Raikot--- Our First Destination
After covered the 20 hrs journey we reached Raikot. We reached there at about 05: 00pm. Our plan at Raikot was camping for night stay because we wanted to start trekking for Tattoo as early as possible. I had read in Mustansar Hussain Tarrar’s Travelogue that he also camped at Raikot for night. He also wrote that trekkers take their startup at mid night. As we also wanted trekking that’s why we adopted the same procedure.
We met there with a local and asked him that which place is best for camping? He replied that the best one is with the mosque and the second one is at the bank of river Indus. As we were so excited, we thought it would be better if we camped at the bank of river. We went down at the bank and found the suitable place. There were soft sand and although it was best to camp on it but the problem was “no water” for drinking and cleaning purposes and taking water from river was full of risk. So we decided to camp near mosque. We put our luggage and went near the mosque. The muddy water was available at mosque and locals allowed us to take water from there.
We started to set our tent and setting of our luggage and in the meanwhile 2 people came to us from FC post. They asked us who r we and why r we camping there? We replied with all the details. They had gone but after 5 minutes the incharge of FC Post came with 2,3 people. He was pathan but his family had been living in Gujranwala since last 25 years. And since we were Punjabis so he invited us to stay in their area. He ordered their people to carry our luggage and said these tourists are our Guests.
لو جی بلے بلے ہو گئی- ہم نے سوچا کہ اب تو رات کا کھانا بھی مل جائے گا اور ایسا ہی ھوا-
They treated us very well. First they served us chilled and clean water. They brought this water from Chilas. We charged our mobiles and camera at the post. We took rest with no tension because 3, 4 guards were on night duty. As per our request guard woke us at 03: 00am. Our plan was to start journey at 03:30am but we could not. At about 04:30am we were on the Tattoo Jeap track.
