CAUGHT IN A HEAVY RAINSTORM AT TOLI PEER RAWALAKOT S04 EP. 07 | KASHMIR MOTORCYCLE TOUR
Assalam Alekum and Good Morning Everyone from Rawlakot We are right at the peak of a mountain, at a special view point to witness the sunrise. It offers not only the stunning views of Rawlakot, but that too of the surrounding valleys and mountains. This valley is also known as Pearl valley because of its dew drops. The whole valley sparkles with pearl like dew drops every morning. We do not have much dew today because the temperature was not that low. Nonetheless, the views from this view point are second to none.
Fortunately I did capture some nice shots with my drone. Today we plan to visit Toli Peer. It's a rather famous mountain here, that looks more like a meadow. We'll visit that in the second half of the day. First of all, we'll get back to the city area.
And then we'll get going after packing our stuff. And we'll spend our night there. But that depends on how the weather turns out to be. In case of bad weather, we might have to come up with some alternative. The weather forecast so far has been encouraging. i have all my camping gear with me so it's gonna be a camping night.
It's almost a 1.5 to 2 hour ride. The road is not in a very good condition with some off road patches. However some sections are good. So the road condition might add some over head in our travel time.
It's almost 45 km from here and normally it doesn't need this much time. Time to go and take care of our luggage. We also need to do our breakfast and show you some parts of the city. When I got here last evening, it was almost dark. Off to Rawlakot city again.
I stayed here in Rawlakot International Hotel. It's a medium level hotel right by the main road. It's a slightly old building with quite tidy rooms. The rent is Rs 4000 / - but it may rise up to Rs 6000 / - during peak season. I did confirm the upward trend of rent during peak season. I bid farewell to my companions Umais, Rizwan and Adil.
The next part of my journey to Toli Peer is going to be a solo one. But I may be joined by Ali Ahmed there and we could do our camping together. Okay dear. Bismillah ... In the name of Allah * Prayer for the journey * I pray to Allah for a safe and fun day ahead.
We need to go this way. That was my hotel, guys ... and now we are on the road again. We'll ride through the main bazaar of Rawlakot to give you a local flavor. It's not a particularly big market. But overall it's a neat and clean place. It's much better in this aspect than many other cities.
We are well into the day and many of the shops here are still closed. Almost 11 am now. Or it could be an off day here. Since it's Friday and it may be an off day here.
And I'm thinking about offering the Friday prayers somewhere along the way before going toward Toli Peer. It's quite crowded here. Unlike the previous bazaar, this one is open. It's a typical small city market, where you can get everything from food to clothing to shoes ... even electronics shop, photo studio and grocery stores. Some camera equipment shops over there.
Mobile phones ... Well ... they are selling everything ... Locals here are speaking pure mountain language. Kashmir does have its own language. But in areas like Mirpur and Bimber, you can feel a mixture of Punjabi in their language.
It's slightly different in Muzaffarabad. But the language spoken here is pure in its original form. It's a part of district Punch. You must have seen my last vlog in which I was traveling through Hajira. This whole area is a part of district Punch. Punch University is a famous educational institute here.
Previously they had campuses in every city. There was a campus in Mirpur. This area is known for its agriculture, probably that's why they had an agriculture campus here. Those campuses have been upgraded in the form of a university.
I remember watching its campus yesterday and I may happen to see it again today. Almost out of the city limits now. This area has a quite high literacy rate. Many of the locals did join the army. Although they are still ... but today you will find people from this area, working in different fields country wide.
They travel countrywide for education and jobs. That's why you will find these people in almost every city. Especially from Rawlakot. We have reached Khai Gala. I think I should take a break here to offer my prayers. Let me find some good parking spot.
Would be best if I could park it in front of some shop under the surveillance of shopkeeper. It's straight up to Toli Peer from here. This looks like a good spot.
Done with the prayers ... So I'm good to go. Navigation tells me it's almost 20 km from here. Gonna be an hour and a quarter. Lets see ... We may or may not get there in time, depending on road condition.
Need to cross this bus first. Thanks very much. Would have been a nightmare if I were stuck behind him. Such a huge vehicle on this narrow road would be too much. Google is suggesting that I'll see many small towns on my way.
Let's see. I guess there won't be any settlements in the last few kilometers. Only if somehow I can get a meal there .... Because I don't feel like cooking anything. And my tent is more than enough for me to sleep.
7 km covered ... 13 more to go ... What's the name of this village .....? Can't seem to find that anywhere ... That seems like the beginning of the rough road patch.
It's much better here. You can guess that this is a landslide prone road. Looks like this whole side of the mountain has come off.
This whole area is landslide prone. Just like the main road that connects Rawlakot with Islamabad. Tea stall spotted ... Time to get a cup of tea. Assalam Alekum May a cup of tea Sir? Why not .. Thank you very much guys. May Allah be your guardian.
