Shahdara - Kashti - Phareela - Neelan Bhutto

A remarkable trek with ponds, water streams and 'plenty of fish'.


I had joined the hikers' group who do plenty of hike and this was my first hike with them. Little did I knew, exactly after one year I would did Neelan Bhotto with them again but via another trail.
We started off at 10:00 am, picked up participants and reached Kashti (Shah Dara Valley) at 11:00 am and started the trek.

First it was just some mild walk with water available here and there. Later it turned into an intense hike, We passed a beautiful village with very hospitable people.

On reaching Pharila, we decided to follow ridge trail, instead of descending down from the jeep track. We reached ShahDandi village and followed the advice of the people there and descended from there.

It was a point where I got separated from the rest of the two groups.
Ironically, I was in the mid with a group ahead and second behind me, yet I managed to get lost.

Luckily I spotted a pretty visible trail, that I followed down to Neelan bhoto and called rest of the party who joined me shortly at the fish pond.

The old fish pond has hundreds of fish which were being fed chopped beef by the visitors and they would Jump and quarrel to snatch a bite of the meat. I guess every in Pakistan loves the meat. After my later visit I realized the Chillah Gah was a little away from this pond however this one had more fish.

We passed by the shine and hurried back up as sun was ready to set down. My phone died and I could not record the trail back but we partly traversed and followed the jeep track back to Guest house and rest of the hike was done in partial and finally pitch dark.

I was hopping that we would get a vehicle to get back as it was almost dark when we started return, by the time we reached Pharila, sun had set and we continued with torch lights. My phones being dead I relied on other's torches. At one point we lost the way and reached the edge of a trail. A man guided us through his house to bring us back to the trail. I was damn hungry and the smell of food at his home drove me insane.

We reached back safely.

It was a remarkable hike as I hiked after 5.5 months, also Neelan Bhotto was long on my list which my friends suggested to visit on car but I ended up hiking there.
Finally, got to hike in the dark.