AoA
Me and and 3 friends of mine (total 4) are planning to visit the northern areas right after Eid or may be a week after Eid. The two places that we really want to visit are Saif ul Maluk lake and Babusar top. As none of us is well aware of the current situation of those places, we need your valuable feedback on a number of things.
First, let me tell u guys that we have an option of a few cars to select from for this trip. A new swift, new city, new corolla and my rust old City idsi. Since my own car is too old and also a bit under powered, I am inclined towards the new city. corolla may have some advantage due to road clearance but its brakes are not reliable and its not that stable over all, swift is good too but only a little trunk. City is the most probably choice.
The plan is: Day 1 Sargodha to Naran, 11 hours drive. Day 2 Visit to saif ul maluk Day 3: Visit to babusar top Day 4: back to Sargodha or may be lahore to drop a friend. Now here are a few questions that i have.
1) Is Honda city the right choice for what's waiting for us there?
2) How bad are the roads? I've been told that up to Naran, roads are good enough for almost any car. after Naran, the only way to Saif ul Maluk would be hired jeeps (is there safe parking available for our cars?) and that's what we ll do. our real concern is the road conditions from Naran to Babusar top, which is around 65 km up north. I have done some research and visited a few threads made by fellow Pakwheelers, there ARE some patches on this road that I am concerned about but they are not too bad. I saw a 9th gen corolla and a 9th gen civic driven through those patches too, so our City should be just fine, am i right?
3) Is it safe overall? i mean the security situation? last year there was some trouble in the area.
4) How many hours round trip should it be from Naran to Saif ul Maluk and from Naran to Babusar top and back? do we need one complete day for these two or will we have some spare time? if we do have spare time, please suggest some nearby places worth visiting (we don't want to walk too much though :P)
5) Is petrol easily available? in one post i read that there were long queues on petrol pumps and they were giving only 1000 rs worth of fuel to each car. we can take along some fuel in a large container if that's the situation.
6) Since we have to stay there for 2 or 3 nights, what is the avg price of hotel rooms per night? can 4 guys stay in 1 room or we ll have to get two rooms? We want to keep accommodation budget to stay reasonably low. Not that we'd sleep on wet beds in smelly rooms but we don't want to spend too much on it. We can even drive further north or stay somewhere before Naran if its needed. and what about our meals? We don't want bad stomach after having bad food but none of us can cook our own food! Any suggestions?
7) Any driving tips? I ll be doing most of the driving on the mountains and i plan to reduce the air in tires for better traction. any other way that we have to prepare the car? other then the usual checkups and top ups before any road trips?
8) What travelling gear should we take along, if any needed? we aren't doing trails n stuff but off course, its not like visiting Pir Sohawa in Islamabad. is it too cold even in these days?
9) Any other tips of any kind will be much appreciated.
If you know anyone who can help or has been there recently, please tag them here. Thank you.
Regards
Ahmad Bilal