Do you have a pump? I do have my bag here. Let me get it out. This guy here needed a pump. And my mistake is that I never pack it properly. And for that reason, I have to unpack a lot of stuff.
However the good thing is that I was able to help him. Previously I used to use my pump with the 12V switch here in the front. I recently bought a new battery operated one. Once properly charged, you can use it at least 3 times or so. They seemed a little confused.
So I was saying that a fully charged pump can inflate your tires at least 3 to 4 times. Since we just used the pump ... I'll keep in mind to charge it again once I get electric supply. You can neither call this a road ... nor an off road ... It offers the worse of the two. Finally we are there ...
Lets keep going ... at least as far as we can ... I want to park the motorcycle somewhere I can pitch my tent. The motorcycle has been carefully parked in the Toli Peer parking. I have been waiting for Ali Ahmad to get here.
Just talked to him and it turns out that he is a little late. Possibly around sunset. At first I thought to keep waiting for him here. But now I have decided to go up ... because it's almost a half hour hike from here.
There's an option of hiring a horse for that purpose. I'll go on foot but I have a lot of luggage. So I might have to hire some horse guy to carry my tent, my food, clothing and other important stuff.
I'll leave the motorcycle here. There are a few restaurants here where people can even stay for a night. So the place seems safe. I've just ordered a meal for myself because I'm quite hungry. So I have rice and beans here.
Let's finish them and get going. It will be best if we could find a nice camping spot before it gets dark. I hope I'll be there by 5 pm.
This is Toli Peer guys. But I'm not alone ... I've Ali Ahmad with me. He made me wait for at least a couple of hours as I got here around 2. But he got here like a flash ... all the way from Islamabad.
It's gotten all cloudy here. We were hardly able to see anything just a while ago ... But now the clouds have begun to disperse.
However, we can see some thundering in that direction. Let's pitch our tent here before it starts raining. Wish me luck to find some good views with my drone.
so that I can share these amazing views with you. And there's a small food stall just nearby .. so that takes care of our food. Assalam Alekum and Good Morning It's 5 in the morning. We were able to sleep in the night ... but ... the amount of rain that we had last night ...
I've been camping for a really long time .. I can't even remember the number of nights that I spent in this tent. But ... I haven't seen anything like this before. Not while I was camping.
And it was really windy ... therefore, water had started to drip in from our left side. That's where Ali Ahmad was asleep.
And that got me worried about our luggage. Because in that case we might have had to pack it. But thanks to Allah, it got better eventually.
Although it kept raining but the wind wasn't that strong anymore. Also the tent is of really good quality with double layer. The inner water resistant layer comes into play when the first layer fails. And we slept quite peacefully afterwards. We got up this early to get some nice sunrise shots for you guys. The weather is quite stable now.
You can still notice all these clouds around us though. It's a visually stunning place with these lush green meadows. And behind us, in that direction, there's a food stall. He has just gotten here from his tent which is pitched nearby. Let's enjoy this view with tea or coffee whatever we can get from him. It's gonna be a terrific start to this day.
This kind fellow has brought green tea for us, this early in the morning. Thank you very much. Thanks man. Is it 8000 feet high? No, it's 9800 feet I think. OI see ... It's 9800 feet. We have been sitting in this paradise for last two hours and enjoying the scenery.
The overcast conditions have been replaced by the blazing heat of sun. We absorbed this soothing heat, packed our stuff and dried the stuff wet from last night's rain. Time to wrap everything up and start going down. Waiting for the horseman who brought us here yesterday.
He was supposed to assist our return journey as well. As of now, he is half an hour late but I hope he will be on his way. Still I have asked Ali to look into this matter otherwise we may need to hire another horse. We have a lot of luggage with us. We'll just go down the hill and do some breakfast. In the meantime, let me take care of whatever still needs to be picked up.
Back in the same parking where I left the motorcycle yesterday. The downhill journey took only 15 minutes whereas it took half an hour when we went there. The track is quite easy and the place is just amazing.
In my opinion it's a great picnic spot ... especially for families. Quite easily accessible .. No tough hike is required. Time to get going to our next destination .. more about that in the next vlog. I hope you guys must have enjoyed this vlog. And if you did, please go ahead and hit the LIKE button.
Not to forget our friend ... Ali Ahmad ... sitting right here. Ali .. are you making a vlog? In Sha Allah .. for sure ... heavy ... God Willing ... So he's up to making a heavy vlog .. So you should expect one more vlog about this place. I'll definitely add a link to Ali's channel in the description for this vlog. Kindly do give it a watch.
Thank you so much for watching. See you in the next one. Allah Hafiz
2021-11-08 06:55
