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Travel

Exploring Sat Sar Mala Lakes

Posted on December 12, 2014

This post is part of a series called Exploring lakes in the valleys of flowers.

Exploring Sat Sar Mala lakes is the first part of my 19 lakes exploration trip in the valleys of Kaghan and Kashmir. The prelude of this series can be read at Exploring lakes in the valleys of flowers.

Map of Sat Sar Mala lakes Trek

We started our journey from Islamabad under the banner of Nature Explorers. Our first destination was Besal in Kaghan Valley. We did a short stop at Balakot for shopping of grocery items and filling of gas cylinders. We did our lunch at Naran and kept moving towards Besal. We reached Besal in the night and setup our camps. The night was cold even in the month of August which is the peak summer time in Pakistan.

Exploring lakes in the valleys of flowers

Posted on November 13, 2014

This post is a prelude to a series of posts. Following is the list of posts of the series.

Exploring Sat Sar Mala Lakes

The northern areas of Pakistan has so many attractions for tourists all over the world and this includes natural lakes of which many are still unexplored. Life is short and there is so much for the explorers to explore so one cannot explore all these lakes unless if you explore many of them in one go and that’s what I did back in August 2014 right after Eid-UL-Fitr.

I set out with a large group of 27 people on an epic journey to explore 19 lakes in one go. Some of us were seasoned trekkers and some were first timers but that didn’t matter, what mattered was the will power and mental toughness. It was one of the toughest non-technical treks I have ever done in my short portfolio of treks. We started as a strong group of 27 people but only 13 of us could complete the full trek because the other 14 members of the group kept quitting the trek day by day.

Travel Treks

4 adventure treks you can take on in September

Posted on August 15, 2014

There are so many treks in the northern areas of Pakistan which makes it hard to choose a trek among them. September is the last month in which you can do an adventure trek in the north because after September the weathers gets cold and snow falling season starts in some of the areas.

If you are planning to do an adventure trek in the coming month of September and finding it hard to decide which one to do then go through the following list of 4 treks and choose the one which suits you best.

Chitta Katha Lake Trek

Chitta Katha lake is an high altitude lake (13,500 feet or 4,100 m) situated in the Shounter valley (a sub valley of Neelum Valley), Kashmir, Pakistan. Chitta Katha lake is accessible from Kel by a 20 km long jeep track and then further 5-6 km hiking trek leads to the lake.

The best time to do this trek is late August and early September because this is the period in which the lake melts fully. This trek can be done in minimum of 3 days starting from Islamabad.

Kel is mostly used as a base camp for this trek. You hire jeep from Kel and set out early in the morning. Reach upper Domail village in 2-3 hours. You can also visit Shounter Spoon lake which takes around 30 minutes by jeep from upper Domail village. From upper Domail you start hiking towards lake and camp at Deck-2. Next morning you start hiking towards lake. Reach lake in 3-4 hours and then you can descend and reach Kel by evening unless you have different plans.

Places Travel

Arang Kel – The Pearl of Neelum Valley

Posted on August 11, 2014

Neelum Valley is a 200 km long bow-shaped deeply forested region in Kashmir, Pakistan. In this narrow strip of land there are various attractions, including famous lakes like Chitta Katha and Ratti Gali, for tourists and one of them is Arang Kel.

Arang Kel is a small village across the Neelum river. It takes an average trekker an hour of trekking to reach there from Kel. There are two tracks to the top of Arang Kel and both go through dense forests of pine trees. One also come across fresh water streams while going through the track.

In the whole Neelum Valley, Arang Kel is my most favorite place and it must be because it had a spell binding effect on me as soon as I reached there for the first time. Our tour organizer had booked rooms in a hotel at Kel but I told him that I will spend night at Arang Kel at any cost. The decision to spend night at Arang kel was not only due to the beauty of it but also due to the reason that it offered much more value to a photographer.

Lakes Travel

Saral lake – A place outside of this world

Posted on August 9, 2014

Saral lake and the surrounding area is a place outside of this world. Beautiful twin lakes (Saral lake and a hidden lake below Saral lake, the water from Saral lake flows into the hidden lake which is a pure beauty), huge boulders, marmots and pink flowers make this place a dream place.

The best thing about Saral lake is that that so far it is safe from human interference unlike Ratti Gali lake in which a lot of trash has been thrown by visitors (a great matter of concern).

Though the trek to this lake is tough one as you have to go through one of the high mountain passes leading to it but the effort is totally worth it.

Photo Courtesy: http://sheraliphotography.com/

General

Traveling is living

Posted on July 19, 2014

Hello everyone,

First of all welcome to The Silent Traveler website. Please bookmark http://thesilenttraveler.com and also like the corresponding Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/thesilenttraveler.

My name is Sher Ali and I am a vivid traveler from Pakistan. I don’t have too much experience in traveling like many of you may have but in the short span of almost 2 years I have traveled a lot, especially in the north where there is so much for a traveler to explore and experience. So this website is about sharing my traveling experiences along with supportive photographs (yup that’s right, a traveler without a camera is impossible). I hope you will find some of the stuff valuable.

Traveling is an addiction, once you are into it then you can hardly escape from this lethal addiction. You would be a lucky person if you have a job/business which gives you a good amount of free time and of course a good salary/business is a must. I myself am a software engineer by profession and have been working as a freelance web developer since 2006. Being a freelancer, I have the luxury to work on my own terms so I can take off whenever I want to but I try to balance both my work and traveling so that I can feed my family and as well as bear my travel expenses.

I would say if you haven’t traveled yet then you haven’t lived your life so get out and live a better life.

Traveling is living!

Photo Credit: Mehroz Khan Niazi Photgraphy

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