Night Walk in Skardu City

After a long but pleasant journey, we finally reached Skardu city. The weather in Skardu seemed pretty pleasant in October. The sun shone with full zeal during the day. As the light was starting to fade, we rushed to finalise the hotel for our stay. Google Maps showed that we were driving on Alamdar road. It looked like quite a busy road, with shops, restaurants, and hotels on both sides of the road. “This looks like their main Bazar”, one of us said. “Yes”, pretty much all agreed. “This looks like a good place to stay”, Amjad pointed towards a guest house. “I believe the guest house must have a good enough lawn where we can enjoy our tea and enjoy our time”, Hamza suggested. “All right, then don’t stop here because there does not seem to be a lawn in this guest house”. We moved along and checked a few guest houses. Some of them were not good enough to our liking. Some were quite expensive. Eventually, we ended up finalizing a hotel on Hameed Garh road with the name Bottleneck. We rented two executive rooms in the hotel.
Hameed Garh road has many guest houses and hotels too. PTDC motel Skardu is also on the same road. Some famous attractions such as Kharphocho fort, Katpana Desert, and Organic village are within 5 minute drive from this place.
Courtesy of the great bargaining skills of Amjad and Mohsin, we got two executive rooms for just 5000 rupees. They would rent the same room, which cost us 2500 each in a season not less than 12000. After checking in, I took a bath, and we went downstairs for dinner. We ordered Juha fish, Chicken Handi, egg fried rice, and a Chinese chicken dish. Juha Fish and Chicken Handi were the winners. Rice and Chinese chicken dishes were quite average. We cracked jokes and made plans for the days to come.
After dinner, we decided to go out for a walk. The cool breeze welcomed us as soon as we stepped out of the main door of the hotel. The weather was not overly cold. You can certainly call that pleasant. Jackets or uppers were, however, definitely needed. It was only 9 PM, but it seemed that half of the local Skardu population had fallen asleep. This is amazing because, in Lahore, people are usually warming up by that time for busy nightlife. We were just wandering aimlessly on the streets, and that was the best part of this walk. It was a blessing to go with the flow without worrying about any busy schedules ahead or any hustles waiting for our attention. As we were passing by a wide dark Alley on our right which looked quite scary, I was astonished to see that Amjad had taken a turn into that alley. We followed him to see what he was up to. I shouted and asked him to stop and not go any further. He wasn’t in the mood to listen though. I was a little scared. The street was very dark and we were in a stranger city. We lit our mobile phones' torches. I could hear the sound of a flowing river as we moved along. It was too dark to see anything, though. Finally, I saw a dim streetlight over a lone bench a little further. We stepped toward that. There was a board in place there saying “Twilight viewpoint”. It was supposedly a viewpoint, but we could not see anything because of the dark. The quietness and serenity of the place were mesmerizing and mysterious at the same time. I loved being there.
Finally, we got back and had a session together where we planned for the rest of the days in Skardu. We wanted to make good decisions and utilise our time to the best. Our plan for tomorrow was all done and dusted and we were going to Sarfaranga Cold desert, Blind Lake, Shigar, and Hashupi Garden.