Faieez Sohail Travelogue
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ROAD TRIP TO MURREE
It was a usual November night for me on 6th March, 2020 when
I was spending some quality time at a gathering of my neighborhood friends when
around 01:00 AM my phone rang, I looked and it was another close friend of
mine, Muneeb who was calling from Karachi. I picked up and he asked me if I was
up for a trip to Lahore which I refused because I didn’t want
to go to Lahore alone to which he then revealed that the plan is actually to go
to Naran, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. I just had to hear that and I immediately said
yes enthusiastically because I had been dying to visit the Northern areas of
Pakistan for quite a while but Muneeb told me that we were supposed to leave
early in the morning on 8th March. Understandable, I had very less time for
packing, getting some unfinished business done and on top of that I had yet to
tell my family about this and so the running around began. I came home, told my
family and started getting my things together. Now I admittedly am a very lousy
person wheh it comes to packing and planning according to occasion. I did as
much as I could have and should have done and the wait for the morning began
and I couldn’t sleep because of my excitement.
In anticipation, I called Muneeb to gather a few more
details regarding the departure time for our train and that’s when,
to my surprise, he told me that there is no train and this is going to be a
road trip, upon hearing that I was now even more excited. The moring came when
we were supposed to leave. At around 06:00 AM, Muneeb came to to pick me up
along with two more of our friends, Naheel and Abdur Rehman who were with us on
this trip. Opened the trunk, kept the bags, recited Dua e Safar, and so we hit
the road.
On bypass, we stopped for breakfast at a local dhaba and ate
the typical desi breakfast, omelette and paratha with tea. There we got
recharges for our phones and bought a few snacks for munching on the way. Now
for Lahore we could have taken the old usual way but we decided to try out the
newly opened motorway that starts after crossing Sukkur but before that we made
a stop at a local restaurant in the outskirts of Sukkur for brunch and after
brunch we got on the motorway. The new motorway was very smooth and well
constructed as compared to the Superhighway. We reached Lahore at aroung 09:00
PM, at Waqar’s house who is a good friend of Naheel’s.
Waqar showed us the way to the guest room where were supposed to stay. I was absolutely freezing because I was not
expecting Lahore to be this cold and hadn't packed for such weather either. We unloaded
our bags in the room, got freshened up and asked Waqar to take us to a nice
place to eat because by now we were absolutely famished. Waqar took us to a
restaurant called Khan Foods to try out their Behari rolls that were absolutely
amazing and I would describe them as juicy bites of heaven. After dinner we
went to Jaybee’s ice cream parlour in Gulberg and tried out their brownie
ice cream and it was fabulous. I found their idea of combining brownies with
ice cream quite innovative. The next day we went to the obvious, most famous
tourist spots of Lahore that were The Badshahi Mosque, Minar e Pakistan and
Iqbal park. The Badshahi Mosque was so mesmerizing and the pictures does not do
any justice to it’s beauty.
After that, we went to visit Minar e Pakistan and spent the
rest of the evening in Iqbal Park. At night time, we went to the infamous Fort
Food Street and the ambience, the vibes and the beautiful architecture combined
with the amazing food at Cuckoo’s Den made the feels of the night absolutely
amazing. The next day the weather got very beautiful and started raining a
little and turned out to be the cherry on top of all the goodness we
experienced in Lahore. Now this was also the day that we were supposed to leave
for Murree saying our goodbye to Lahore for now.
We left for Murree at around 03:00 PM from Waqar’s place in
Lahore. We found intermittent rain throughout our way from Lahore to Islamabad
and then further to Murree from Islamabad. Now I was hoping to catch a glimpse
of Islamabad in the daylight but couldn’t. We reached Murree at around 10:00 PM
and started to find the hotel that we had pre booked and during all that fuss
we realized that the cold weather in Lahore was nothing compared to the the
freezing winds of Murree that too combined with the light showers. At last, we
found our hotel and started unloading our bags from the car in to the room. We
took out the warm clothes from our bags, put them on and went straight out to
search for food because we were starving by now it was 11:00 PM. As soon as we
stepped out of our hotel we were absolutely astonished and filled with joyful
excitement because the light rain that welcomed us in Murree had now turned
into snowfall. Snowfall that we were not at all expecting. Our car and our surroundings
were covered in snow.
It drove all our tiredness, appetite and worries away and it
was the first time for all of us experiencing snowfall. It was a mind blowing
feeling. We went to Main Mall Road and ate chicken karahi and vegetables with a
few soft drinks and explored Murree all night long while enjoying snowfall. The
next day we were supposed to leave for Naran but unfortunately we found out
that the roads to Naran were closed due to bad weather conditions and heavy
snowfall therefore we were forced to stay in Murree against our plans.
Nonetheless, we had a lot of fun in Murree while staying there for two more
days. After that, we departed for Lahore from Murree in late afternoon to drop
off Waqar and to also experience the night life of Lahore. Waqar took us to DHA
late at night where it seemed like day, guys from all over Lahore had brought
their modified cars and other sports bikes and cars. From there we directly
departed for Hyderabad after dropping off Waqar at his house.
This was a much needed trip for me and it’s safe to say that
one week was the best week of my life. It was very refreshing mentally and
spiritually and also taught me a lot. In order to open up one’s mind travel is
an awesome way.
Media & Communication Studies, University of Sindh
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