BISMILLAHIRRAHMANIRRAHIM
--Travelogue has been completed --
AOA, Hello all pakwheelers and travel maniacs. After 1.5 years of planning and day dreaming I have finally visited neelum valley, ALHAMDULILLAH. The trip began on 7th of June through Pakistan express and on the morning of 22nd June we were back in Karachi by Khyber Mail. Will try to post in descriptive style , meanwhile all questions and queries are welcomed the timings ill be mentioning will not be completely accurate as i did not keep a track of them.
The executed Plan:
Day 0 , 7th June : left Karachi by train at 1pm. By 9 pm reached Sukkur and 12 am somewhere near daharki.
Day 1 : reached pindi at 4.30 pm , took taxi to Faizabad, caught the 7.30 Skyways bus to Muzaffarabad. and reached MZD at 12.30 am approx. nightstay at MZD.
Day 2 : caught the 10.30 am coaster to Kundal shahi and after reaching (at 2pm) booked a willys jeep for 4 days, departed K.S somewhere around 3 or 3.30 pm , by 5.30 reached keran, had lunch and photos and at 7 pm departed for shardah and reached shardah at 9 pm approxx, nightstay at shardah.
Day 3 : wokeup , had breakfast and visted ancient Shardah University , then departed for kel (cant remember time) , by 12.30 pm reached kel. and after some serious decisions taken , departed for taubatt at 1.30 or 2 , reached there at 6pm aproxx . sightseeing and photos , and again departed for kel at 7pm , and reached kel at 11.30 or 12 ( full story to follow in thread ) , nightstay at kel.
Day 4 : Trek to Arang Kel started at 10am aproxx. took us 2.5 hours to reach , 1.5 hours of resting , photos and SEEING HEAVEN. return trek took 2 hours, reached kel at 4 or 5 pm. had tea , and started the return journey. reached shardah at 7 (15 mins break) and reached keran at 9.30 pm aproxx , night stay at keran
Day 5 : after breakfast and packup , took us 2 hours to start the journey due to a certain problem. started the journey at 12 pm aprox , reached athmuqam at 2 pm maybe , then went to kutton , but coudnt go to jagran because the road had fell .. came back to kundal shahi , an argument and 'hisaab kitaab' with the jeep driver , and departed for muzaffarabad at 6 aproxx , reached MZD at 10 pm , night stay at MZD.
Day 6 : A day trip to Pir Chinaasi , then took 6.30 skyways bus to RWP and by 11 pm reached. nightstay at RWP.
Day 7 : Wokeup , searched the faizabad adda , no signs of bus/coaster/hi-ace to swat , then came to know its available at Pir widaii/Mindi mor , reached there and caught the 1st avaialable coaster , it started at 2 pm i guess , reached Mingora at 8 pm aproxx , then caught a local hi ace to Madyan , reached at 10 pm aprox , night stay at Madyan trout fish farm , it was a wonderful place.
Day 8 : Original plan was mahodand lake , started at 11 am , took a 'waghay' taxi to bahrain , then sat on hi-ace to kalaam, reached kalam at 3 or 4 pm , the hotel manager adviced me not to go to mahodand today as it would be a journey in complete hurry and said you wouldnt be able to enjoy properly , so following his advice we cancelled mahondand and went to kalam forest on his recomendation and oh my ! what a place it was .. till dark , enjoyed in kalam forest and chaarpaii hotel at the river , night stay at kalam.
Day 9 : Well this was the best day of our tour because it had less travelling and we had more time to enjoy , started at 9am in morning , booked a toyota surf for mahodand , stopped at many good points (aabshaar , glacier etc) and enjoyed , reached mahondand at 12 aprox, then sighseeing , photos and a boat ride , left at aproxx 2pm , on return journey , surf got stuck at a point , took 30 mins to take it out , reached kalam at 4.30 , lunch and packup , booked a waghay taxi for bahrain , left at 7 , reached at 9.30 . night stay at bahrian.
Day 10 : Today , the menu was Malam jabba and Maghuzar white palace , after a 30 mins search, found a taxi in comparitively less rate , left bahrain at about 10 , reached Malam Jabba sometime around 1 pm , sight seeing and photos , left at 3.30 , reached mingora at 5 , and marghuzar at 6 pm , stay for 1 hour and by 7.30 pm back at mingora , now the original plan was a night stay , but it was too hot , friends insisted we leave mingora for murree , i was not sure about this , the distance was too much, but then had to compromise as all wanted to leave, departed in the 9.30 pm hi ace . At takht bai , rain started
Day 11 : When we reached pindi at 4.30 am it was raining cats and dogs, if we hadn?t had any luggage we would have enjoyed the rain. Went to faizabad via taxi , and then left for murree in hi-ace at 5.30 , reached murree and 7 am , booked hotel and went to sleep. Woke up at 3 pm and rested all day (now the decision of night travel to murree seemed to be a good one as we got 1 free rest day) and at night enjoyed at mall road
Day 12 : An easy, less travelling day. A day trip to new murree , patriata chairlift & cablecar. Night stay at mall view hotel , mall road.
Dat 13 : last day of the tour , our return tickets were of lahore , so departed for lahore at 2.30 pm via bilal daewoo, reached lahore around 9.30 . went to gawalmandi food street , friends wanted to go to daata darbar so went there, then night stay at hotel.
Day 14, 21st june : left hotel at 7.30am , went to railway station to catch the train, which left on time at 8 am. Not much to tell after that, next day at 8am reached karachi.
Total Distance Travelled:
4640 kilometers approx !
The Team:
A total of six members which included
Me - Shadab
and my 5 friends :
-Shoaib
-Ehsaan
-Hasnain ( @hasnain18 )
-Danish
-Daniyal.
Places Missed :
Shounter lake and valley , upper neelum village , jagran , miandam , swat museum
Trip Cost / Expense :
After adding all expenses which included food,travelling,train tickets,accomodation, and any other expenses 156k was calculated, which means 26000 per person , we had estimated a figure somewhere between 30 to 35 ..
Cameras Used :
2 simple cameras (sony and nikon) and a canon 550D
i will be also be including some of shoaib's photography , u guys can catch more of him at www.facebook.com/ShabbysPhotography
A little about me :
Muhammad Shadab Samdani , 20 years of age . a student , doing cost and management accountancy (CMA) from ICMA PAKISTAN. I have major passion for travelling and cars and and a minor one for photography and bikes too.. travelling is not merely a timepass for vacations, for me its a lesson to gain experiences from. ussually im just a silent reader here and im sure not many people know me on pakwheels, this is my first thread.
Special thanks to : A.mubeen bhai ( @aesiege ) , Faraz Azam ( @faraz74 ) , M.Waqas ( @mohd.waqas ) , Sufiyan Sagheer ( @xoofi ). For their help and advices
Teasers :