the swat mootorway is open till katlang as alrady told here but then u have to go thru sanghao hills to buner and over karakar pas to barikot.. that route is also ok and i have a thread on that aswell but its not good for nite travel.... best is that u go thru dargai and malakand... travel at nite to avoid traffic
Mr. Asif that is a very nice reply with actual names of the areas and the mountain which you have to climb after leaving Katlang Interchange as there are no boards anywhere to tell you where you are. But halfway of the climb of the mountain, when you reach it, the road is not good and looks like a very old route. After the army checkpost, the road becomes better
right now even if you go to Behrain via katlang or go to behrain on the straight route, I found that from Lahore it was 655 KM (via katlang) and also 660 KM while coming back from Bahrain via old route.
So maybe when they will really open up the full motorway , then maybe we will save some mileage and petrol, but right now both routes mileage is nearly the same.
Right now I would recommend everyone to go via the old route (islamabad motorway , mardan etc) and DO NOT take the shortcut, and especially if you still take the shortcut and it is night time , then you are stuck.
If you go now, you can still see lot of snow in Kalam (3.5 hours to 4 hours from Bahrain). Only go to Kalam if you really want to see snow, there will be so many jerks in the car ( rented NCP car) that you will start wishing that you should not have left Bahrain). The jerks to Saiful Malook lasts only for 30 minutes but these jerks will last for minimum 3 hours ! Your back bone and intestines will be displaced. And then you have to come back too ! Total 6 hours of continuous jerks.
I would suggest to stay in Bahrain , it is a nice place and you can also hike over there. I found it to be a very nice place. Very nice and polite people over there. Take a hotel adjacent to the river and you will enjoy it.
