Truck driver’s tough life on the road

Damar Jang Gurung drives a lorry as far as Qatar on delivery runs. A veteran of many desert crossings and border posts, he comes prepared with bedding and cooking supplies.

For Damar Jang Gurung, a 50-year-old lorry driver from Nepal, his vehicle is his home. Ravindranath K / The National

ABU DHABI // For 10 years, Damar Jang Gurung’s lorry has been his home away from home. The Nepalese national has endured many sleepless nights trying to get some rest in his cab during one of his long-distance delivery runs.

When he is not behind the wheel driving from the UAE to as far away as Qatar, the 50-year-old prepares his meals on the side of the motorway and bathes at service stations, or roadside mosques.

“This lorry is my home,” says Mr Gurung, who has a room at the Workers’ Village in Musaffah, but hardly spends more than six days a month there.

“Our job is not an office job from 9am to 4pm.”

Life on the road is monotonous, and he often struggles with drowsiness as he rumbles down desert highways and through sparsely populated towns across the GCC to reach his destination on time.

“Due to our odd duties and working hours, we get sleep of only six or seven hours a day,” Mr Gurung says.

“Our job is 24 hours – any time we can get an order to load goods.”

Lorry drivers are under constant pressure to deliver their goods on time and return home for the next job.

“My lorry’s top speed is 80 kilometres per hour. The speed limit is locked at 80 – we can’t go beyond that. Waiting for clearance at the border can be the biggest problem. It takes too much time. Sometimes, it might take up to 10 days if documents are not in order. But generally it takes between two and three days at the Saudi border,” he says.

Downtime at the border is spent cooking or sleeping. He keeps a pillow and a mattress in his lorry, as well as supplies such as rice, vegetables and spices along with a small gas stove.

“I prefer to cook my own food. I don’t like restaurant food as they cook in bulk and it is not tasty,” Mr Gurung says.

Border inspectors examine cargo documents and vehicles, a slow and laborious process that can result in hundreds of vehicles queuing to cross.

“We reach the Saudi border in five to six hours, but we have to drive up to 2,000km inside the kingdom to reach Qatar,” he says.

Mr Gurung, who has two daughters and a son, earns a monthly salary of Dh1,950 excluding commissions, which can reach up to Dh3,000.

However, how much he is paid depends on the number of trips he can fit into a month. He usually hauls shipping containers filled with iron goods, pipes, steel products and aluminium items.

Each month he transfers 100,000 Nepalese rupees (Dh3,459) to his family to pay for their health care, education and daily expenses.

Although safety is his No 1 priority, other road users are a constant worry. “Small cars are a threat to us. When they wrongly enter the lanes, we can’t see them and can’t manoeuvre as they do,” he says.

But he resists the temptation to overtake other slow-moving lorries for fear of being fined.

“If we are found overtaking, a fine of Dh10,000 will be levied on us. Many drivers are fined,” Mr Gurung says