be barely explored a few years ago but now with road access (even though the roads are barely drivable) there are enough facilities for tourists.

It breaks my heart to see all these places covered in litter. The tourists are not the only ones littering, I have seen the locals of all age groups throwing every piece of litter right out their windows. The sights remind me of how much effort they put in my school to teach us not to letter when I was growing up in Hyderabad.

I guess those who grow up in small villages around the world have been used to throwing things on the side of the road in the past. It’s just the advent and rapid adoption of non bio-degradable items like plastic wrappers and bags that make this behaviour a problem.

Regardless coming this far north in Pakistan after 9 years I remembered how different the situation is in the same country in the north and south. People giving way to each other, much less more optimistic on the outlook of life, no beggars and the incredible level of safety made me realise a lot of things that I considered issues of Pakistan were just the issues of my province Sindh.

The tremendous distances of this county and how big the difference that makes in landscapes and culture was something that I had almost forgotten before this travel.