Endowed with natural beauty in abundance, Chitral is a tourist’s haven
Chitral takes you by surprise. As the vehicle takes a final turn to enter the city, Chitral surprises you through its rugged mountains in the north-western region of the country. And this at a point in time when a weary traveller has been finally acclimatized to believing that life is but an infinite series of hairpin bends leading nowhere.
So when the road flattens into a ravine-like valley, designed as nature’s own citadel against external forces, the feel of crash-landing into a no man’s land is not to be taken lightly. For as you sweep into the linear city perched on the banks of the roaring Kunar river that cuts through towering mountains backed by even more towering snowcapped peaks, the crash-landing into human habitation after miles and hours of bumpy roads opens new vistas for human beings: life can go on with great harmony even in places that are so far away from civilization.
But, of course, there is PIA as well, if you want to take it easy. Situated at an elevation of 1,128 metres, Chitral city, which is the hub of the entire valley and in a sense the most modern habitation amid the Trichmir peaks, can also be reached by daily flights. Which, to be polite, is what road travellers call the ‘sissy’ way to brave it. For the more adventurous, it is the travel by road that is a more worthwhile experience. Indeed, the drive from the cosmopolitan Islamabad through the Malakand Pass, the breather at Timargarah, the brush with Dir, the thrill ride over the Lowari Pass to finally descend into Chitral, is an experience that has to be savoured at least once in a lifetime. At the end of the day, there is always our local airlines to ferry the travel-weary tourist back to Islamabad after a connecting flight from Peshawar.
The adventure starts as the vehicle diverts off the main Islamabad-Peshawar road at Nowshehra to meander into the rural hinterland of the Frontier province. The landscape begins to sport signs of harshness, growing progressively more barren as some miles are lapped up. Subsequently, the vernacular too meanders into the harsher dialects spoken in the area. Macho Pathan men and their heavy vehicles rule the roads as women’s visibility diminishes to a neat negative.
After the bustling township of Mardan, which is common to Chitral and Swat routes, the road forks left for Charsadda, Takht Bhai and Dargai, the only mentionable towns that side of the divide. The changing hues of the landscape are small forewarnings of what lies ahead as traffic weaves itself through the Malakand Pass. The pass is today a much traffic-laden route through a rocky mountainous terrain, with literally not a drop of water in sight.
Timargarah is to be reached after anything from eight to nine hours of driving from Islamabad and is quite the best resting ground for a night’s stay. Home to the Frontier Constabulary, the settlement overlooks Dir, the civilian town cut through by the Panjkora River. Here, the slightly broadened valley offers a breathing space which subsequently becomes a luxury as the mountains draw closer to the road after Timargarah.
Sufficiently refreshed by the night’s stay at Timargarah, it is with a revitalization of spirit that one loads into the vehicle for the second and final part of the two-day journey into Chitral and the land of the Kalash, those fabled descendants of Alexander’s Macedonian generals. The current residence cum office of the DCO Panakot, a small administrative set-up two and a half hours from Timargarah with its adjoining annex, is a lovely tea time stop before tackling the hairpin bends and ruggedness of the Lowari Pass that looms ahead. Formerly the property of the ruler of Dir, the Panakot DCO’s residence-cum-office overlooks a narrow tree-laden valley with homesteads tucked into the slopes. Tourists would be well advised to savour deeply the greenery which, after an hour’s drive, will become a thing of the past. The Lowari Pass is another country. And rightly so.
The three-hour drive from Panakot to the Lowari Top, which is at a height of 3,118 metres, is sheer drama. The river waters disappear into somewhere. The mountains become menacingly barren. The road as it rises up a steady incline, almost diminishes into a single track barely broad enough to stretch an arm lest you brush a muscle against the mountains on either side. The top itself is a forlorn space — marked by the presence of a lone sentry of the Frontier Constabulary sipping tea, which probably takes more then an hour to brew because of the height.
High drama indeed. Bare mountain cliffs all around with not a blade of grass in sight. The mid-day sun shines relentlessly, making the savouring of this highest spot in the Lowari Pass a bare courtesy call. This is El Dorado indeed as 180-degree turn will make you lord and master of all you gaze at — the top of the world with not a single peak higher than your hairline.
From the Lowari Top it is downhill all the way to Chitral. It is then that travelling by a four-wheel drive makes sense as the vehicle groans through at least five hours of a second and first-gear drive. The more mathematically inclined tourist may start off happily counting the hairpin bends, but most lose count after the fortieth bend. Then it is a case of breathless swirls in tune with the wheels of the vehicle on a road which at best can be described as a jeep track. Private vehicles are a rare sight but heavily loaded trucks do ply the road. Weather conditions do not permit a metalled road, though the government of Pakistan is once again gathering the pieces of the once-designed and planned Lowari weather roadmap. Happy will be the day when that happens, but then that will also be when the adventure ends.
Chitral city is reached after a good 10-hour drive from the time you say goodbye to Timargarah. But it is good to see a bustling civilization that boasts a social and administrative order not to be found anywhere else in the country. And the Chitralis are proud of this.
Chitral city is also the take-off point for Shandur which hosts the world famous Polo Festival every year in the first week of July. Tourists and Polo enthusiasts from all over the world camp in the Shandur area during that week to witness what is indeed an ancient day wonder in the contemporary world. Just as one road from Chitral city weaves towards Shandur, another hour’s drive will take you to Garam Chashma. Literally meaning warm waters, the natural spring water is said to possess remarkable healing properties and is as hot to the touch as it bubbles out of the rocks that unwary adventurers can suffer a burnt hand.
The drive to Gram Chashma is also adventure-filled as the rocky track forces its way through towering peaks lying at the foot of the 7,705-metre high Trichmir, a favourite of mountaineers. All along small green settlements appear to sprout out of the mountain sides and become a sight for sore eyes.
Slightly claustrophobic, one way of savouring the adventure is to look out the rear window every few turns. The result is a feel of total isolation as the mountains appear to close in on the vehicles trail; but the isolation becomes a thing of the past as every few kilometres little school children, boys and girls, wave you down for a lift as they return home. Giggling and laughing, their radiant skins glowing under the hot sun, they appear to take every thing in their stride — the heat, the non-availability of water and the fact that home may be a few kilometres up a mountainside.
Suffice it to say that Chitral and its surrounding areas provide an adventure of a lifetime.
Endowed with natural beauty in abundance, Chitral is a tourist’s haven 
Timargarah is to be reached after anything from eight to nine hours of driving from Islamabad and is quite the best resting ground for a night’s stay. Home to the Frontier Constabulary, the settlement overlooks Dir, the civilian town cut through by the Panjkora River. Here, the slightly broadened valley offers a breathing space which subsequently becomes a luxury as the mountains draw closer to the road after Timargarah.
Chitral city is reached after a good 10-hour drive from the time you say goodbye to Timargarah. But it is good to see a bustling civilization that boasts a social and administrative order not to be found anywhere else in the country. And the Chitralis are proud of this.
