Deosai and Babusar in a VW Beetle? Are you mad? Yes

[farooq05]

Zabardast!!!!

[hamza_xeg]

Aala indeed a very enjoyable trip it would have been

[istafa111]

@istafa, Islamabad fast? what batch?

Yes... Batch 05, Telecom.

[rebel]

Alright then...Shall we resume?? Lets begin with Day 2!! Woohoo!!!

[rebel]

We start early... our destination, or what we had planned atleast, was chilas...there we would decide if we would go to astore, rama and deosai to land in skardu...OR if we would pick fairy meadows first and then do the said leg of the journey later...or if we would do said leg in reverse i.e starting from skardu and ending in astore...so basically, we had planned nothing...but hey, a 10 hour drive is plenty of time to decide...right?? rong!! so we began by taking pictures...and not deciding where to go...

[rebel]

...and we continued taking pictures and not deciding where to go...

[jadoon23]

awesome trip amazing

[rebel]

We weren't greeted by the best of roads

...and soon the car hit the ground hard the first of many times...a sound and sensation we would eventually get immune to...

But then it started to get better...

and better...

and better still!!

[rebel]

Breakfast was a small stop

and just to be on the safe side, this being the start of the journey and us being proactive and caring for our car, decided to let her breathe since she did not hav a slotted decklid

cleaned her up nice and pretty

[rebel]

And were on our way!!!!

[rebel]

...To absolute driving Heaven!!!

[rebel]

A stop for tea...

and people gather round in amusement to see what it is...

[rebel]

We drive on along...

[rebel]

...Until we saw....

THIS!!! We just had to go over it!!!!

and go over it we did!!!! XD

[rebel]

and then we got to chilas...we decided here that we would stay at raikot instead...the shangrila here at chilas said there was a branch at raikot and it was operational...

so with the weather turning against us, we powered on!!!

[nmshaikh]

and then we got to chilas...we decided here that we would stay at raikot instead...the shangrila here at chilas said there was a branch at raikot and it was operational...

Good decision. the piece of road between Chilas and Raikot at Tatapani gets blocked for days after every rain..actually even without rain as it is an active landslide area.

[rebel]

And we finally get to Raikot at the end of a beautiful drive...

Rainboww!!!!

[rebel]

Shangrila at Raikot however was closed...and it seemed it had not been operated for quite some time...so here stuck at Raikot with nothing but a few shops and jeeps, we made the decision pending for so long, we would park the bug at raikot and take a jeep which would drop us close to the village of tatu...from there on, we would trek to fairy point hotel and head to fairy meadows the next morning...

and so begins the jeep drive on one of the scariest tracks i have seen...i dont have pictures of the scary bit tho cuz i was too busy staying in the jeep and avoiding looking down...

[rebel]

And so we got off the jeep and started to trek...

This was the bridge under construction by the locals the absence of which made a 30 minute jeep ride into a 2 and a half hour trek

the moon soon popped right out and this pic was snapped with the dying battery

it got dark very quick and there was little to see for us as we stumbled and felt our way onwards in the mobile lights...we had not expected it to get dark so didnt have torches handy

Finally we arrived at fairy point hotel where we gladly stopped for the night at 800rs for the room, 2 sleeping bags and a couple of mattresses

before dinner and a sound sleep, We made a deal with the porter who carried 2 of our bags today, that his son would carry the bags the next day all the way to fairy meadows...

[rebel]

@nmshaikh, that did not work out too good for us:P but yes, with weather closing in, im glad we got thru without any mishap...