Cliff Diving At Khanpur Dam

Cliff Diving At Khanpur Dam 

By:Amaiza Ch

"Photo walk To Discover Khanpur "  

Khanpur: About 25 miles of Islamabad , Khanpur is located on Haro River which lies near Potowar plateau in Khyber Pkhtunkhwa , Pakistan. And the distance of Khanpur from Haripur is 15KM.It was constructed in 15 years with a cost of 1,352 million in 1983.

The adjoining lake of Khanpur is used for annual airborne and water borne sports Gala for Sarhad Tourism Corporations. This event is the labelled as the biggest event of Pakistan was listed to take place between 9 and 11 April 2010.

We are the adventure lovers so our class decided to go to Khanpur to beat the heat before Ramadan and they asked me to arrange the transport and asked their near one’s too if they are interested to go .but it was the exams week only we people got free so there wasn’t much girls willing to go. They desire but due to exams they stuck. Most of us was willing to go on every cost so we decided to go and divide the amount among ourselves as it wasn’t an official /professional trip. 20 of us were willing to go but before one night, 5 of them refused to come due to some reason or I can say they scared of the heavy rain fall held one night before the trip. Any how we were 15 in numbers and quit excited to go because we decided to do cliff diving out there.Each person contributed 600 rupees for transport. 

We started our journey from Fatima Jinnah Women University, Rawalpindi, and Old presidency at 8:30am.

Route: Peshawar road was the best route for us instead of going to Islamabad and come to Jhangi Syedan we went through Peshawar road and meet the Jhangi Syedan road. As it is showing in map 1:24 minutes, we reached there exact in 1:30 hour. Wasn’t any traffic after meeting the Jhanghi Syedhan point but there was a little bit of traffic in city area. After that the road is calm, more like a village. Clean, safe road but small road capacity.  

Transport: Saloon Coaster (capacity of 26-27 people)
                     we were 15

Note: if you are interesting in cliff diving then must keep extra clothes along with you.

Resort area is the best point for starting the adventure.you can even do camping at resort side and some fun games even better food facilities available out there. Resort name is Gandhara Castle hotel & resort. 

But our driver dropped us on the main gate of Khanpur dam .That was fine for us.

 There was a little dhabba out there we walked from that place and reached the main side of that area in 2 minutes which was at its back.

Different boat owners had different rates.

Note: do bargaining as much as you can because they comes to very low rate at the last and tell you very high rates in the first. It depends on people they trick them. They have no fixed rates so do bargaining. Especially if you are in numbers.  

Cliff diving rates: 700 per person after bargaining they came to 400 in which boating towards cliff and live jackets were included.

Jet skiing rates: 400 for 2 person after bargaining they came to 200 for two persons.

They gave us 40 minutes for diving you can even change your clothes before getting into the boat as there were some houses .you can pay to them and can change even after coming from cliff diving if you want to. There was 20 minutes boating towards the cliff. Water was so relaxing for body.

After coming back from the cliff towards to boating place, we did jet skiing there which was of 4-5 minutes but stunning.

We came after walking of 2 minutes to the same place where our coaster was parked at around  12:45pm. The dhaba having not such food items other than cold drinks which were not cold and some pakoras. They were asking us for Karahi   in 800 rupees but it wasn’t looks like tasty or hygienic. We decided to come back as there wasn’t any good thing to eat.

Started our journey from Khanpur to Rawalpindi at around 1:30 after having tea and pakoras.

Reached University at 3:30 pm.