Gorakh Hills...at first glance we decided to have a tour to this breathtaking place when we saw pictures of this majestic place, we were at PTV center Karachi in one of our friend?s office and he was telling us about his official visit to Gorakh Hills, he was working on PTV's official documentary about Gorakh Hills. After failure of our first plan to visit Gorakh in September 2013 it was July 2014(Ramadan) when once again we six friends decided for Gorakh Hills trip, on very next Saturday night at sehri gathering we conversed it with other friends they also approved to go, in end of Ramadan we all were on the same page about date, September first weekend was decided for tour, we decided to leave Karachi on 4th of September 2014 Thursday and spend full day of Friday and Saturday there and leave Gorakh in Sunday morning at around 09.00 soon after breakfast, we were eager to go Dadu by train but all of us had some concerns about security situation in Dadu, after short research we came to know that last train for Dadu leaves at 20.15 every Thursday from cantt station and touch Dadu at 03.45 and express buses leave for Dadu from Karachi with interval of one hour and last bus leaves Karachi at 01.00 and it take six hours to reach Dadu.
I read several travelogues about Gorakh trip, explored a lot, throughout this I found official page of Gorakh Hill Station on Facebook from there I got contact numbers of relevant person who deals with visitor and provides all facilities from pick and drop service to room booking at hill station, this was Juman Jamali Manager of Gorakh Hills Restaurant & Rest house, I called Ada Juman and told him about our plan at that time we were nine confirmed person to go, he was very glad to listen that group of students from Karachi university is enthusiastic to visit, he assured me to provide services at his best, also he said he will arrange 4x4 Toyota 4WD that will pick us form Dadu and will continue with us as long as we stay at Hill station, in next few days I made numerous calls to Ada Juman sometime two or three back to back calls asking about meal rates, rest house rent and sometime notifying that our number of persons increased from nine to ten, ten to eleven and lastly seventeen to eighteen. Every time he was very humble and said we are at your facility. With passage of time number of participants increased to eighteen. We started from six and completed at eighteen, although we all are close friends but PKR 2K out of 6K was collected as security deposit to ensure that no one can ditch at last moment.
We were still chaotic about how to travel to Dadu? either by train or by bus, we were eager to travel by train but in case of train we need to wait six hours for next conveyance as Ada Juman said the earliest 4x4 can reach is 09.00, finally we all decided to spend these six hours at station platform and approved to travel Dadu by train and arrival by bus. On 20th of August 2014 we went to Karachi cantt station and reserved 16 full births seats we received tickets for Seat 1- 16 Bogie No. 2 in Khushal Khan Khatak Express, at that time we were 15 confirmed participants but we reserved 16 seats.
After reservation it was 20.00 we went to platform for halla gulla it was time of arriving Khushal Khan Khatak Express, as we touched platform my phone rang, I received call "yaar mesam mayra done hay mayn bhi jaonga paysay kb dynay hayn?" It was Tabish Jamal, now participants count reached to sixteen. We informed Ada Juman about our tickets reservation, some of us confirmed Thursday and Friday and some of us confirmed only Friday leave at their workplaces. After having very valuable suggestions and reviews we decided to take cold drink and drinking water with us form Karachi, we took 75 liters of water and 65 liters of cold drink with us and also bought water bottle pump which helped us a lot in pumping water from nineteen liter bottle.
..... 4-September .....
It was dawn of Thursday 4 September, the day when we have to leave, excitement was at its peak, also we need to buy many things, I awakened at 10 O'clock, first of all I went to water plant near to my home and asked him to ready my four canes of nineteen liters I will be gathering them in next two hours, than I went to market and bought tissue roll, tang, lootay, bakery items, etc. at 13.30 my friend Talhauddin came to my home we moved all luggage to his home via his car, as we booked shahzore truck to reach cantt station and driver was asked to reach at Talha's place at 17.00. I & Talha left Malir in shahzore at 17.00 reached Jauhar at 18.00.
Everybody was informed to be there at 18.00 sharp, after some back and forth phone calls we left Jauhar at 18.30, picked three of our friends from shell petrol pump near Askari IV.
We were at cantt station in time, train arrived at 20.15 as per scheduled time, no late, and left cantt station after staying there for fifteen minutes, for some of us it was first experience of travelling by train.
We enjoyed a lot in train, we reached Dadu station at 03.45 exactly the time that was mentioned on pakrails.com again no late, hats off to Pakistan Railway PML-N?s minister Mr. Saad Rafiq.
As only three trains in a day stops for fifteen minutes at Dadu station that?s why there were not any single shop or much gathering at Dadu station, there is a only little tea hotel whose owner only comes three times a days for an hour and went back as train left platform, as per our plan we choose an appropriate place on platform and started aligning our luggage, we had to spend next six hours there, tea shop owner and other guys present there were listening to us as they came to know that we will be waiting here for next six hours, owner of tea shop ordered a guy "in k liay masjid khool do" and asked us to move in mosque back to the station building, we thanked them a lot and lifted all our luggage with us in mosque, it was a good enough mosque, we dumped all our luggage in open sky area of mosque and rested there, there was an air conditioned hall for prayer, they turned air-condition on for us and many of us moved in hall to snooze, in morning through load shedding they started generator to keep fans on, we will never ever forget such hospitality, love and respect we received.