3 Days in 8 Places

I am writing this blog while sitting in my office. Even tough I don’t have anything in particular in my mind at this time to write about, but still I would continue with something. Umm..mmm.. I love traveling. I like to see new places, experience new cultures and meet with people from different environments. In Pakistan, you can find many beautiful landscapes where culture, environment, language all are different. Once a year at least, I do travel outside of my city to explore different places within my country. Last year August, I went with my brother, cousin and cousin’s friend on a tour. We all went to Murree and its surrounding areas. We started our journey at 9 pm and headed to Islamabad via Daewoo bus. The bus entertained us with “Matrix Revolutions”. I haven’t seen the movie before, neither I intend to see it that time :P Meanwhile I passed my time while listening to the songs and by sleeping. We reached at Islamabad past mid-night. We took a taxi and reached Murree around 4 am. We took a room in a hotel, whose name is not in mind right nowL. After resting for couple of hours and having a brief tour of the Murree’s famous Mall Road, we again booked a taxi and began our tour. Our first destination was Patriata. It was not a new place for me. I have been there earlier twice. The only attraction at Patriata is the chair lifts and the cable cars. We traveled in them as the part of the holy ritual of our tour. After that we went to River Neelam base. It was the best part, since we have came across a different landscape this time. And lastly, we went to Bhurban, where the only attraction is PC Hotel. Again, as a sacred custom, we entertained ourselves with its food. That’s how the first day ended. For second day, we headed for Ayubia and Nathiya Gali. Nathiya Gali has beautiful landscape and is quite clean with respect to other areas. It was 13th August night that day. Around midnight the whole crowd at Murree accumulated near GPO and they celebrated their independence in their unique style by shooting fireworks, dancing and beating all the cars that passed through that area. On the third day, we went for Thandiyani, another tourist attraction near Abbotabad city. This place holds the national record for having the maximum rainfall, and we have experienced it ourselves too :P we were there, when it rained heavily. Abottabad is a calm and beautiful city. It’s the best city to live your retired life. It’s a proper big city having all the facilities that other cities like Lahore, Karachi etc have. After visiting the famous Ilyassi Masjid of Abbotabad and seeing little bit of the city itself, the taxi dropped us at Abbotabad Daewoo terminal. We want to travel back to Lahore on the same day. However we couldn’t get the tickets. We tried other bus services and luckily, we got the tickets for 8 pm and early next morning we were back to Lahore. That was the end of our exact 3 days journey. Overall it was a nice trip and nothing unfortunate or bad happened during its entire course. The healthy feeling of trip has lessened all the stress which gathered in my mind due to the work pressure. And one thing I learnt was that every person in the northern area is not a Pathan :P they are Pothohari and Kashmiris mostly ;)

The lunch break is over and I am back to work now ;) I will post the pictures of this tour later. So bye and take care ;)