Miles From Home | CH01: A Little World Above Naran

This was my first real journey on a bike something I had thought about for far longer than I had actually prepared for. With two friends, a little money saved over fourteen months, and no real idea of what the road would demand from us, we left Islamabad and headed north. The journey took us through Balakot and Naran, past plans that didn’t work out, changing weather, difficult roads, and eventually a ten-kilometre climb to Saif-ul-Malook that somehow took us nearly four hours. But somewhere along the way, the destination stopped being the whole point. Saif-ul-Malook wasn’t just a lake. There was an entire little world living around it people, stories, old folklore, strangers who became companions, and a night we hadn’t planned to spend there. We went looking for a place. We came back with an experience.