Dear All
Finally I have got the time and brain to share my Road Trip details from Karachi to Shogran.
In May 2010, Me and one of my office colleague decided to visit Kaghan and Naran by Road on my newly received official Coure 2010 Model. We planned to add two more friends with us. One of the friends refused to go with us when he came to know that we are going by road. Infect he tried his best to stop us as well by sketching a horrible picture of road conditions, Dacoits in Sindh and other unforeseenL. Our fourth colleague/friend showed his back at the 11[SUP]th[/SUP] hour when we were about to leave in the morning:P
Finally we both decided to continue our trip and we left Karachi at about 9:30 AM. Had our first CNG filled from a gas station near Sohrab Goth and started our journey. We went straight to the Mazar of Bulbul-e-Madina Haji Muhstaq Attari (RAH) at Sehra-e-Madina near Toll Plaza Krachi and Recite Fatiha and dua for our Trip. Remember we never had any road trip outside Karachi before, neither we had any GPRS facility nor we had any road map with us. We were just following Sign boards along Super highway.
We planned to reach sukkhar before sun set and didn?t want to travel in Sindh at night time. My Colleague has one friend in sukkhar and he called him when we were leaving Karachi. This person also told us that do not travel in Sindh after sunset and just let me know when u are in Sukkhar. I will arrange a room for both of you to spend the night. No problem. ?.
On an average speed of around 110 KMPH, we reached sukkhar around 4 PM. I drove the car most of the time. Suzuki Coure was marvelous on CNG and it gave around 145KM for every refill. Now after reaching sukkhar, we tried to contact my colleague?s friend who promised us a place to spend night in sukkhar? his cell was off :PWe tried calling him several times but he didn?t respond. After wasting around half an hour contacting him, we asked some people that how much time and distance will it take to cross Sindh?. They told us that you can still cross Sindh before sun set. Without wasting any time, we started our journey and able to reach (Rahim yar khan or sadiq abad I don?t exactly remember).
At around 8 or 9:00PM we reached Bahawalpur. (Plz note that we were completely depending on road signs to proceed and had no map or GPRS). Near Bahawalpur, we stopped at a CNG station and asked from a local person about the road to Lahore. He told us there are two roads, one is a long route and one is a shorter one but its one way road. We both were feeling too tired and couldn?t focus on the word ?One Way?. I was driving the car at that time and I adopted the worst track of my life. I don?t exactly remember it was Lodhran-Khanewal road or Multan-Khanewal road but it was filled with Trawlers, Heavy trucks and coming from opposite direction on a single trackJ. It was around 3, 4 hours drive and I don?t exactly remember how many over takes and risks I had taken to cover the distance.
This 3, 4 hours drive made me so tired that i asked my friend to drive further. From there onwards he took the driving seat. It was around 11:00 PM and we both were badly tired. Since we had no information about any hotel or guest house, we preferred to keep driving instead of wasting our time in search of any hotel. And also we were afraid of going off track from the Main high way. We continued our journey to Lahore and after every 20, 30 Mins, we used to wash our face and eyes with water to avoid sleeping and also used chewing gums to remain active. By the grace of Allah, we also survived one collision with a tractor trolly who suddenly appeared on highway from wrong side.Eventually we reached Lahore at around 6 AM. We both were too tired and desperately need a sleep to freshen ourselves for further travelling but?.after having breakfast on a road side hotel we started searching for hotels but we were not able to find any reasonable and economic hotel. After spending some time on hotel searching, we decided to resume our journey to Islamabad and decided that we will have few hours sleep turn by turn on our way to Lahore ? Pindi Motor way?
So janab, we again started our journey and reached Lahore ? pindi motor way by asking different people at different places. This 4, 5 hours motor way drive was the only time when we both had 1, 2 hours nap turn by turn while the other was driving and fighting with drowsinessJ
We had planned to park our Car in one of my cousin?s house in Islamabad and then visit naran, kaghan by any other means like public transport or hiring a separate car with driver. (because we have heard that one can only go to kaghan naran using 4x4 vehicle or with a specialized driver only who is skilled enough to drive the vehicle on these sharp turns and mountains). After reaching Islamabad I called my cousin to get my car parked in his house, he told me that? his house has the capacity to accommodate only one car and he can?t do any thing in this regard?
So we decided to go to Murree where we can hire a hotel room for a badly needed rest, and also to park our car with another relative of me. Finally we reached Murree at around 6: PM at Mall road, booked a hotel room, had bath and ordered chickan karahi. Since Murree was the last destination we planned to visit by road, I called my relative so that we can park our car at his home. He told me that he is not in Murree at the moment and will be back may be in a day or two:P
So we finally decided to visit kaghan naran by our own car. We had a very good and sound sleep that night and next morning we both were ready for our next trip?
So? Dear friends this is it. I will be sharing the pictures very soon. Thanks to Allah as we enjoyed the trip so easily on our own car till shogran with all the independence of parking the car at our desired location and having dozens of pics wherever we want.I will be sharing further details from Murree till Shogran with pics and also the details of our journey back to Karachi which was a world record of courage or stupidity (wat ever u may call this) as we came non stop (only CNG filling and call of nature) from Shogran to Karachi.. Tributes to my Suzuki Coure, which was super amazing in this complete trip and we didn?t face a single problem with this car
Your comments will also encourage me in writing down further details so please do comment..
Regards