Three days two nights – Gorakh-Mohenjodaro-Manchar-Sehwan on Car

[SAV123]

Dear Friends,

I am a Pakwheels member for many years but this is the first time I am sharing my travel experience with some non-professional photos. Its more content and less images, I hope you will bear with me!

I am thankful to all the Gurus, experts and travelers who have shared their travel experiences with great images to boost up the enthusiasm of a traveler like me!

Its about a three-day-two-night trip that included the places: Gorakh Hills, Mohenjodaro, Manchar Lake and Sehwan Sharif (Mausoleum of Syed Usman Marvandi known as Lal Shahbaz Qalandar)

[HanifBhatti]

Waiting for more details

[SAV123]

@HanifBhatti Feeling so honoured and really encouraging to have you comment on my thread sir!

Rest will follow soon.

[sirajturk]

I've been to these places number of times. Gorakh is a beautiful place; especially for adventurous mind.

[SAV123]

@sirajturk Thank you for your comments sir!

[SAV123]

We were planning a trip to Gorakh Hills for more than a year and for this purpose I had started a thread at Pakwheels to get some information about the terrain and possibility of taking my car upto Gorakh. I got only one response on my question from a friend who had not visited Gorakh at all! And almost all the other threads that I came across on Pakwheels were not encouraging on taking car up there. Despite all this we were firm in our decision to take our cars up to the Gorakh Hills.

We were two families; my family in my car (Nissan AD, 2006 model, 1300cc, 4-gear AT) and my friend’s family in his car (Mitsubishi Mirage, 2015 [I guess], AT) and we were pretty much firm in taking our cars up to the hill. The plan was as follows:

Duration December 22-24, 2018

Day 1 Leave early morning and try and reach Gorakh Hill station by around 4 pm to be able to witness the sunset and then sunrise in the next morning.

Day2 Leave Gorakh for Mohenjodaro and stay at rest house in Mohenjodaro

Day3 Leave Mohenjodaro for back home visiting en-route Sehwan [darbar of Qalandar] and Manchar Lake and back to home by night

[automakerz]

Its a good idea - accompanied by family.

i wish i could join you people with my family Inshallah. let see how plan goes.

Gorakh Hill a new Muree for sindh.

Good luck.

[SAV123]

@automakerz Thanks brother, I wish you had accompanied us. May be next time.

[pwuser15200597755]

Bro,
How ur both cars performed on steep hilly roads. Did you guys easily reach on top.

[SAV123]

Day One

As per plan we left home early in the morning after Fajar prayer towards our meeting point (Total fuel station) on Super Highway (M9) and we both arrived at the meeting point almost at the same time i.e. around 7:00 am. We got our car fuel tanks filled and kicked start the journey towards our destination of the day i.e. Gorakh Hills. I was leading and was trying to maintain a speed around 110-120 on M9.

After few tens of kilometers, I started feeling that my car’s throttle response was losing for some moments and then gaining again. This caused some cautions in the mind; nevertheless, I kept leading the journey. After some time the throttle response completely vanished and I had to stop my car. My friend spotted that water was leaking from my car and it happened to be at the back of the engine where manifold connects with engine. We kept few extra waters bottles, slowed our speed and aimed for Jamshoro in search of a mechanic who could tell us the issue and possibly resolve it. This whole episode slowed our speed down.

The mechanic at Jamshoro told us that tikli was leaking and that he had two solutions; one- to remove manifold and fix the issue by putting ‘magic’ and/or replacing tikli which would take about two hours, second- to put ‘magic’ without dismantling the manifold which would take about 20 minutes. We opted for second option and he started his work, however, after about five minutes he told me that the leakage was from more than one place and that he would need to dismantle the manifold to do the required job.

At this point I asked my friend to move forward towards Gorakh and that I will catch him later once my car gets fixed so that at least one family is able to reach there to witness the sunset. So my friend moved forward and I stayed at Jamshoro to have the tikli issue resolved.

I am thankful to my friend from the core of my heart that he stayed with me in the hours of trouble and only went ahead once the issue had properly been taken care off. Jazaak Allah Khaira, Afzaal bhai!

Some images of my car, workshop and Jamshoro.

[SAV123]

@pwuser15200597755 Brother, let the story unfold and I am sure you will not only enjoy it but your question will be answered as well.

[pwuser15200597755]

Ok thnks

[SAV123]

Khair Khaahon aur doston ki hosla afzaai is naacheez kay shoq-e-tehreer ko aur jilaa baksh sakti hai:slight_smile:

[SAV123]

I must also thank those two mechanic guyz who worked really fast and great on my car. They get 10 out of 10 for the efforts they put in to help me resume my journey. I wish I had taken a photo of them. Nevertheless, I thank them!

[SAV123]

The leakage happened to be from at least five places. At four places the mechanic put the sikkas of Rupee one, two, five etc. (Jazaak Allah to our State Bank that they have come up with almost exact size sikkas as required by my Nissan) depending on the need of that place and at one place he replaced the entire tikli which was not fixable. This whole exercise ate a lot of my time and we were able to resume the journey by around 1:30 pm.

