On 19 June, 2014, Thursday evening I called My friend Asad Ali to make a plan for a short trip up North, on Friday evening we finalized a plan to visit Shogran and Siri Paye. To our pleasure, Zohaib Akram also joined us for the trip. We left Pindi on Saturday morning at 0930 hrs on my Suzuki Khyber, upon reaching Hasan Abdal we changed our destination and instead of turning towards Abbottabad we got on M1 from Burhan and selected Chitral as our destination. Then started a looooooong journey, full of fun, jokes, pictures, zillions of potholes, stones etc after getting off from the M-1 at Rashakai, we headed for Dir, via Malakand, Batkhela, Chakdara and Timergara. We stopped for Lunch at Timergara and ate a traditional Chicken Karahi cooked in charbi. We arrived at Dir later in the evening and stopped there for about 20-25 minutes and then resumed our journey. At Dir we were told by a few people that we wouldn't be able to make it to Chitral on the khyber, even then we continued our journey undeterred After a little while the metalled road finished and so began the perilous journey, for about a good 5 hours the car was driven on a horrible jeep-able track. This patch is no doubt a nightmare for cars, the only cars we saw plying on the route were Non Custom Paid (NCP) Toyota Corolla station wagons (models 1987-1994), the rest were 4x4s, trucks and coasters. We reached the Lowari Tunnel at about 2015 hrs and were told that the tunnel is closed for traffic owing to ongoing drilling in the tunnel. But we requested the Chitral Scouts men deployed at the tunnel and owing to some reason they were kind enough to entertain our request, we were allowed to use the 9 KM tunnel which saved us almost 1.5 hours. We travelled, travelled and travelled and travelled for ages through Darosh, Kesu and reached Chitral city at 0100 hrs on Sunday. We wanted to visit Shandur but couldn?t as it was the last day of the festival and it wasn?t possible to reach Shandur prior to the closing ceremony, so we hired a NCP corolla station wagon and headed for Kalash (Bamborat) aka Kafiristan, spent almost an entire day wandering here and there looking at the sceneries, taking loads n loads of pictures. Learnt a lot about the culture of the Kalashi people. In the evening we returned back to the city loitered about and had a tea break in the lawn of Chitral Scouts HQ Officers' Mess. On Monday we did a little shopping and visited Chitral Gol National Park near Haart. There is an old palace situated on the top which was closed but we managed taking a few pics with its exterior and enjoyed the beauty of nature from that top. The track towards this point was quite dangerous and tricky. In the evening we returned to the city, enjoyed some time on the bank of Chitral river and headed back to the Mess. The following morning i.e Tuesday we started for pindi at about 0600 hrs. On reaching the lowari tunnel we again requested for passage through the tunnel but we weren't allowed as blasting was in process, so we had to come via Lowari Top, which was a blessing in disguise, otherwise we would have missed the awesome scenic beauty of the area. On a couple of places on the track water flows from the mountain and crosses the track. At one such place while attempting to cross the water the car got stuck in the rocks. The water level was quite high and in no time the water started coming in the car?s cabin, I then realized how the passengers of titanic must have felt when it was sinking My friends immediately jumped out of the windows and started to push the car. The water in the car had reached to the level of the pedals, the accelerator, clutch and brake were now under water L and we could see a few things (like my hand sanitizer, empty weapers etc) floating in the cabin. But my faithful car didn?t let us down and the engine kept on roaring despite the water in its silencer. We got the car out of the water and spent the next half hour getting the water out of the car. We literally had to use a mug (improvised from an engine oil bottle) to get the water out of the car. This was the only hiccup in our journey, the journey has further strengthened the bond my car and I share. We reached Pindi at about quarter past 9. It was one memorable trip to say the least J . Now its time for me to shut up and the pictures to start talking.
Lowari Top