Sitting on a bus bound for Kandahar did not put me in the best of moods. I wasn't looking forward to sleeping on an overcrowded floor in Kandahar and I wasn't done with Herat yet. Had I been healthy and strong there I would have seen and done more , but I wasn't. Time was running out on my visa and I had no real guide book to help me locate the immigration office. Jacques and I had found an old Lonely Planet Central Asia guide book at a guest house in Pakistan and copied some pages, but everything in it was old, out dated and inaccurate, so I had no idea whether or not I could extend my visa in Herat. I accepted the situation though and put my "shield up." That's what I call it when I kind of flip a switch in my head and become numb and separated from everything going on around me, even on an overcrowded bus or in a tightly packed train or bus station. My way of dealing with an uncomfortable situation.
After a few hours I saw the first American soldiers yet. A small convoy of Humvees patrolling the middle of a hill, with one parked at the top and another parked at the bottom. Up until now, I had only seen Italians and met a few Kiwi soldiers. I guess it makes sense since I spent all of my time in the middle of the country and it was relatively safe there. I took this to mean that we were getting into the war zone. I found the roads to be half way decent too, not good, but they were roads at least. Luckily as you do on a long bus ride, I became hypnotized by the passing scenery. I was tempted to listen to some music, but I would have stuck out too much. I didn't know who was on the bus with me, but I did know I was leaving the "safe zone" within Afghanistan. No more Taliban hating Hazaras around as a built in safety net. I was heading into an area that shows strong support for the Taliban and as great as all the Afghans had treated me, now I needed to be careful about looking like a tourist.
We got into Kandahar around sunset. From the window seat on the bus, I had been soaking up as much of Kandahar as I could and for a minute I wished I could stay and check it out. I wasn't able to notice any land marks though. With dusty streets and beat up buildings it just seemed to be a sloppy city and not one that sticks out in any particular way, in this region of the world anyway. When we got off the bus, they started handing everyone their luggage, since we would be sleeping there. But, I didn't want my backpack at all. It's an alien thing there and it had a few patches of flags sewn onto it... Lebanon, Nepal and Dengue. Pretty much telling everyone that I'm not from there! I carried it inside as quickly as possible and threw it under a window, since it would be a hot night.
No one seemed to notice anything though, in the general madness, everyone was taking care of themselves. Between pushing to find their luggage, securing a place to put it where they would also sleep that night and swarming to wash up with hoses, in the hot parking lot, I seemed to blend right in. I laid down with my head resting on my backpack exhausted from sickness, until the sun went down, then I discreetly went out and washed up too. When I came back in dinner was being served. What an operation! At least 100 people (more than one bus had stopped for the night) were packed into that small Chai Khana and everyone was being served at the same time. I sat down just in time to get my food which I tried hard to eat, but I had no appetite at all. I was still very sick and had forced myself to swallow a few mouthfuls.
After we finished our small pots of green tea and rolled up the eating mats I was ready for bed. It seemed that I was the only one tired though and I struggled to clear enough floor space to lay my turban (which was my bed) out. By the time I finally had laid it out and sat down on it, weak and ready for sleep, two bearded men sat directly across from me. I wasn't very comfortable anyway, there were a lot of people around me talking and very close by, but the two men sitting across from me were unsettling. It was obvious that they were staring at me and all of their attention was focused on me. While that's not uncommon, these two people didn't look friendly or happy at all. I noticed big daggers, seemingly deliberately visible, under each of their shalwar kameez. It wasn't instant, but it didn't take me long to suspect that they may both be Taliban.
I had met a few Taliban in Pakistan, but luckily they were getting off of a bus and I was getting onto it. They were angrily questioning me, but they knew I really had to get on the bus that was leaving and didn't bother me much. Beside that short encounter, I knew a few things about the Taliban. First, the word Talib means student and Taliban means students. When they took control of Afghanistan (with the exception of the northern part of the country, thanks to the Northern Alliance) one of their first laws was that men had to grow a beard. They wanted every man to have at least a fist full of beard hair, measured from their chin out. Secondly, they were easily identifiable by their long black turbans (together with their beards), sometimes kind of shiny. I hear they are changing their turbans now to avoid easy detection, but the two sitting in the room with me fit that exact description and I was in Kandahar. That realization got my adrenalin going and my heart thumping, suddenly I wasn't very tired!
