We’d seen other lions earlier that day, on the outskirts of Mingora, about an hour north-east of Chakdara and Churchill’s Picket.
They were headless and carved into the rubble ruins of Butkara, a 2,000 year-old Buddhist stupa. A major pilgrimage site, it was said to contain a gold casket filled with an eighth of the Buddha’s ashes.
Pilgrims came from as far as Tibet and China to pay homage here and Sogdians tracing the Silk Road knew of it.
Indeed, few remember that from 3,000BC to AD700, Buddhism thrived in the Swat Valley and its plains were dotted with 1,400 monasteries; its large rocks decorated with religious engravings, a few of which are still visible today.
Rampaging White Huns, who plundered the gems and scratched the gold from the stupas, destroyed most of it in the seventh century.
But even now, as I wandered between the circles of heavy stone, there were remnants of intricate artwork; reliefs of fruit-heavy trees, sitting Buddhas, and a light scattering of lapis-lazuli mosaic tiles in the floor.
Marijuana plants grew in great wild thickets throughout the area, their heady scent conjuring wilder times. This was not what I’d expected of predominantly Muslim Pakistan...