It requires both a mighty heart and impeccable skills to drive a loaded heavy truck on the unpaved, rutted and curvy road in the mountainous Lowari Top. Fazl Wahid has got both heart and skills, but the road still scares him.

Every time his loaded truck rumbles up the precipitous track, even squeaks of the truck parts agonises him. Under heavy load, the squeaks grow so frightening that he feels as if the truck is going to break into pieces. Every tilt on ruts worries him for abrupt end of his life.

Fazl Wahid undergoes this agony every minute during the journey on the road. Negotiating every sharp curve brings to his mind how life could be uncertain.

“I must be mad that I have been driving loaded truck on the road that is the most dangerous in Pakistan,” he cursed himself. He said that every time he left home for the trip, he doubted to be back alive.

“I spent most part of my 30-year driving life on road to Chitral,” said the 54-year-old driver while waiting for his turn as other Chitral-bound trucks were being loaded in Dir, trying to persuade the goods company’s manager to send him out of turn.

The road from Dir to Chitral is one of the most dangerous routes, particularly for heavy trucks supplying goods to the area.

The road winds up and then snakes down steep hillsides in Lowari Pass, with dangerous hairpin and looping curves. Snowfall and ice in early winter turns the road slippery, forcing truck drivers to mount snow chains on the tyres of their vehicles. In warmer weather, melting snow muddies the dirt track, making it treacherous.

In the worst period of winter, the route is blocked to traffic by heavy snowfall at Lowari for four months. Subsequently, Chitral remains cut-off from other parts of the country from December to March.

The the rocky track of Lowari Top, being 10,400 feet above the sea level, seems to be soaring into the sky to surmount it. Negotiating the sharp and rutted curves, with frightening views of valleys, requires a brave heart, unerring skills, utmost patience and strong muscles.

When a loaded truck approaches a hairpin curve, its engine roars in low gear. The whirring sound of the engine becomes irregular and frequent whistles, indicating the use of brakes, fill the air.

The truck struggles to snake almost 180 degree in the sloping and mostly muddy bends. It deals with 45 such turns that meander like a creeping giant snake on the hillside.

“We move as slow as an ant. The truck tilts from side to side on the rocky and rutted surface and in curves, and that’s killing me without actually killing me,” Fazl Wahid said of the stress during the journey. “And the squeaks of truck parts caused by weight make me feel as if it is dismembering.”

Interviews with truck drivers provide an interesting peek into the state of their mind when they deal with dangers. A western documentary describes the road in Lowari as one of the most dangerous for trucks.

“It’s not driving, it’s wrestling with the steering wheel,” said another driver Khalil Khan, who like most others drives the truck that doesn’t have the hydraulic steering.

Fazl Wahid said that excessive turning of the loaded truck’s wheel numbed his arms.

Jalil Jan would have never driven a truck on this dangerous road if he had no financial constraints. “When I return from the trip, I feel as if my body parts are coming off,” he said of the tiredness caused by the 110-km journey covered in 13 hours. “I writhe and wail in pain.”

The drivers say that the road runs through uninhibited area that frightens some of them, particularly at night. The myth goes that ghosts haunt the road at night and their scary shouts echo in the mountains, terrifying the drivers.

Fazl Wahid does not believe in it, terming it just a fairytale. “I think these shouts are howls of wild animals and rustling of tree leaves,” he said.

If a vehicle develops any fault in these deserted mountains, there is no way to fix it and there is no way for drivers and cleaners to get food. If the trucks with freights, they say, break down at night or in cold weather it turns into a nightmare for them.

The drivers have to work as labourers, according to them, on the road when flash floods wash away the track, as there is hardly any sign of government machinery.

Several streams, without a culvert or bridge, cross the road at different places from Dir to Chitral and due to its bad condition the drivers liken it to dry riverbed.

While drivers sit behind the wheel, the cleaners walk or run along the trucks to remove rocks or put stone behind the truck tyres to stop them from going backward or forward under heavy weight on steep portions. “The poor cleaner shudders of cold if we make the trip in winter,” said Khalil Khan.

Not only drivers, truck owners and businessmen have their share of the stress. “If my mobile phone buzzes at a time when my trucks are on the road, my heartbeat increases. I pray not to receive news about fault or in the worst case about accident,” said Mohammad Zada, an owner of two trucks.

Wholesale dealers in Dir, who supply goods to Chitral, say that they are not free of tension either. “Though no burden in case of accidents, yet we are not exonerated from our responsibility. Our clients pressure us to rent good-conditioned trucks and skillful drivers to ensure safe supply of goods,” said Mohammad Yar, who supplies edibles. “We face the stress daily. This Lowari Top has made our lives miserable.”

An 8.86 kilometres long Lowari tunnel has been drilled at Lowari to bypass the dangerous top.

But large trucks are not allowed to go through it, as its finishing is still tying it up.

Despite being dangerous, Fazl Wahid finds driving on the track adventurous. “At times, there is a thrilling feeling to take on this adventure. It tests your skills every time and it thrills you when you complete the journey. Sometimes, I ask the trainee driver to sit behind the wheel and I go to the roof above the driver’s seat. It fascinates me when I see the enchanting snow-capped mountains and witness the truck passing through woods,” he added.

Published in Dawn October 4th, 2015

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