Is Murree worth visiting?

Murree is Pakistan’s favourite mountain resort town, or at least it was until recently. At the border of Punjab, Kashmir and Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa, it is just 90 minutes drive from the capital Islamabad. As a result is the most easily accessible mountain resort from the dusty populated cities of Rawalpindi, Lahore and Faisalabad.

To understand why Pakistanis go to Murree, you need to understand what place Murree and ‘hill stations’ (mountain resorts) hold in the Pakistani psyche. To the average outsider, Murree seems like a fairly uninspiring hilltop town where there’s not whole lot to do. To a lot of Pakistanis, however, Murree is a cold-climate escape from the sweaty cities of Punjab – at 2,200m, the climate is noticeably cooler. In fact, during the British Raj, Murree was the preferred getaway for the colonialists stationed at Rawalpindi.

(Image: Google)

As a result, Murree has long gained a reputation in the Pakistani psyche as a sort of ‘little Britain’, and it’s not hard to see why;

A church in Murree Cantt.

Murree Cantt.

Parts of Murree, in particular the Murree Cantonment (known locally as Murree Cantt.) look quite a bit like a traditional English village – postboxes and all. Combined with temperatures like 22 degrees Celsius maximum in the summer (as opposed to 42 in Lahore and Islamabad), Murree offers a getaway not just from home, but from Pakistan – a taste of abroad for people who might never get the chance to go abroad.

This has inevitably led to Murree becoming overpopulated and overdeveloped – it’s not so much a hill station anymore, as a sprawling town that is on the verge of becoming a city.

Murree nowadays

The locals of Murree have seen their quaint hill station transform over the years, and there have been social changes too. With direct bus services from Lahore, Faisalabad and Multan, the past five years have seen an influx of all sorts of people, including many who have treated Murree as a party town – Pakistan’s Ibiza, or Kuta, if you like. The backlash was equally severe, just a few months ago, with amateur videos emerging on social media of vendors in Murree shouting abuse, or even physically attacking visiting families. In April 2018 a #BoycottMurree trend began online. Whether a boycott is justified or not is another debate – and not for this blog today.

Whether you choose to visit Murree or not is up to you – I recently visited Murree and had a good time, but invariably foreigners get treated better than locals in most parts of Pakistan (it’s that old colonial mindset at work). Perhaps, post boycott, locals are making the extra effort to regain some the trust of visitors, or perhaps things were never that bad to begin with. The hotel owners still drive a hard bargain – make of that what you will (because I’m a foreigner, because they still want the money, because they are like business people anywhere…)

Mall Road, Murree

For the average foreign visitor, Murree is an easy way to see a bit of the famed mountains of Pakistan within a short drive of a major city – no need to get your hands dirty. It is pretty, no doubt…

…but you might also ask yourself if this is really so fascinating when you can see places like this in your home country. Murree might provide a pleasant break from mainstream Pakistan, especially if you are travelling during summer, when the heat can be prohibitively draining. You can sample some of the local culture; dried fruits and woven shawls are some of the specialties of this region…

Dried fruit seller, Murree

…but then they are much more authentic, and the shopping experience less commercialised, in other places not too much further afield (like Nathia Gali, and even the Kaghan Valley). There are lots of parts of Murree that look gorgeous, like this old convent, for example, still operating from the British era;

…but then a lot of Murree also looks like this…

…overbuilt and crowded, with everything you could possibly want at your fingertips. You could visit, and take the good with the bad. You could search out the excellent people-watching opportunities (Pakistan’s Ibiza, don’t forget), and appreciate its weirdly calm, frozen-in-time colonial charm. You could enjoy the convenience, and the respite from the heat – or, if you’re visiting in winter, enjoy the occasional snowfall. Or you could head elsewhere to more mind-blowing scenery and culture such as in Hunza.

Have you been to Murree? What did you think of it? Is it worth the visit? Comment below!