We had planned to attempt for Ratti Gali Lake the next day but I was worried because I could not find anyone to stich my shoes there. The next day, on 5th October, we woke up early as usual and got ready for Ratti Gali, called Chaudhry and got into his jeep. Now before leaving we asked him about the jeep fare for Ratti Gali Lake. He asked some other drivers, made some calculations and then told us that the fare till Dowarian would be 6-7k and from Dowarian to Ratti gali would also be 6-7k and the total fare from Kel to Ratti Gali and back would be around Rs. 13000. None of us were expecting this much from him and then we had to change our plan and drop Ratti Gali Lake. I did not like it because so far we had not been to any lake there. Then everyone came with his idea, someone said we should head back to Muzaffarabad now before we run out of the budget but I wanted to stay at least one more night in Kashmir, preferably at Sharda or Keran. Chaudhry said he would charge Rs. 10,000 for taking us to Muzaffarabad and I did not want that much amount to be spent on fare because we all had just paid Rs. 1700 from Muzaffarabad to Kel and 10,000 for return was way high. I signaled some fellows to disagree but they ignored me. For Sharda, they said we would make a stop there for for visitng the Sharda University and we would make another stop at Keran and this would be a comfortable ride to Muzaffarabad. I barely agreed because in my opinion we could have utilized that 10,000 to spend another great day at Sharda and still left with enough to compensate our fare for Muzaffarabad. At last we had to leave with Chaudhry for Muzaffarabad, making several stops on our way. We checked out of Parbat hotel and the total bill was Rs. 5170 for 2 nights (@ Rs. 600 per night) and 6 times food (we stayed there for three nights but the first night bill was paid by Chaudhry. I bought 500 walnuts for Rs. 1150 and we left Kel for Sharda at 9:10 AM.
These shots were taken on the way from Kel to Sharda.
