Sudhan Gali

Well, before I tell you the happenings at Sudhan Gali I would love to share this video which was shot on our way to Sudhan Gali...

The climate of Sudhan Gali(SG) was very different from that of Bagh city. In Bagh we were sweating, feeling hot. But in SG the weather was very nice, soothing cold. You see, there is a height difference of some 2000 feet between Bagh and SG.

We asked locals the directions to rest house, there are two government owned rest houses in Sudhan Gali. One is run by Tourism Development Department (TDD) , and other by PWD. All necessary info can be found here:

http://www.ajk.gov.pk/tourism/index.html

We approached the Tourism rest house, it is on a mountain with opening towards the valley. There are only 2 or 3 rooms in the rest house, and there was no room available when we reached. Omer tried a lot to call TDD before going but could not get a place reserved. the photos we took there were not clear, but we took a photo when coming back from Ganga Peak climb.

The most visible building in this photo is the rest house.

This part of the rest house was damaged due to 2005 earthquake.

Locals told us that the two rest houses will be soon re-constructed.

We asked the people present at rest house about where shall we go now, they called the PWD rest house gurad to ask whether there was any space available there. Luckily, we found a room in the other rest house. The charges were very minimal, 1000 rupess per night I guess.

Food was not available at rest house and we had to eat from Sudhan Gali bazar. The food was nice, (beans and boiled rice) and not expensive at all. The coffe was out class, and we really enjoyed it.

PWD resthouse from a side...

Stairs leading to the rest house, I should have snapped the end as well... :(

A few interesting things happened here, will write about them in next post... Like we went up hill to see the cricket ground on "Coopra". Bilal went missing, after dark and how we found him.

Towards Sudhan Gali... Land of curved roads...

We came back to hotel, Bilal joined us and we reached for the bus stop. This buss would take us to Sudhan Gali, last stop for these buses is Muzaffar Abad the capital of AJK. Omer had already told us that the real scenes of these areas will be missed if we sat inside the bus. So we approached the conductor and told him that we wanted to sit on roof of the bus. He said that city traffic police won't allow this but once out of the city we will be free to go up.

The mystery image in my second last post was taken from the bus roof. Bagh to Sudhan Gali is almost 90 minutes of travel. Mostly uphill, but "Rocket" is there so no worries... The buses in the area are known as rocket... Ok! no more bragging... here are the photos...

I love the curves on these roads...

Stone age :p

Swinging and climbing... we're going uphilll yay e yayyyyyy!!!

Houses in the valley... Kashmir valley... the cooool valley...

Hey come on!!! its my blog!!!

Its so difficult to drive around here, although Neelum is much much more difficult...

You know... Pakistan is a really really beautiful place... soooo diverse... we got Rajhastan, AJK, Nothern Areas, Deosai, Swat, Naran, Kaghan, Skardo, Lahore, Clifton, Mohan jo Daaro... and what not... Well... All we wanted from this trip was... You already know... Ganga Peak... yaaay

Roaming Around In Bagh and MNB

Well we (Omer/Me) now had 3 hours... enough to roam around the small town... you must be wondering what in the world is "MNB"... relax, I'll unveil the mystery a few lines down... We headead towards the entrance of Bagh city when coming from Rawalpindi... The entrance is through a bridge on a bourn... I don't have a photo of the bridge itself...

The bourn I mentioned above...

There ain't water in this photo, but believe me... there was clean water a few steps away... and it was sooo chilled.. The climate of Bagh is not very much different from Pindi, although Bagh is some 5000 feet above sea level... Weather was warm, if not hot... We were sweating as we walked around... After reaching the cold water and putting our feet inside, a bath was a temptation we couldn't resist so we took off shirts and went straight into it... An awesome chill program began... Water was cold...

Oh yah... that's me... chillin in there...

Look at this guy, trying to resist the temptation... telling himself to behave... :p

Some of you might be thinking about "MNB", well MNB stands for Mountain Next To Bagh... Simple... Its in the direction of my face in above direction... After the chilling dip we spent a few minutes to dry clothes, MNB looked really attractive so we decided to reach its top for an exclusive view...

Mountain Next To Bagh... MNB as mentioned in title of this post... Its nothing more than 300 feet, I guess...

One more thing people, if you ever get a chance to bath in a mountain stream which contains stones. And the water is no 3 to 4 feet deep, never ever jump forward from a stone... I did this out of excitment... I jumped forth from a stone and got myself hurt near left eyebrow... Still I thank God that the stone did not hit inside the eye, otherwise I would have a pirate like profile picture... It didn't hurt much, but I was shocked by the sudden blow...

Well we started seeking paths to go uphill, the mountain is inhibited by people so there were clear tracks which we followed for most of the mini adventure...

Now you an see the bridge of Bagh, and the water in valley as well...

Reason behind all the sweating was an exclusive view... and believe me, we found what we wanted...

Check this out... Kashmir is fabulous... You gotta be there, if you haven't been before...

Up Up and Away...

Here's the captain...

After reaching the peek we came down hill... Because I don't regularly run (something I've promised myself a 100 times) or climb, downhill was a little troublesome... I could feel it in my thighs... Because going uphill I exerted force on thighs to push my weight up and when coming down I made them bear weight... You know when driving downhill, there's this instruction on roadside "Use gears to control vehicle's speed, avoid using breaks"... Human beings don't have a gearbox, only breaks and accelerator are available... so, that's what I had to use...

Enough for today... Will come up with more... take care... have fun... bbye

Pakistan is a beautiful country... Will write about this in next post... till then, try to figure out where did we take this photo... I got a video on same location as well... On our way from Bagh to Sudhan Gali... yaaayyyy!!!

Scenes Of Kashmir Prelude...

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.

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:

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...

Some place near Bagh...

Anybody has an idea what this bird is called?

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...

There's this mountain right next to Bagh... we climbed it pursuing an exclusive view...

As you can see... the view is exclusive... i guess its hardly 250 feet of height from base...

Macro photography... :)

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.

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...

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...

Bonus image... for those brave souls who dared to scroll down this much... ha ha ha...