Their puzzled, slightly unfriendly expressions quickly turned to blatant dislike! I made eye contact and nodded my head upwards questioningly and they quickly fired a few questions at me. Over the past 19 months of continuous travel I had been in many positions that in a round about way, had prepared me for this, but never with angry Taliban. It's a fairly common routine and basically consists of non-English speaking people asking loads of questions, which over time I had come to understand simply from the amount of times I'd been asked the same questions. They were usually curious, friendly and harmless people, that was the huge difference here. Still I was good at playing dumb when I wanted to. So, as they rattled off question after question, I stayed outwardly calm and kept saying I don't understand. They seemed to be loosing patience and one got up, presumably, to look for someone who knew some English. Strangely, by the time the Talib came back with someone else, I was no longer nervous. The man they had found walked up to me and I stood to greet him with a hand over my heart and an "Asalam a lakem".
Interpreter number 1 stood still in front of me for a minute, then searching for words, asked "how", "hello" and "where" and that was all he could spit out. I wasn't about to connect any dots for them! As long as I felt safe and they didn't find a better interpreter than that, I would be completely clueless. With a serious, friendly expression I told them I don't understand. Frustrated, the same Talib walked the man away only to return a couple of minutes later with someone else. I repeated the same greeting with interpreter number two, but this time he spoke much better English and it would have been understandable to anyone who spoke English. He started off by asking what religion I was. In the west it's easy to say none, or that you're an atheist, but with the exception of Judaism, that's the worst answer you could give. I knew that already and didn't hesitate to tell them I'm Christian. Evening prayers came and went and I didn't participate, so they knew I wasn't Muslim.
With that admission, I confirmed what the the Taliban had suspected all along. I was a Christian, a foreigner, I was dressed in their clothes, had dark skin and a beard twice as long as theirs, but was not a Muslim. I was a believer in the book, but not in Allah, or the Prophet Muhammad and now they wanted to know where I was from and what I was doing here. They looked at each other with a mixture of excitement and disgust. It was obvious once they realized I couldn't understand their language, and they probably spoke more than one, that I wasn't from Afghanistan, but now they would find out what country I was from and why I was there. If they found out I was American, or even from a NATO country, it would be bad, I wasn't about to let that happen. The same way traveling for a year and a half straight had prepared me for their opening questions, it had also prepared me for my next line of questioning. After getting grilled in Nepal almost a year before this (on my Lang Tang trek) about the country I claimed to be from, I felt prepared and ready for the onslaught of questions that were sure to come.
As I tried to control my breathing and look outwardly calm, I was trembling. In a way I think the fact that I was so sick, helped me. I was too tired and sick to be as afraid as I should have, or would have been, when fully healthy. I smiled and complimented my interrogator on his English, no matter what was to happen, he was not my enemy. He thanked me and continued translating their questions - " What country are you from?" "Why are you in Kandahar?" "Where did your bus come from?". I already knew what I was going to say, that was an easy decision, but knowing how they would react was nerve wracking. I had no time to second guess myself, without hesitation I said "I'm from Dengue. I took this bus from Herat and it is continuing to Kabul tomorrow. I am only in Kandahar for one night." They seemed not to hear anything after Dengue. "What is Dengue they said through their interpreter?" It's my country, my home, I said. "What is Dengue? Where is it?" In between Swaziland and Lesotho, in South Africa, I answered and slowly reached around to uncover my backpack for proof. "There" I pointed. In between the other two patches was a flag of Dengue, the patch I designed and had made and sewn onto my backpack in Kathmandu, about a year before.
"Africa!" They all said and curiously they all seemed a little relieved. Although it answered their initial question, this confused them as well, they had never heard of Dengue, but could see right in front of them that the country existed, I had a flag. A small discussion began and the interpreter seemed to have no answers for them. Cleverly they asked me for my passport and I took a page from my encounter in Nepal. "It's in the Pakistani embassy in Kabul. I'm getting a visa for Pakistan." They all seemed to nod their heads in approval, then warmly and with both hands gripped their interpreters outstretched arm, the way they shake hands and sent him back to his family on the other side of the Chai Khana. The interpreter then wished me a safe journey and disappeared into the warm, heaving mass of people that overflowed from the undersized building.
