PARADISE BEYOND THE BEATEN TRACK

Our family took a long-overdue vacation to the northern areas last June. It was a well-planned trip with members of four families getting together for a chill-out. We congregated at Islamabad and started on our “voyage of discovery” early the next morning. To allow all of us to enjoy to the full we had hired a coaster driven by a very seasoned young driver who is familiar with the area. Our route took us from Islamabad to Abbotabad to Mansehra to Balakot to Kaghan to Naran to Shogran to Lalezar to Nathiagali to Ayubia to Islamabad & back to Lahore.

The trip from Islamabad to Abbotabad was quite good. A good place for a short stopover in Abbotabad for refreshments & freshening up is Lahore
Chatkhara Restaurant where the food & snacks are quite good. The tea is exceptionally good. No trip is complete without a puncture or two. Our coaster had one near the restaurant here. So we lost about half an hour in the process of changing the tyres and repairing the punctured one.

Mansehra is a sleepy little town; Balakot was very neat and well arranged before the earthquake. The recently planted tea bushes above the road created a very pleasing sight. Kaghan is another place worth spending a day in. Little restaurants line the road and tracks meander down to the silvery Kunhar River rushing past the town. We had piping hot Pakoras and tea on our way back, here. The light drizzle made them even more enjoyable. The huge walnut trees looked majestic and their fruit was in the middle of its growth cycle. My son had to pick one or two just to see how they looked when quite raw.

The ride after Kaghan was utterly amazing! Every turn of the serpentine road unfolded new vistas dazzling in their pristine beauty! A bonus was the clean, fresh, invigorating pine scented air. A few miles after Kaghan we came to Kawai.

|Kawai is a small group of little clusters of huts dotting the mountains on both sides of the road. There was a pretty new | |
|three- story hotel hugging the small space between the mountain and the torrential Kunhar River. We stopped here to have lunch,| |
|and what a great time we had! | |
|The moment we stepped out of the coaster, ice cold wind whipped against us. The drizzle turned into a downpour. We ran to the | |
|restaurant perched above the river and enjoyed the heavenly weather and scenery. One wall of the hotel was covered with roses | |
|of all hues (Picture at right). The food was prepared specially for us and took quite some time. The roti’s were quite good as | |
|they were very thin and came hot off the tawa. | |

|In the restaurant we had our first glimpse of wild life. Lurking behind a window was one of the largest and hairiest spiders my| |
|children or I had ever seen in real life. It was jet black and about 2 inches across. The other animals upto this point were | |
|the mountain goats, lambs & small cows clambering over precarious cliffs. They could stay glued to hardly enough space to put | |
|their four hooves in. Foals feeding, horses & mares grazing peacefully completed the picture of tranquility! | |

All the way to Naran, we saw so many wonderful sights that the purpose of the trip was achieved then and there. We crossed more than 28 glaciers that were straddling the road. Three of them were more than 500 yards long. One had a sharp curve in it, which forced us to go back for about 200 yards as 2 trucks came up from the opposite side. These glaciers, the locals told us, had come down from the peaks in the winter of
2004, which had been the worst for the last 30 years. Snowfall that year was the heaviest in that many years. One glacier could not be cut through to open the road, so the road was cut into its side. Imagine our horror when the coaster suddenly started over it! It was like flying over the Kunhar
River at a height of 1000 feet! Only ice under the wheels and the side of the bus, a mere 6 inches from the edge! Some snaps of the glaciers given below, will give you an idea of their size.

A herd of goats crossed us on its way to higher pastures. Due to the heavy snowfall the previous year, pastures in the valleys around Naran had abundant growth of grass and bushes. Shepherds were flocking to these grazing grounds to benefit from the free fodder for fattening their livestock.

In Naran we stayed at a recently built hotel, which was pretty clean. The bedding and carpets were new, the bathrooms very clean with running hot water from 8.00 a.m. to 12.00 noon daily. Food was quite inexpensive though the choice was very limited. Chicken in all kinds of dishes, Daal Maash, Chapli Kabab was the regular fare. We got fed up of chicken at every meal.
Next day in Naran, we started off for Lake Saiful Muluk. We planned to walk for about 3 to 4 kilometers and then hire a jeep. But the jeep could only take us another 5 kilometers as landslides had obstructed the jeep track the previous week. So we decided to walk the rest of the 24 kilometers uphill. It was one of the most exhilarating walks/treks I have ever had. Almost halfway up, we got freshly made Pakoras, tea, chips, juices & cold drinks from the natural freezers. The juice packets & cold drinks were kept in the snow that was all around us!

We saw so many unspoilt valleys that were just heavenly! The following pictures do not do justice to the beauty we saw. One has to be there in person to feel the grandeur of Allah Almighty’s creation.

| |Lake Saiful Muluk is fairy like with all the stories about fairies descending on it on the full moon. The moment we reached it,|
| |a sudden downpour of bone chilling rain engulfed the lake. Luckily, we had bought large umbrellas, which protected us. But the |
| |wind was biting cold. We took refuge in the shack-like restaurant there, where we had lunch. But there too, we could not escape|
| |the cold wind. The photograph on the left and the ones below may convey the bleakness, cold and starkness of the mountains |
| |surrounding the lake. |
| |Hot coffee from a vending machine here was a lifesaver for all of us! |

We went to a small bend in the Kunhar river just a mile above Naran the next day, where we had tea and roasted fresh trout around a bonfire. We had to cross a damaged suspension bridge to reach the shack like restaurant. The children had a whale of a time trying to stand in the ice-cold water of a rivulet for a few seconds. The trout was out of this world and we sat around the bonfire with the children singing songs. We had a hard time getting across the damaged bridge in total darkness.

|After 2 days in Naran, we went to Shogran. From here, we went on short trips to Lalezar, Sari & Pai. The jeep ride to Lalezar | |
|was absolutely terrifying! Imagine a jeep being driven by a boy of 18 on a deeply rutted track, wide enough to allow only the | |
|wheels of the jeep to cling to the side of the mountain! Picture on the right was taken from the flying jeep. Notice the height| |
|from the road. | |

Sari & Pai we decided to walk. This was again a very enjoyable trek. Our guide who forced us to hire him, asked us to keep to the track as there were leopards in the thick jungle through which we were trekking. Pictures from this part follow.

The pictures of the monkeys and the plant above & below are from Nathiagali. It had become quite hot here. The plants were a pleasant surprise. They were found growing on the way to the Green Spot at the Air Force Guest House. Just imagine the detailed resemblance to a snake!
We also went to Ayubia but found it very congested. We couldn’t get a ride on the chair lift, as the queue for buying tickets was very long. A strange sight there was a full size pelican sitting beside a quack who was selling herbs etc supposedly to cure several diseases.
We had hoped to return again this year but due to the earthquake, it would be difficult to find a place to stay there.

Syed Hussain Riaz Shah
Head North, CMG,
2nd Floor, LDA Plaza,
Egerton Road, Lahore.
Tel: 42- 6311004 Direct 42-111-001-002 Ext 265
Fax: 42- 6302334