Rode my Bike to 9,500 ft: Pir Chansi, Azad Kashmir
You don't believe me? Well you'll have to believe once you see the pictures. Even if you don't believe the pictures, you'll have to take my word for it. This was one of the craziest experience I have had recently. The time I rode a bike with my friend on it to the mountain peak of Muzaffarabad, called Pir Chanasi which is located 9,500 ft above the sea level.
A LITTLE BACKGROUND ABOUT PIR CHANASI
PIR or PEER in the native language means a saint and peer chanasi translates to THE SAINT OF THE SUMMITS
There is a shrine located at the top of this mountain peak which thousands of tourists visit every year to pay their salutations to the saint buried their. According to the legends this saint was also known as the Lion and his real name was Hazrat Shah Hussain.
But this blog doesn't just start at Pir Chanasi. It starts a day before this spot. It starts when we reach the city of Muzaffarabad on our bikes. It starts when we bypass this beautiful magnanimous city to head towards a far-off village at the end of this world where literally only a few dozen people live. It starts with the dangerous journey of riding our bikes at such an altitude that we had to pray the whole journey and it starts at all the beautiful sceneries that we stopped at along our way. So fasten your seatbelts as I'm about to take you on a beautiful enchanting bumpy ride.
SAIYYAH
Beautiful name for a beautiful village in no mans land far far away from the urban capital of Kashmir, Muzaffarabad. It was a long ride from the main city and it sure challenged us to ride our bike to this place.
Since Muzaffarabad is the capital of Kashmir, an urban city, it's quite populated and honestly I'm done with densely populated cities as I live in the biggest metropolitan of Pakistan, ie, Karachi. So we decided to bypass Muzaffarabad and took the mountainous road that lead to the villages up top. In this village resided a friend of my friend and he had already made arrangements for us at his place. Little did we know that it'd take us 6 hours to reach his village in pitch black darkness with animals howling around us. Literally.
Anyway, as I mentioned we took the mountainous road and travelled smoothly for at least a couple of hours before one of our friends' bike broke down and there was not a single mechanic in sight. Trusting our instincts we decided to drag the bike to further elevation closer to our destination. We took in turns to drag the bike so that none of us get tired to the extent of complete exhaustion. We even took 10 minutes break in between as well and it was in one of those breaks, at a cliff where I got the perfect view of the whole city of Muzaffarabad. This is one of my finest clicks, though it was not taken from my phone, instead I took it on my friend's iphone. Ipohone cameras are incomparable dudeee.
How beautiful is this picture and how beautiful is this place? This is truly a masterpiece and I will also be using this picture as the cover photo of this blog. The river that you see in this picture is the infamous Neelum River. Muzaffarabad is around this river the main source of livelihood of the inhabitants of this city is associated with this rive as well. Fishing is very common here and it's delicious as well.
The bridge connects the two parts of Muzaffarabad and there is an airport there as well. If you look at Muzaffarabad from the top of a mountain, it's in a U shape.
Anyway, moving forward as I mentioned our bike had broken down. Finally after an hour or so, we found a small cabin with a mechanic in there. Beside him was also a small snack ahop from where we bought tons of water and drank like horses. The sun was on our heads and it had already started to get a lot hotter compared to a couple of hours before. After getting our bike fixed and our bellies filled we continued with our journey. The next hour was spent with me on back and my friend riding the bike while I had my earphones plugged in listening to calm travel songs.
After an hour or so, we stopped at a beautiful spot to take some pictures, and let me show you some of them.
Picture 1: Another view of Muzaffarabad from further up top. You can see how God has blessed this place with absolute greenery and freshness.
Picture 2: I tried to take an aesthetic picture for myself. Did I succeed? 😂😂
After taking pictures, we finally decided not to take a break before reaching this village. Finally after an hour there was fork ahead of us with a lot of shops. Upon asking I got to know that this is where we weill head for our village and there are no shops ahead of this place. The village was still 50 kilometers away. After this place, there were no phone signals as well. So we stopped at the shops and bought supplies as we had decided to do a barbeque at our friends'place in the village. The sun had already started to set and we had to hurry in order to avoid danger on the road. But no matter how hard we tried, the roads didn't favour us at all and darkness fell upon us in no time.
The entrance to the village was the most bizzare entrance to any town or Village I had ever seen in my life. There was literally no place foe your bike to enter let alone a car. The road was all damp, there were swamps, the road made it impossible to ride our bikes any further and we could constantly hear wolves howling nearby. I wont be exaggerating if I tell you that my legs trembled on a couple of occasions. XD
Something had to be done. We couldn't have stayed outside the village for any longer so we decided to carry our bikes. Can you imagine? 6 boys, 3 bikes, we were extremely tired due to this journey, yet we had to do it. There were no connections in this area as well and our phones had already died. After a strenuous effort of more than an hour we finally managed to reach our friends house.
