days away from buzz of City

by Hamza Bahar (Pakistan)

I didn't expect to find Pakistan

It was the end of my university semester in hot month of june in Islamabad. We were planning to go to some northern area of Pakistan to spend some days of this month in cold and appealing atmoshphere.We decided to go towards Kumrat (a sound mostly undiscovered green valley in KPK). We asked few people about their experiences in past as they have gone there to plan accordingly.We found very less people who had gone there in past. But every visitor has claimed Kumrat to be one of the most beautiful places of Pakistan. I was studying in evening shift in my university so we decided to start our journey same night after my last paper. I love night journeys alot. I feel like these night journeys are more satisfying then the ones in the morning specially when it is summer and roads are in state of the art condition. We started our journey through a newly built Islamabad-swat motorway. There were no lights upon roads except for the light of the headlights of the car. This made the journey on empty roads with silence quite satisfying. There were alot of diversions on the motorway but still it was very satisfying specially the tunnel passage. We reached Dir in the morning. We stayed there for quite a while for offering prayer, having tea and enjoying the beautiful sun rise from the windows of car. Then we further continued our journey and reached Shringle (a point on the way to Kumrat). There was no proper road after the market of shringle till kumrat. The cars cannot exceed the speed of 20-30 km/h on that bumby road. It took us almost 5-6 hours to cover that distance from shringle to Thal (another point near kumrat). We came to know that there are no proper roads to reach kumrat and cars cannot reach there. So we parked our car in a hotel and hired a jeep 4x4 to reach our destination. After the journey of nearly 1 hour, we reached the main point of Kumrat. It was quite mesmerising. Very high trees with greeny all around and a flowing river with deep blue water flowing in it with much of speed. A view of long trees with lush green grass and river flowing beside it made the scene splendid. It was quite cold out there. Temperature was almost 1 degree centigrade in summer of june.Due to the undiscovered history of Kumrat,there was no proper staying facility available for the tourists except for the temporary camps. We decided to stay in the camp and enjoy the sun rise of tommorow morning. There was no buzz and sound and noise which we regularly face in our city lives.There was also a water fall flowing from the top of the mountain making it quite gigantic and beautiful. After spending a whole night in that beautiful valley we woke up quite early in the morning to enjoy the sun rise from behind the mountains. We came to know that there is another beautiful meadow almost 2 hour drive and 5 hour hiking away from Kumrat commonly known as Jaz Banda. We took the similar jeep towards jaz banda and hiked for nearly 5 hours to reach the top. It was a quite tough experience because the track of hiking was quite tough and steep. But when we reached at the top, the tireness of the hiking completely shattered after seeing the view from the top. There were large lush green plain grounds till the point our eye sights can reach with many mountains on front covered in snow. I will accept that i had never seen anything that much beautiful in my whole life. It was quite cold out there. It started drizzling in no time and made the view mesmerising. After spending 2,3 hours out there, we started our journey back to the jeep parked somewhere on track. We reached to the jeep in around 2 hours. It was the time of sun set and it was a very beautiful view from our location. Then we came back to thal in jeep in dark with seeing the lights of houses looking quite beautiful and amazing.