From Best to Worst in ONE DAY EP.20 | North Pakistan Motorcycle Tour
Take a look at the life of this village early in the morning. These valleys are really green. These kids are walking their way to the next village. Doesn't look very promising. Sort of fake Kabuli pulao.
Assalam Alekum. Good Morning. Namaste. Sat Sri Akal. To Everyone. From Phander. We have been exploring Phander Ghizer valley for last few days. I hope that you must be enjoying our videos.
Today we have woken up really early. I don't think we woke up earlier on any other day in this tour. That's right. Yeah We woke up at 5:30 am and it's 6:15 am now. We have setup our luggage on the motorcycles. Today we'll leave Phander and try to reach Batakundi.
It's gonna be a long ride. One reason to leave early is because Ghizer - Gilgit road is under construction. Therefore, some sections of the road are closed for a certain time each day. So we'll try to avoid the closing hours of those sections. Otherwise, it's gonna consume our whole day. We hope to reach Batakundi by evening.
We'll make sure to record anything interesting we find on the way, for you. It's cloudy right now and we have a light drizzle at the moment. Let's see how our adventure unfolds today. Bismillah... In the name of Allah... *Prayer for the journey* We pray to Allah for a safe and memorable day ahead.
We have quite a long ride today. May Allah remove all difficulties and hurdles from our path. Bye Bye Phander See you again some other time in the future. I highly recommend you to explore this area whenever you get a chance.
You won't be disappointed. The hotel that you see up there at the top... You might have a better view when we get around that corner. There it is. That's PTDC Motel The PTDC motels were run by the government for a long time.
They were located at some really amazing locations and they offered very good services. Then they were shut down for some reason. And it's been quite some time ever since.
Our hotel was the first hotel, located right at the beginning of Phander. That's why we have already left Phander village behind. Lets see how the next part of our ride turns out to be. I have done the section from here to Gupis twice. And it was night time on both these occasions. This is the first time that I am doing it in daylight.
Lets see how it goes. Many people have praised its beauty. Take a look at the village life here, early in the morning. The best thing about Phander Ghizer valley is... That you will find a village after every 5 km or so.
And you keep on passing by villages till the last check post near Shandur. This region has a very high population. I don't remember seeing a higher population in any other area.
It feels really good to ride early in the day. And today we started our ride almost 4 hours earlier compared to our usual time. Normally we start our ride around 10 or 11 in the day.
So, there's a freshness in the air. Everything appears more beautiful. And the music made by the flowing water streams... I mean it's simply wonderful. I think we need to start our ride earlier in the day for our future trips.
It just feels amazing. You don't find much traffic on the roads. And you can save your valuable time. You can comfortably reach your hotel before sunset.
Even the ride itself becomes very comfortable. That should be the way to go about it. Look at how beautiful this scenery is.
I'm loving it. These valleys are really green. When we did it at night, we had no clue. About how the place looks like.
Ever since we have left Phander, all we see is green meadows. We'll ride along the river in a few upcoming sections. I mean there's gonna be a lot of variation in the scenery. Another benefit of leaving early in the morning is the lower water level in the streams. If I'm not wrong, I think on our way back in the evening, this water spring... Well not this one frankly because there's hardly any water in it.
This was the one? There was much more water in it at night. Check out this awesome section of the road. Even this one is going to be broadened in the future. Lets see how many more rocks will have to be cut for this. Here you can see small makeshift cable cars arranged by people living here.
Phander valley is offering us some wonderful scenes early in the day. We have entered yet another village. Gahkuch is 75 km from here. Wonderful These kids are walking their way to the next village. Thangy back there is a relatively bigger village and it has a school. Kids from the neighboring villages also go to that school.
It's not just the bigger village but is mindblowing as well. It's good that we had this opportunity to do this in daylight as well. Looks like they have done some blasting here to expand this road. Even now they are preparing for the next blast. If we had gotten any more late, then we'd have to stop here and wait.
We needed to cross this section before 8. That we have done already. The next section is closed from 10 am to 11 am.
We need another 2 to 2.5 hours to get there. Finally we are about to reach Gupis. Our ride so far has been really wonderful. I think it took almost 1 hour and 15 minutes.
We rode at a good pace and didn't stop anywhere. However, the best part was the scenery. Soon we'll see the Khalti lake... We had a little break there when we were coming here. The first break of our day... in Gupis... Please go and see what we can get from here. Assalam Alekum Sorry? Came back from the top? Yes.
We can get some of these buns. I haven't seen such muddy water in this river before. Even a couple of days back when we got here, the color was still lighter. The river from Yasin valley also mixes with this river at Gupis. And past that point, look at the color of this water. Because there have been heavy rainfalls in this area and some routes are still blocked.
That's why the color of water is in this state. The normal color of water in this river is quite beautiful. Also, the water level is really high. At some points, it's almost touching the roads.
Here you can observe this difference of color more vividly. Look at how clear the water from that stream is. Whereas this one is just too muddy. Assalam Alekum. Can you tell us how far is the closing section from here? 6 to 7 minutes from here.
They open at 10 am. Right? Yes. Okay. They open at 10. So we still have some time. This is our lunch plus breakfast. You can call it brunch. You can see we are neither having egg paratha nor karrahi. We were passing by a restaurant when Ali noticed that they have Kabuli pulao.
