Bagh is a town of Azad Jammu and Kashmir. AJK is in North West of Pakistan. Our destinition was "Sudhan Gali" (SG), another small town of AJK... "Ganga Peak" (GP) is the magnet located in "Sudhan Gali" that attracts many entry level adventurists, and nature lovers to itself... SG is located 7000 feet above sea level, GP is 10200 feet above... That way its 3200 feet of trek from base... But the trek ain't straight base to top... One needs to ascend/descend 3 small peaks to reach a height of some 2000 feet... And that's the difficult part... Although no hard core climbing is required... Becaus it demands perseverence... The peak itself is fairly easy to climb...
Mounaineering sounds like fun... they say it is fun untill the day you get burried under some avalanchee... :p feeling scared?
Ganga is a gang of 5 peaks (correction by Omer, primary source of my information, master mind/chief conspirer behind our visit)... 10200 feet is the highest point in the group...
How To Reach Bagh:
There are several routes, as shown in the maps below.
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We had to travel from Lahore... so we first went to Rawalpindi on the mid night train... It took almost 4 and half hours to reach Rawalpindi...
We reached Rawalpindi early morning... A wagon (public transport) was scheduled to leave for Bagh after an hour... 5 AM precisely speaking... Bagh is some 4 hours of travel from Rawalpindi... The wagon left stand on time... this stand is a few minutes walk from railway station... Very few people know that it even exists... Wagon then stopped on another bus stand called "Peer Wadai"... It stayed there for ten minutes or so... Then it stopped near "Khanna Pul"...
Another popular route is Rawalpindi to Murree to Muzaffarabad to Bagh... The one we choosed is comparitavely shorter...
You know its really difficult to travel in mountains... especially when you never been there before... As height from sea level increases, amount of oxygen in air decreases... making it difficult to breath... Then the roads are twisted, as wagon treads them one's head starts to spin...
Finally... Wagons used for transport in those areas run on diesel engine... which is unable to burn all the fuel and produces large amounts of smoke... which contains diesel itself... The smoke makes breathing difficult as well...
By the time we reached Bagh... two of my companions Omer and his younger brother Bilal were in terrible condition... both had thrown up once or twice... I was on the verge of a throw up... but thank God, we reached Bagh and disembarked moments before that... ;)
Scenes Of Kashmir:
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I would love to open with this one... the banner says "Afghan Five Star Hotel, Chilled bottles, Juices, Sharbat etc. are available" its a small hotel... but owner's got a big heart... or maybe he's got big aspirations... to turn his small hotel into 5 start... some day...
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Some place near Bagh...
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| Anybody has an idea what this bird is called? |
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| This little girl came to us, pointed to her friend and said |
"Uncle he says take my photograph"... on this the boy shyed away...
we snapped her as a compensation... :p
Bagh is a small town of Azad Jammu And Kashmir...
we snapped her as a compensation... :p
Bagh is a small town of Azad Jammu And Kashmir...
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As you can see... the view is exclusive... i guess its hardly 250 feet of height from base...
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Macro photography... :)
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Left to right... Bilal, Me, and Omer... Photo taken near bus stop... Bagh...
Phase 2, Bagh to Sudhan Gali...
After reaching Bagh, we gathered information about means of reaching Sudhan Gali. A bus conductor told us that one bus will leave after half an hour. We decided to eat something in the mean while and went into a hotel nearby.
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Like the interior? Its an Afghan thing... mostly drivers from nearby bus stop come here for food... Strecthing out after some "Kabli Pulao" was a nice experience...
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Bilal was terribly fatigued by the travel...
Omer went out to check the bus... he returned with the news "Bus left stop 2 minutes ago, we are late" and "next bus will leave after 3 hours"... :(
We decided to roam around in bagh city for a while... Bilal refused to accompany us... We left him in the eatery... the way he's lying in above picture... ;)
What happened afterwards is interesting story... will let you all know the next time I get down to write...
cheers... bye... Naeem...
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Bonus image... for those brave souls who dared to scroll down this much... ha ha ha...
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