Nibbling a slab of warm nan bread, her friend Katsuvia Miura added many people in their country think Pakistan is a battle zone like neighboring Afghanistan.

Their perceptions changed after they joined a group of 11 Japanese tourists visiting the country's breathtaking northern areas, where four mountain ranges including the Himalaya collide.

Sightseers like Aya and Katsuvia are becoming increasingly common.

The September 11 terror attacks in 2001 and a subsequent US-led military assault which toppled Afghanistan's hardline Taleban regime wiped Pakistan off the world tourist map.

Westerners previously attracted by the country's unspoilt swathes of rugged scenery deserted Pakistan, as foreign governments issued travel advisories asking citizens to avoid visiting the volatile Islamic republic.

Deadly attacks on Christian and Western targets by Islamic militants and the gruesome murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl played out on video across the world did not help either.

Now the government of President Pervez Musharraf wants to promote a softer image of Pakistan and reap tourist dollars again. The country has also profited from being featured last year in the television travel series Himalaya, presented by British comedian Michael Palin and syndicated worldwide.

The figures appear to speak for themselves. Last year Pakistan received 648,000 tourists, up from the 500,000 in 2003, said Tourism Ministry Secretary Salim Gul Sheikh.

The numbers may be inflated, as they are believed to include overseas Pakistanis who have foreign passports and are returning to visit their families.

But Pakistan still compares favorably with Sri Lanka, which expects numbers of tourists to rise to 600,000 despite the impact of December's tsunamis, and unstable Nepal, where numbers dropped to 350,000 in 2004.

The country's tourism hopes rest on its mighty mountains, which attract the bulk of foreign tourists.

Northern Pakistan has five of the world's peaks over 8,000 meters. Majestic K-2, the second highest mountain on the planet after Everest in Nepal, sits atop the region along with 120 other peaks over 7,000 metres.

Officials say foreign mountaineering expeditions are on the rise again, from a low of 30 in 2002 to 73 this year.

However Pakistan still lags behind long-term rival India, which last year launched a campaign to boost arrivals from last year's figure of around 3.5 million - itself relatively small for a country of one billion people.

Tourism officials and agents say Pakistan too could do better.

Tourist visas should be granted upon arrival instead of being subject to red tape and lengthy waits at Pakistan embassies abroad, said Amjad Ayub, executive manager of Waljis Travels, the country's largest operators for incoming tourists, while the government should concentrate less on Western tourists and more on travelers from Asia, particularly India.

The government should also push for the withdrawal of travel advisories, said Ayub. ``We should tell the world that Daniel Pearl was one case, it's gone. It is just one incident, we should ask them how many tourists have been murdered in this country?''