Started my trip today i.e 8th october 2015 with my wife and 4 year old son , still undecided as to what places we will end up visiting , the dream is to do
naran kaghan upto babusar top and then try to go towards kashmir side as well , but lets see it all depends on my kid and my better half
Anyways started early morning , took airblue flight to islamabad , they were using a boeing a330-222 of windsor airlines instead of one of their own i guess to maximize revenue due to the current situatiion with PIA an PALPA , anyways the plane was neither comfy nor very clean which made the flight a forgettable one , on top of that my son started throwing one of his legendary tantrums which lasted the entire day.
We landed at Islamabad at 9:30 A.M and after 15 minutes of haggling with taxi drivers i got a taxi to go to daewoo stand for 600 rupees
the taxi drivers have become a real mafia at islamabad airport
I was hopeful of catching the 10:45 daewoo to abbotabad but missed it by less then 5 minutes , i wanted to move on but my wife insisted to wait it out at the daewoo waiting area as she had never traveled by daewoo bus before , hence started the wait for the 1:50 daewoo bus which was not quite bad as i had very little sleep last night.
The daewoo ride was quite good , the bus left on time and arrived on time , we were served snacks and drinks
From Abbotabad i hired a suzuki van for balakot for 1200 , about 6 7 kilometers before balakot city , at tranna to be precise we saw this new looking hotel called hotel royal park , the rooms were smallish but very clean , the blankets pillows room rug bed sheet nothing smelled funny , the washroom was clean as well with both English and Asian toilet facility , the room also had a tiny led tv which i did not bother to check and most ofcourse wifi as well
Got the room for 1500 , i couldeve gotten it for less but it was dark and we were all tired .Soon after our arrival another family came and took to room next to us.
They served us chicken karhai with chapati and paratha anda with for my son, all very tasty followed by tea.
After a little stroll with the family its now time for bed.there really isnt much around the hotel apart from a little shop across the road
and another hotel next door.The weather is quite pleasant , about 14 15 degrees.
Tomorrow moving to shogran inshaAllah
pictures taken with a samsung note 3 and samsung s4
will upload pictures soon