Unfortunately our phones had died till then so I wasn't able to take any pictures that night but let me tell yoh what we did. There was no electricity as well, so charging our phones was out of question. It was extremely cold there, my nose was literally freezing. After changing we went to the toilets which were built at a distance from the house and there was a huge spider i there as well. I almost shit my pants only to hear from my friend outside 'it won't eat you, stop being such a crybaby.' Honestly that was the biggest strangest spider I have seen in my life. Still gives me chills thinking about it.
After that we set up our bonfire and cooked some food for us. The dining was in pure Traditional style where we sat on the floor in the kitchen and all of us ate together using a canlde for light.
We slept around 10 pm and woke up at the break of the dawn. After being done with our breakfast, our friend decided to take us on a tour of his village. On my way there, I found a beautiful little calf.
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Even though the sun was up, it was still very cold so I decided to wear my hoodie before leaving for Pir Chanasi. Yes today is the day we'll be leaving for Pir Chanasi. While exiting the village it was comparatively easier than kast night as we could atleast see where we're headed but still we had to carry our bikes.
Within an hour we were on the road riding downhill with good speed. After reaching the aforementioned fork, we took a turn and then again started the journey up hill. It got colder and colder on the way. Once our bikes' engines started to rumble, we decided to stop for a while. There were had our tea and took a couple of pictures.
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Picture 1 and 2: The empty roads that lead us to the heaven on Earth. I was amazed to see how well these roads were built. You know the most important part of this journey? It's that we always rode close to each other. All three bikes were always in a distance where we could see each other so in case if any trouble befalls any one of us, the rest of us would he able to reach in no time.
Pictures 3 and 4: These couple of images are which I took with my best friend who took me from Karachi to Islamabad. It was all due to him that I was on this mind-blowing trip.
Picture 5: We were only half an hour away from Pir Chanasi. You can see the snow capped mountains in this picture.
PIR CHANASI
THE G-SPOT. Never in my wildest dreams had I thought that I'd be doing something like this. I'm not sure if you'll be able to understand but this trip meant the world to me. I had never done this before. Just imagine a 70cc bike taking us to an elevation of 10,000 ft that too with my friends. This trip will always be the most special one in my heart. This place, Pir Chanasi will always be one of my favorites. Not because of this place, but because of this mind blowing journey. Let's gooooo!!!!
After departing from the village it was a 3 hour drive. As soon as we entered the snow mountains, the weather changed drastically as cool winds started to smack me on my face. It was drizzling on and off but still I was waiting for the first snow fall experience of my life. It didn't happen....
The roads were curved ahead, ofcourse due to the elevation and we had to take it very slow. Finally we reached the tourist spot, but there were a couple of barricades. Upon asking we got to know that there was a military base there and we had to take permission from the armed guards. We did that and finally entered the place.
It was like a dream come true for me. There was snow all around and I couldn't contain myself any longer. I started running around frantically picking up snow, making snowballs and throwing it in the air. This was the first time in my life I was witnessing snow. Living in the port city has its advantages but witnessing snow is not one of them.
It was getting hard for my friends to control me as I started to roll on the snow 😂😂
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I don't think these pictures do justice to what I was feeling over there but still you can see the happiness on my face. This little moment of my life is Hapyness
I laid there in snow for atleast 10 minutes before it froze my balls off. My hands were completely red and frozen but this couldn't have stopped me from enjoying.
After playing in the snow, we had our lunch and then I took a memorable picture AT THE END OF THIS WORLD
With this picture, my blog comes to an end. I hope you all enjoyed this post as much as I enjoyed writing it and a fraction of what I was feeling at that place. With this trip, it seemed as God had opened the doors to Kashmir for me as only recently last week I visited Kashmir again and in coming days I Will be going to Kashmir once again. Each time I visit a seperate place,yet the beauty of Kashmir never fails to amaze and mesmerize me.
Thank you for reading fellas. Till we meet again.
WHO IS HUZAIFANAVEED?
huzaifanaveed hails from Pakistan, who is an aspiring dentist, studying in one of the top notch universities of Pakistan, Jinnah Sindh Medical University.
he loves interacting with new people, making new friends and traveling the world, but most importantly he loves to make a change in this world through his actions and his words. He's an entrepreneur and a philanthropist who's been actively working with different Charitable Organizations in Pakistan.
His goal on Hive is similar, ie, to make a difference. He's here to mark his presence and he'll do it through his words. So lets be a part of his journey and show him support through comments, upvotes and reblogs.
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