Neelan Bhutoo: Exploring a Hidden Gem Near Islamabad

Some time you mark your maps for travelling for far distinct places but in the process you ignore some beautiful places at your door step. Same was the case with me and Neelan Bhutoo. I was living in Rawalpindi for about 25 years, have know that such a place exists but never made a plan to visit that place. Recently when I was dead tired of the hustle and busy life of Lahore, I called my friend and said “I have to go somewhere in mountains, or I’ll get mad” :D yeah that was my condition. So we started to consider the places where we could go in the morning and get back till evening and this place Neelan Bhutoo popped up in my mind and I was like “is dafa ya kar ka dakhte hain”. I searched for the directions on a quite hot morning we got on my bike to visit that place.

Neelan Bhutoo is basically a place where Hazrat Shah Abdul Latif Kazmi (Hazrat Bari Imam) used to sit to pray to Allah (S.W.T) more commonly known as the “Chillah Gah Hazrat Bari Imam”. One thing which I have observed about the prayer places of such saints is that they are quite away from the general public place and these places are quite peaceful. The other thing is that in 90% cases these places are somewhere near the source of fresh water and quite scenic place. So I was curious about what this place would offer us.

Went straight up-to peer-sawawa without any stop, we had gone up-till there on bikes and on foot quite a few times so these roads knew us well. There we sat for a while to have a cup of tea and to enjoy the aerial view of Islamabad. What a beautiful city it is.

From here on we were going to leave the premises of the Islamabad to enter it the Haripur District of Khyber Paktoon Khawa province. Moving on we reached the village of Sangra, from here on there was no paved road for us. We took the required right turn on that 4 by 4 track to continue our journey towards our destination. It was getting as dangerous as scenic with the every coming step forward and we were jumping on the bike like we are ridding a bull. Going straight and straight, asking people about the way at every crossing, at last we could see a water stream on our left side moving with us that designated that we on the right way. After sometime we reached a place where that stream came right in front of us so we have to cross it on our bike, so we did. Now we were passing through some village, we kept moving forward and the water canal was on our right side now. After some time it seemed that we have left the desired place somewhere back so we turned around again and reached a mosque looking building. Upon asking we got to know that this is the place we are looking for. Honestly the initial impression was not at all any sort of overwhelming for me. We moved down to the canal and then we saw it, the famous ponds of Neelan Bhoto with lots of big fatty “mahasheer” fish in them, moving forward and backward in groups. We were looking like aliens there in our jeans shirt and knee guards and all the people there were pilgrims who were there to pay their regards to that holly man.

The big fish were contained in a small area of about 200 meters and fishing was prohibited by the locals in that area. This place has all the peculiar characteristics of the saints prayer places like it would light up with the first ray of run, it has fresh water, food both in form of fish and fruits, peace, away from local places, an independent, self sustaining peaceful place to meditate. We spent there quite some time, went into the ponds eat, did gossip, laughed all what we went there for. To get away from the world and to get fresh and we were back in Islamabad before the sunset. Yeah that’s also a key point; get back on the main road before the sunset as there is no electricity there. The directions to get there are, take the peer sawawa road (Monal one) straight upto “Peer Sawawa”, there you’ll see a door like entrance to KPK, take that road straight till you reach the “Sangra” village which is about 6km before the “Highland Hotel”. That’s the place from where you can hire a 4 by 4 jeep if you are not on a motorbike. Happy travelling and happy adventures.