Now, I was trying to drive the car as fast as I could to cover-up the time lost, hoping that my friend would have reached the destination by the required time without much of trouble. I chose Johi Link Road instead of going all the way to Dadu, as was originally planned. That happened to be a better decision and the link road was perfect. Google maps helped us all the way till we had the signals. Once we crossed Wahi Pandi we lost the signals after some time. The Magrib was near and we still had quite a long way to go. The condition of the road was constantly deteriorating and the new road construction was on so there were a lot of substandard (non-road) diversions.

Following images will help you understand the condition of the road on diversions. These images are trying to capture the surrounding of the diversions.

[SAV123]

As I was fast, the car was being hit by stones from underneath occasionally without being so serious. The time of Magrib was fast approaching, google maps was down and I was finding it difficult to spot the right track due to unmarked diversions so I started following a jeep which was carrying some stuff and was going towards Gorakh (I had asked him and he had agreed that I could follow him). By the time the jeep stopped at the base point where jeeps’ radiators are given fresh water, it was dark and sun had set. This was the point from where the real climb had to start.

My friend’s car was parked at that station, he approached me and told me that they were there for about half an hour and that he had tried to climb in his car and driven for about one and a half kilometers but the terrain was very difficult for his car which did not have good ground clearance, so he came back. He had asked a person to arrange for him a jeep so that he could resume his onward journey in the jeep and park his car there. The jeep fare was fixed at Rs. 5,000 (normal rate was Rs. 3,000 from Wahi Pandi) for Potohar jeep.

[SAV123]

My friend advised me to hire a jeep like him but I told him that he had tried and I wanted to try and see myself how difficult the terrain was for my car. By this time the jeep, which I followed to reach at this point, was ready for onward journey. I asked him if he could continue to lead me to Gorakh Hills resort? He told me that the terrain was so difficult and steep that the jeeps also find it difficult at some places and that they need to engage 4X4 and maintain to drive in first gear. He advised me that I should wait for him to come back after unloading the material at Gorakh resort. He was ready to pick me and my family for a ride till Gorakh resort and was asking for Rs. 3,000 for round trip.

I insisted that I wanted to try and that I wanted to follow him. Eventually we resumed the journey. The terrain was difficult due to gravels on the road and climb being too steep; however, the condition of the road was way better than what I had witnessed from Wahi Pandi till this station, it was complete cemented road.

[SAV123]

The jeep was pretty slow in the climb and after a couple of minutes of following the jeep, I felt that if I kept following it at such slow speed I would not be able to keep the momentum of my car and the car, being not a 4WD, would not be able to resume if the momentum got broken.

At this juncture, I decided that I needed not to follow the jeep in order to keep the momentum of the car, therefore I over took the jeep and kept the required speed to keep the momentum. At some points the steepness was quite much that the car was being too slow in the climb, however, despite being too slow, the car was not losing the momentum and was climbing pretty reasonably. I continued my journey, mostly in gear 1 and 2 and contrary to what I had read at some threads on Pakwheels, my car did not have much issue in climbing that steep road and eventually I reached at the resort where we had two rooms pre-booked (booked some two weeks earlier by calling Mr Jumman Jamali at: 0300 2700 930).

[SAV123]

My honest feeling and feedback on the route is that the terrain is not as difficult or dangerous as is portrayed on some threads by some friends. However, this road is doable for only experienced drivers who have enough experience of hill climbing on their own cars. The road from Wahi Pandi till base point (where jeeps fresh-up their radiators) is really non-existent at some places and is not good for any car currently unless you can drive patiently and carefully. The construction work, however, appears to be well geared up and someone quoted that the target is six months to complete the road. Once the road is completely carpeted, I would recommend any reasonably powered vehicle with experienced driver or highly powered vehicle with inexperienced driver to take on this adventure of its kind as this is the only place of its kind in the province of Sindh which must be done by an enthusiast tourist driver.

My friend’s family reached the station after some 45 minutes; we ordered for dinner and opted for Daal and Sabzi which was pretty well cooked. We had originally planned to have bonfire and do the star gazing, however, we could not do either the bonfire as the weather was extremely cold and not good for our kids or the star gazing as it happened to be the full moon night and not meant for star gazing. Nevertheless, the adventure was one of its kind!

[SAV123]

The rooms were a little away from main resort (the resort comprises of hotel, big veranda and plenty of parking space). The building where our rooms were was of a circular shape. The rooms were on all the sides and there was a veranda at the centre. There was roof over the rooms while the veranda had no roof and sky was visible. There were about 8-10 or so tents set in the veranda having quite a good number of people inside making varied kinds of noises which caused nuisance at one hand and comfort at the other that we were not alone there.

The rooms were equipped with attached bath and all the sanitary fittings and lines but there was no water in the lines and we were provided a Balti of water along with a Lota to meet our needs. The water was ice cold and there was no availability of hot water there.

The day one, which had started with uncertainty, ended with a great sense of satisfaction!