A day out at Qatas Raj and Swake Lake with Amal Family

.

Two weeks before our last session Ma’am Maryam announced that our last session will be outdoor. So we should decide where we want to go. Most of the students were saying it should be out of Lahore. However, a few students said their families won’t allow.

The majority is the authority so it was decided to arrange the session out of the city.

For trip arrangements, Ma’am made a team of three fellows, Waleed, Babar, and Nadeem. As Waleed was in my amal circle so I was almost always there in these trip meetings. I had the experience of closely observing the difficulties one can face while arranging a tour.

The first difficult decision was to decide the place for the trip. Most of the students were not cooperating. Just 4 days before the final day, Qatas Raj was finalized. As we had our mega project presentations on Saturday so I was not thinking about the trip until it was over . But on Saturday night I couldn’t sleep with excitement.

On Sunday, we departed for Qatas Raj at 6:30 from IER department. During our journey, we played truth and dare, sang songs and played Antakshari. We stopped at Bheera , where we rested for half an hour. It was 11 pm when we reached Qatas Raj.

A Qatas Raj a tour guide guided us through the historical places. He had a strong command over the history. I was impressed by his deep routed knowledge. After some time,I separated from the group and discovered a few places on my own. Most of those places were not open for tourists. Later, Waleed joined me and I acted as his tour guide. 😝 We saw the old school and the mysterious staircase and did some duck photography.

After lunch we left for Swaik lake. We parked our bus in a ground.We had the option to either travel on Jeep or we could go on foot. All of us decided to go on foot. OMG what a terrible hiking. My feet were burning. It was my first experience. Thanks to Waleed and Madeeha for accompnying me.

At Swaik lake we had Barbeque. It’s such a beautiful place. One can’t deny the beauty of Pakistan, the serene and calming water sound with the soothing scenery made my day. We packed up at 5 and hiked back to bus and reached Lahore at 10.

I had H1N1 infection that week. Due to this infection, I had fever during the whole trip but Waleed and Wajeeha made the trip memorable for me . From bringing me breakfast to forcing me to stay at Wajeeha’s place,

From discovering new places with me in Qatas Raj to arranging medicines, from listening to my Rona dhona during hiking to having university gossips, they made it my best travel diary.

I made so many memories. From wrongly texting Wajeeha instead of Waleed to gossiping about our mentors. From making slogans for PM and PA to listening to the private discussion of some people. From faking sleep to hiding injuries. It was a wonderful experience.

I think it was about having a fun time after so much work. We should take some time off from our routine work activities and try to make ourselves comfortable. Learn new things from our environment. It helps us make a balance in our life because most of us just work and don’t take some time off from our work. That balance matters a lot.This taking some time off and going for a trip with our friends makes our life beautiful and enjoyable for us. It also helps is to be just ourselves and enjoy not some working professionals working for earning. Traveling is one of the most important things of our life and personally I Love to travel.

I learned during the fellowship and also during the visit to swaike lake that team work is very important.Because due to the team work your work efficiency and work accuracy increases.When we are on hiking I also learned that never give up because there’s always hope.

So I have plan to implement these type of activities in my professional life to maintain the balance.Because its very important to give yourself a break from professional life.You have to explore and visit the beautiful places.This balance also gives you a healthy lifestyle.