The Pakistani Spectator

It was the summer of 2008 and I was on vacations. Things weren’t turning up as I had expected and we were getting lazy as there was nothing exciting to do. There should be some excitement I thought and it did come. The plan of visiting neelum valley was moved by my cousin. Things got more easier as my uncle had already visited these places, plus he was eager to visit them again. The only difficulty was that he was not getting holidays and as a result the plan was postponed. We hung to the proverb “every cloud has a silver lining” and it proved to be true when my uncle told us that we were setting our sails on 25th of July. the plan was to travel to muzaffarabad ,stay there for a night and then proceed to kail the next day. we set forth on 25th July after juma prayers and reached murree in 2 and a half hours. After a brief rest at murree we continued our journey and we were in muzzaffarabad two hours later.we stayed at domel in muzaffarabad where the azure waters of neelum blend into the muddy ones of jhelum and lose their identity.

First we woke up and and went to offer prayers then we came back and packed   the luggage and went to muzafffarabad. With abus friend Uncle Khalid it was a fun filled trip to muzaffrabad then when we came it started to rain we offered our prayers and went to the mess we stayed the night there. The next day we continued our journey towards kail. We got an early start. Then we went to rent a car  we hired a double cabin and went to kail the trip was of 8 hours. The metalled road left us as soon as we were out of muzaffarabad . The road onwards was nothing but a serpentine dirt track that led us to the heart of the valley. The journey was full of jolts and jerks but we soon forgot it as the roaring river pacified us.

With every feet the valley got more ostentatious as it revealed its wonders. The fact that we were going to see the most beautiful place in our lives drove us forward and it was only after four hours that we halted for lunch at jura. We were driving at the side of Neelum river it was extremely  beautiful!Then we also saw the crops  that were stockpiled for the winter. Having ourselves freshed up, we continued our journey. After a brief drive of two hours we stopped at a local restaurant for tea. That was the most amazing restaurant I had visited all my life, there was nothing special with the furniture or tea but the window overlooked the spectacular blue waters of neelum in perfect rythym, a tattered bridge swaying as it were dancing to a tune that the river sung. When we  reached kail we rested for a while than  we went  down to hunt trout we didn’t catch anything but it was fun next morning we went atang kail we went to arghang kail on mules. Arghang kail was a village on top of a mountain. A narrow dirt track surrounded with clusters of pine trees led to the top.

We  saw a snake on the way and the locals told that monkeys were also in abundance in these mountains. The mountain climb took 1 hour forty five minutes. After the steep climb we finally reached a very plain top, which was not expected at all. There were flower beds of all kinds and the mountain top like the rest of the mountain was carpeted with lush green undergrowth.  we had a tea break there and we ate chicken and pakoday. As my eyes feasted on the scenery I realized that arghang kail was a contemporary of deosai but unlike deosai it was visited only by a few people. A spring gushing from the heart of the mountain multiplied the beauty. As the clouds kissed the southern skies, we began our descend for it may become extremely difficult if it started raining.Then as we came down the mountain on foot I got stung by a bee.

Then we came down the bridge and we made a sand castle on the beach then a local fisher man took us from a rocky place to a river to fish we thanked the fisherman and gave him some hooks . we didn’t catch anything there too then we returned to kail on a ambulance then we ate dinner and slept the next morning we hired a jeep and went to tobut we made lots of stops to fish it was a great trip. We scavenged the river for trout but to no good. The next day we were off to tobut. When we came to Tobat there was a crystal clear shallow river where we fished there we had two bites there. My cousin had a bite and it jumped in the air and spun and the hook came out of its mouth I had a bite on a line but I missed it at the end I learned how to throw the rod and we returned the next morning we left for Jambar and stayed the night there. Then we sat on a van and went to muzaffrabad there we got on our car and left for pindi on the trip there we went through muree and there was so much fog there that we could hardly see. It was quite cool when we got home we told everyone about our trip and it was the most beautiful place now I say that kasmir is the most beautiful place and mughal emperor babur once said if there is heavan on earth it is Kashmir. This was our trip to neelum valley.

The road upto muzaaffarabad is metalled and one can travel on car,from muzaffarabad onwards one requires a four wheel drive which can be rented from muzaffarabad.

The azad Kashmir tourism development has its guest rooms in kuttun. These can be booked from muzaffarabad office adjacent to the AJK assembly.

Sent By Umer Mussadiq