How is it? Nothing special. I'm sure he would have told us if it tasted good. Doesn't look very delicious either.
Fake Kabuli pulao. We hoped for better food near Gilgit. They served us the Kabuli pulao from the previous night. We'll now take a break in Gilgit city.
No worries. There are some good restaurants here. The last breakfast I had here was quite good. There are a couple of restaurants here. We are in Gilgit now.
And you can see the hustle and bustle of Gilgit. We plan to stop by if we find some nice cafe. Otherwise, we'll try to keep going and get through this traffic. Gilgit is slightly hot today. This belongs to the army? This is all cantonment area.
O we are in cantonment right now. Okay. We are with Imran right now. And he has brought us special cold coffee. Thank you so much Imran. We'd love to see you around. In Sha Allah
We really appreciate your role in promoting tourism. I try. It's the people who watch these videos and travel to all those places. You put a lot of effort in making these videos for us. Thank you very much. We really love to watch your vlogs. Thank you very much. Thank you so much Imran. See you again. I have so much unprecedented love from the people of Gilgit Baltistan on this tour.
I had no idea that people here watch my videos so keenly. Not just that but someone always recognizes my motorcycle and then comes to us. Thank you so much, guys. Here's Chilas. And its famous hot weather.
Our ride through last one hour was in really hot conditions. However, as we start our ride towards Babusar, everything will change. Unlike here, it's cold over there. From here, Babusar is almost 40 km whereas Naran is 105 km. I guess it will take around 40 minutes, at max, on motorcycle.
Not more than that. You will notice another thing in this area. There is always a speed breaker on the road near a restaurant or hotel. Why they do that is beyond my comprehension.
I mean, clearly, they want people to notice their restaurant and visit them. But it's not nice to make speed breakers on public roads. At some points, they accomplish that by placing stones on the roads.
You can barely see those at night or in dim light. I don't know how the local authorities can allow such things to happen. I mean it's illegal. This pass is at a very high altitude. That's why 150 cc is quite underpowered for it.
Here you can see people from Chilas taking snow from the glacier. We are almost there. Just one more section to go. The place is super crowded. Apparently there are a lot of activities here for the people now.
Some people are riding bicycle... Some are doing zipline. And much more. Full touristy ambiance with the backdrop of low hanging clouds. I don't know but I feel like making a stop here. Well. Let's stop for a cup of tea before we move on.
Looks like there's a proper bazaar here now. Abrar bhai, Assalam Alekum Wa alekum Salam. How are you? I have watched all your vlogs, Abrar. Thank you so much. How are you doing? I am from Gujranwala. Assalam Alekum These are my kids. Ma Sha Allah How are you? Praise be to Allah Where are you headed to? Coming back from Skardu? We are coming back from Phander.
Assalam Alekum Wa alekum Salam. How are you? We have already met you in the Karachi meetup. O yes. I remember now. He has brought me to these mountains because of you and your vlogs.
Don't you think it's a nice place... How are you kids? I have a phobia. Where did you guys go? We traveled till Hunza and wanted to go to Sost. I knew that you were staying in Sost... I didn't let him go. Yeah the wife didn't let me go further.
Don't worry. Her phobia will finish after a couple of visits to mountains. No. I can't take it anymore. In the cold of Babusar top, we are having coffee. There was a family who were driving beside us and gave us this coffee. We are busy getting some drone shots here. I have made the drone fly 4 km from here, to the Sambaksar and Dharamsar lakes.
The lakes were hidden under a veil of clouds. Some shots are really good though. Right now, Ali is bringing the drone back. We'll show you those shots as well. Sure. How far is it now?
Almost 2 km. I sent it almost 4.5 km away. I think before today, the farthest it went was 3 km or so. But it was a straightforward view. We did get some good shots. Hopefully you are gonna love them. We'll start our downhill ride as soon as we get our drone back.
There's SCO coverage here but at times there are no signals at all. Can't receive any signals today but there was good coverage the last time we were here. I'll ask them to watch the vlogs. I have been boycotting social media for over a month now.
I'm not Abrar. I'm his brother. Chilas was so hot that we were sweating profusely. But over here, it was freezing cold. We stayed there for two hours. As soon as we reached Lulusar lake, it has suddenly become really cloudy. But that's just one area.
The clouds make this place much more beautiful. Man, I can't see anything. This is Barwayi. It was raining heavily back there. But there is no sign of rain here.
And we are half soaked. The last one hour that we traveled in rain was quite tough for us. After a long and tiring ride from Phander, and riding through rain in the last section, we are here. You can see Ali Ahmad here. As you can see, we have a really beautiful and tidy room here. It's the same roomy hotel in Batakundi where we stayed before.
This is probably among the best hotels in this area. We also have hot water facility. So the first thing I did after coming here was taking a shower.
Now, we'll do something about getting our soaked clothes dry. We also had our dinner here. It's been so many days that we were having karrahi every evening. But today we replaced it with a burger and Chinese food. The food was really delicious. We are back in our room now.
Hopefully, you must have enjoyed our vlog. Tomorrow we'll visit some new area but you will see that in our next vlog. That's all for the day. Remember us in your prayers. Allah Hafiz
2023-09-24 22:03