I put my hand over my heart and smiled at the two Taliban. As the Adrenaline left my body, I laid back and was thankful that I was suddenly exhausted. I hoped for sleep, but was kept awake by the need to keep an eye on those two men who slept at my feet. That night I would get no sleep until they disappeared in early hours of the morning. Instead I would think about how lucky I was to get out of that situation. How blessed I was to still be on that floor, in that Chai Khana, sick and dehydrated and on my own, but safe... how happy I was that Dengue saved my life...
Friday, April 17, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Herat at last!
Waking up in Herat felt a lot like heaven, laid back and calm. After the torturous drive we had just endured and the lack of choice when it came to food, since leaving Kabul, we could now stretch, walk and eat at will. Lined with trees, almost every city block offered a different restaurant and there were street stalls everywhere for quick, tasty treats. I was way too excited to notice how sick I had become. Since drinking bad water way back in Pakistan, I was steadily becoming sicker and sicker. I became more aware of it while being stuck in a vehicle for three straight days, but after a while, it just seems normal in a way and you forget that it can be potentially dangerous.
The only down side to that first day was not having Stefan around. When we arrived the day before, it was the last day to enter Iran, according to Stefan's visa. Jacques didn't seem to have the same restrictions or rules on his visa, so Stefan left alone. We missed having him around, but we were quickly distracted and ended up being invited into more than one restaurant to sip free tea, or Super Cola. The people were eager to meet foreigners and try out their English phrases. I, being a coffee junkie, popped into the first shop/bakery I saw and asked doubtfully about coffee. Ali, the well educated and friendly shop keeper, told me as if apologizing, that there is no coffee in Herat. He then turned around to one of the shelves behind him and pulled down a bottle of Thai instant coffee. He told Jacques and I that if we wanted to have a seat, he would make us a cup of instant coffee, for free! I'm a coffee snob, but i have to admit, I was excited. A few minutes later we were sitting in his bakery drinking coffee and eating sweets! It seemed as if things couldn't get better!
After more exploration and a visit to the beautiful Mosque, I met up with Shu, who was travelling with his Chinese passport. He was on his way to the Iranian embassy to ask about a visa, so I thought I would give it one more try. At the gate to the embassy was a guard post, a cement box with an Iranian officials head sticking out. There was a line of people on the side walk all the way down to the end of the block. We decided to just ask the guy with his head poking out if they issued visa's there. He asked for our passports and when he saw mine in my hand, I was instantly denied. It was worth one more try and I would rather that happen then them take my money and make me wait. Shu got his visa in 10 minutes! The American passport must be the worst passport to travel with...
The next morning I struggled to get off of the floor of my ChaiKhana, but I forced myself, I had to say goodbye to Jacques and Shu. They were heading into what felt like the promised land, Iran and I was gonna miss them. I met Jacques in India, 10 months before, and bumped into him two more times before we agreed to meet up (a few months from then) and travel together in Pakistan. He was a true friend and I didn't want to say goodbye, but I knew from traveling enough that it was going to happen sometime and I had gotten used to saying my goodbyes. I also really wished I could enter Iran with them, I've heard only good things about traveling in Iran and I can't help but wonder how long I'll have to wait until I CAN enter. As soon as they left our little, empty room (just floor space with a lockable door), as if instant loneliness robbed me of my strength, I collapsed. I had spent the whole night waking up and at first running to the toilet, but after two or three trips, I struggled to even get up. Lightheaded and dizzy I almost passed out on the rest of the walks to the bathroom. Now I lay face down, on the floor in a pool of sweat.
In between my psychedelic dreams I soon realized I was dehydrated and had a high fever! I felt the need to run to the toilet, but I couldn't pick myself up off of the floor. I awoke on the toilet only to discover that I was peeing blood. I figured out quickly though, that it wasn't blood, but severe lack of water that turned my urine a dark orange color! Eventually I got a little strength back by drinking a packet of re hydration powder mixed with the rest of my water. So there I was, on the Afghan Iran border, sick and now completely alone. I've traveled alone a lot and I'm completely comfortable with myself, but it's a different thing being alone, that sick, in a country at war.
It took nine days to get to Herat from just Band-e Amir and I had only 5 days left on my visa. I had been trying to travel by land (no flying) from Malaysia to France, but there was definitely no way through Iran (legally) and my idea of going through Turkmenistan, across the Caspian Sea and into Azerbaijan was unrealistic at this point, logistically and physically. So, I had very few options, as far as where to go after Afghanistan and what to do from Herat. The only real road to Kabul is in the shape of a V, from Herat in the west, to Kandahar in the south, then up to Kabul in the east. The one thing I knew about Afghanistan before I entered was to stay away from Kandahar! All the battles were being fought in the south and in the south east and I wanted no part of that kind of drama!
After looking around and asking people (as best I could) I found a 48 hour, direct bus to Kabul. No stopping along the way and waiting for the next vehicle and no getting dumped out in Kandahar and having to find another bus to Kabul. It sounded okay, minimal risk. As long as I didn't open my mouth, no one should know I'm a foreigner. From my beard to my clothes and my sandals, I could pass for an Afghan. Only two things bothered me. First, my long hair. A lot of Taliban have long hair depending on there region, but nowhere near as long as mine. Secondly and worst of all, I would have to stop in Kandahar, eat dinner and then sleep there until the morning, when we would all get back on the bus to Kabul. The people are so extreme there and the Taliban have such influence there still, that Pakistan claims Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Mohammed Omar (aka Commander of the Faithful) are hiding there. Weather they're there, or anyone even believes Pakistan's claims, is irrelevant, it's a bad enough place for Pakistan to make those claims and it's not a place you want to spend the night.
But, in my state of delirium, I bought the tickets. For 600 Afghans ($12) I would be in Kabul in 48 hours, just enough time to look around for a flight to Istanbul, Turkey. That way I would only skip one country (Iran) by air. I was nervous, but too sick to really care about the risk. So, I bought some water, zipped my lips and got on a bus bound for Kabul, via Kandahar. I would get to Kabul safely I thought, Insh'Allah!
The only down side to that first day was not having Stefan around. When we arrived the day before, it was the last day to enter Iran, according to Stefan's visa. Jacques didn't seem to have the same restrictions or rules on his visa, so Stefan left alone. We missed having him around, but we were quickly distracted and ended up being invited into more than one restaurant to sip free tea, or Super Cola. The people were eager to meet foreigners and try out their English phrases. I, being a coffee junkie, popped into the first shop/bakery I saw and asked doubtfully about coffee. Ali, the well educated and friendly shop keeper, told me as if apologizing, that there is no coffee in Herat. He then turned around to one of the shelves behind him and pulled down a bottle of Thai instant coffee. He told Jacques and I that if we wanted to have a seat, he would make us a cup of instant coffee, for free! I'm a coffee snob, but i have to admit, I was excited. A few minutes later we were sitting in his bakery drinking coffee and eating sweets! It seemed as if things couldn't get better!
After more exploration and a visit to the beautiful Mosque, I met up with Shu, who was travelling with his Chinese passport. He was on his way to the Iranian embassy to ask about a visa, so I thought I would give it one more try. At the gate to the embassy was a guard post, a cement box with an Iranian officials head sticking out. There was a line of people on the side walk all the way down to the end of the block. We decided to just ask the guy with his head poking out if they issued visa's there. He asked for our passports and when he saw mine in my hand, I was instantly denied. It was worth one more try and I would rather that happen then them take my money and make me wait. Shu got his visa in 10 minutes! The American passport must be the worst passport to travel with...
The next morning I struggled to get off of the floor of my ChaiKhana, but I forced myself, I had to say goodbye to Jacques and Shu. They were heading into what felt like the promised land, Iran and I was gonna miss them. I met Jacques in India, 10 months before, and bumped into him two more times before we agreed to meet up (a few months from then) and travel together in Pakistan. He was a true friend and I didn't want to say goodbye, but I knew from traveling enough that it was going to happen sometime and I had gotten used to saying my goodbyes. I also really wished I could enter Iran with them, I've heard only good things about traveling in Iran and I can't help but wonder how long I'll have to wait until I CAN enter. As soon as they left our little, empty room (just floor space with a lockable door), as if instant loneliness robbed me of my strength, I collapsed. I had spent the whole night waking up and at first running to the toilet, but after two or three trips, I struggled to even get up. Lightheaded and dizzy I almost passed out on the rest of the walks to the bathroom. Now I lay face down, on the floor in a pool of sweat.
In between my psychedelic dreams I soon realized I was dehydrated and had a high fever! I felt the need to run to the toilet, but I couldn't pick myself up off of the floor. I awoke on the toilet only to discover that I was peeing blood. I figured out quickly though, that it wasn't blood, but severe lack of water that turned my urine a dark orange color! Eventually I got a little strength back by drinking a packet of re hydration powder mixed with the rest of my water. So there I was, on the Afghan Iran border, sick and now completely alone. I've traveled alone a lot and I'm completely comfortable with myself, but it's a different thing being alone, that sick, in a country at war.
It took nine days to get to Herat from just Band-e Amir and I had only 5 days left on my visa. I had been trying to travel by land (no flying) from Malaysia to France, but there was definitely no way through Iran (legally) and my idea of going through Turkmenistan, across the Caspian Sea and into Azerbaijan was unrealistic at this point, logistically and physically. So, I had very few options, as far as where to go after Afghanistan and what to do from Herat. The only real road to Kabul is in the shape of a V, from Herat in the west, to Kandahar in the south, then up to Kabul in the east. The one thing I knew about Afghanistan before I entered was to stay away from Kandahar! All the battles were being fought in the south and in the south east and I wanted no part of that kind of drama!
After looking around and asking people (as best I could) I found a 48 hour, direct bus to Kabul. No stopping along the way and waiting for the next vehicle and no getting dumped out in Kandahar and having to find another bus to Kabul. It sounded okay, minimal risk. As long as I didn't open my mouth, no one should know I'm a foreigner. From my beard to my clothes and my sandals, I could pass for an Afghan. Only two things bothered me. First, my long hair. A lot of Taliban have long hair depending on there region, but nowhere near as long as mine. Secondly and worst of all, I would have to stop in Kandahar, eat dinner and then sleep there until the morning, when we would all get back on the bus to Kabul. The people are so extreme there and the Taliban have such influence there still, that Pakistan claims Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Mohammed Omar (aka Commander of the Faithful) are hiding there. Weather they're there, or anyone even believes Pakistan's claims, is irrelevant, it's a bad enough place for Pakistan to make those claims and it's not a place you want to spend the night.
But, in my state of delirium, I bought the tickets. For 600 Afghans ($12) I would be in Kabul in 48 hours, just enough time to look around for a flight to Istanbul, Turkey. That way I would only skip one country (Iran) by air. I was nervous, but too sick to really care about the risk. So, I bought some water, zipped my lips and got on a bus bound for Kabul, via Kandahar. I would get to Kabul safely I thought, Insh'Allah!
Saturday, April 4, 2009
I've been baptized in dirt!
"When Allah had made the rest of the world, He saw that there was a lot of rubbish left over, bits and pieces and things that did not fit anywhere else. He collected them all together and threw them down on to the earth. That was AFGHANISTAN!"
- A Wise old Afghan Mujahed
After leaving Band-e amir the comfort level dropped dramatically! No more decent roads, or comfortable rides. From then on we crammed into already tightly packed vehicles (of all kinds) and had to share space with chickens, luggage and the rest of the people who had been waiting as long for their ride, as we had for ours. Saying that travel was slow in that part of the country doesn't paint a clear enough picture. The roads are coated with about a foot of powdery dust. Huge pot holes and stones in the road are the norm. Of course there's no air conditioning, so everyone opens the windows, allowing a tidal wave of dirt and dust to constantly drench us! We all had our turbans undone and wrapped around our faces, covering our nose and mouth, but that just made it difficult to breath. Before too long, it looked as if we all had dirty (hehe) blond hair. Dirt and dust covered everything, our faces, mouths, the inside of our noses, our arms, backpacks and the whole interior of the jeeps, or whatever we were driving in at the time!
All of that paled in comparison to the pain and discomfort we felt from sitting on bad, or no seats, having our knee's dig into the seat in front of us (sharp metal bars many times) and going air born with every bump, hole or stone in the road! Sometimes we couldn't move our legs for six to eight hours at a time and we could never stretch them. We had all been traveling in Asia for a while at that point (well over a year) and had been on countless chicken buses, with little to no leg room, but with the heat, the dirt and the long stretches of driving with nothing to look forward to (no cold drinks at the next stop and no showers at night) and the pain of being stuck in some advanced Yoga position, with metal digging into your knees and people puking out the windows, nothing had prepared us for this test of endurance (since, that's kind of what it turned into).
So, there's the background info, now I can fill you all in on where we went after Band-e Amir, and now you know all about our happy times driving there.
We finally talked a driver into taking the four of us to the next village, