The Murree Trip

The plan was something like this:
- We will leave for Murree at 6:00 PM on Saturday, Jan 17th., have dinner at Mall road and will stay in Punjab Hut and next day a trip to Ayubeya, PC Bhurban (Golf Club) and Patriata was also planned in this trip, on our return to Murree on Sunday, Jan 18 we'll again have a dinner at some place in Mall road.

Now this is what actually happened (I'll write it in detail so get a mug full of hot coffee and enjoy)

I would divide this trip in following parts:
1. The Plan
It was late Friday night, around 2:30 AM that Tahir said, Shirazi bhai: I'm not sure if office one-day trip will go or not, why not plan one of our own. I had some commitments for the weekend but thought WHY NOT!, so he called Sohail, Billie and Asif. Out of all, Sohail as usual came up with an excuse from this advanture trip (fearing that we might be going on his car ;) ). Anyways, all 4 of us were ready for this trip, expecting some good time.

2. The Night before "The Day"
Now starts the first 12 hours of our trip, Asif was supposed to pick us in his car ["Mian Jee", that's what he calls it and don't know why this Male name; why not Suzzy, Pinky or Bubbly for that matter ;)] . My plan was to inform everyone at home around 5:30 so new ideas could come up from there :). After telling everyone at home my plan, Tahir called and told me that Asif is on workshop fixing his car, this was annoying especially at this 11th hour. Anyways, plan was to go ahead so I waited home then after a while I receive another angry call from him, saying that we must postpone this trip and bla bla (or I should say Rora Rora - as he is Pushton). Anyways, I decided to cool him a bit so we should be in good mood before the trip start. So I went to the office, reaching there I realized Asif is in office and Tahir seems to be in OK mood (though playing game), long story short we had a go ahead. Now they were to pick me around 8:00 PM, I went home and waited for them. By the way this was the 4th time, I left home for Murree :) for ths particular trip, I came back to home and my niece (Laraib) said "Aap wapis ah bhi gahay"? that was sarcastically said because she was bit annoyed of me going out and coming in again and again. Anyways, I waited again and after 10 minutes delay they came.. Now this time, I said everyone Allah Hafiz and left. We only went 3-4 KM away that requirement of digial camera came up, again we went back to my place for picking the digital camera (which by the way, only took 3 pictures in entire trip), imagine me, entering home for 5th time without even going 10KM away from home, this time everyone looked at me with surprise that what is going wrong here... This time, I will not write the expression I got from everyone, one could easily imagine... especially from Laraib :D

At that time, I already started having bad feeling about the trip... But whats the fun if you only have good feeling about any trip ;)

The trip started, we reached Punjab Hut on time using new road to Murree (I won't recommend anyone going on that road when its showing), checked-in there, it was a nice guest house running under Punjab Regiment administration. We first decided to have walk (go on foot) for dinner (Murree mall road was almost 5-6 KM away) then after analyzing the weather by our Tour Encyclopedia and guide - Billie, the Doug - we decided to take car instead. Thanks for this Billie that has saved us from Tahir's misadventure program ;).

After reaching there, it took us some time to get parking in right middle of Mall... The one thing you would notice in Murree is that you would see more Lahories there than natives ;)... So chachora pun is all around, but not all Lahories are chachorays - some of them are "SUPER CHACHORAYS" ;). It is just a joke about Lahories, honestly like Pakistan they're the real life of Pakistan - heart.

We did some shoping for dry food, cloths etc. After short-listing over 10 restaurants, we decided to enter in only one that was now open (the funny part is all restaurants start closing one-by-one during our short-listing) :) Anyways, we had food, exchanged jokes, sms etc. Also made tiny tony plan for Sunday, and of course cursed each other that it not too cold here and its not snowing - what the hell!

Anyways, after having dinner around 12:30 AM midnight, we again had a walk in rain and coffee. Decided to heads back to Punjab Huts and have some cards game. On our way, snow fall started (my first 1mm snow experience). We had a good time there, shouting and taking pictures in weirest angles :), then called AbdKhan and updated him on snow...

We reached Punjab Huts and found that light is gone, ironically we asked earlier one of their staff about it and he said "sir, pechlay 2 months main, idhar light sirf 1 ghantay kay lehay gahe hai". Now we returned to play cards, there was no light... We then went out and have some dry fruits in cold which we bought from Murree Mall road for around 350Rs., the reason for writing the price is that we ate almost 200Rs. dry-fruits standing on that poor guy's stall without paying him for anything ;).

3. "The Day"
- Planned trip to Ayubeya
We planned our trip of Sunday for Ayubeya, Patriata and Bhurban. We slept for 3-4 hours and staff came to wake us up for early breakfast which we told him to bring around 8:30 AM (one important thing, this might be the only mess in Army where kitchen opens around 8:00 AM otherwise you can get breakfast as early as Fajar prayers), we had breakfast and then suddenly snow fall started for 20-30 minutes followed by rain, the weather was turning out to be great so we decided to have coffee before we leave. And there was a James bond pursuit of a girl by one of our trip-mate :) Obviously nothing happened at the end of the day.

We left Huts around 11:30 and went straight towards the Ayubeya, snow started on our way there and only after 6 KM away from Murree, we had to stop at a spot where our car was skiting to much. So we had a break there and enjoyed the snow and everything. Then we decided to go ahead by foot and see all those people who've come from different parts of Pakistan (by people, one can guess what I meant ;)) Around 2:00 PM, we decided to go to PC Bhurban side, at that time everything was OK but suddenly show started and everything changed.

- Record braking Snow Fall
The best and most intensive snow fall, I've ever experienced. In less than 2 hours, we had around 10-12 inch snow and it was still going on... Our car was now stuck, the good news; we were not the only one. Only 4X wheelers and cars with chain rolled around tires were doing well. Asif did a pretty good job trying to keep his car on road, we spend next 2 hours pushing car and then walking on snow... It was one of the most delightful daylight moments and I loved it... Peaceful, calm, fresh and above all "very quite", there were only three people walking on that road and it was snowing. On could even hear the snow-flakes coming down, it was the silence that made our day.

At last we reached Murree, Asif was already there on his car (the delightful moment for him was driving car on 60KM on his heavy snow, that crazy fellow drived his car on 3rd gear... oops! what he was thinking? At least I would not be wasting this moments getting him out of some ditch) Anyways, we postpond our plan for having dinner in Murree though I was in mood of sticking with plan but after seeing everyone's face, decided not to raise this option.

- Traffic Jam
From Murree to Islamabad, it generally takes 40 minutes at max and on Sunday, it took us over 7 hours. It was cold but we enjoyed it, the worst part of this entire trip was rackless driving or I should see irresponsible driving of our citizens, because of double lane: almost over 2 thousands cars have to wait over 7 hours in bad weather. Like always we were running short on fuel ;) I was sitting on most confortable seat on the car, being the senior most, I earned it :).

- Accident
At main signal of my home, we were standing at the signal. Suddenly a taxi banged into us, the hit was so hard that I was holding my wallet and it slipped out of my hand. We went out; Tahir was for first 2 minutes, storm on that driver and Asif was surprise and shocked, not because of anything but why on standing car? I'm impressed with his good nature of not taking these troubles way to serious. In short we (Asif) decided not to get any money from him considering he was poor and could hardly afford his own demage. By the way, the car was badly hit from rear but luckly it was merical that nothing serious happend.

Salient Features of this Trip:

- First time bought bakery chips for 40Rs/pack :)
- First time, I saw such an extensive snow fall
- My longest wait in traffic jam, around 7 hours.
- Longest time that took me to reach Islamabad from Murree, around 10 hours.
- Meet two minor accidents.
- First time, didn't helped people in trouble... Maybe because we were badly caught in snow as well.
- I bought my first Chitrali cap and Billie promised me another (which I know is a gollie) :)