Kate and Wills’ tea with family who live in cave
…And duchess took the hauntingly powerful portraits seen here
WHEN it comes to jam-packed royal tours, meticulous scheduling, planned months in advance, is everything.
But Kate and William ripped up the timetable for their high-profile Pakistan tour – to visit the home of a local family they met by the side of the road.
The royal couple spotted the villagers as their convoy was threading its way through the Wakhan region near the Hindu Kush. Enthralled, Kate, 37, stopped their car so she and William could meet the group – and the family promptly invited them into their home.
Despite concerns from royal aides and the Pakistani military, who have been helping to guard Kate and William, the pair entered the one-room house, accompanied only by a translator, where the family told how they live without running water and electricity.
Kate – a keen photographer who has taken many official pictures of her children – then borrowed a camera from an aide to take pictures of the grandmother, mother and daughter.
Describing the encounter last Wednesday, Kate said: ‘It was fantastic to meet these people living in such a remote place. They had no idea who we were, which gave us a chance to see a different side of Pakistan.’
William, 37, also paid tribute to his wife’s camera skills. ‘She likes taking lots of pictures,’ he said. ‘She does a few portraits, but mostly landscapes.’
On Friday, the couple requested to return to an orphanage they had visited earlier where William led the children in an impromptu game of cricket. After inadvertently hitting Kate on the neck with a foam ball, she had the children in giggles by feigning pain before William joked: ‘She’s my wife, so I can just about get away with it.’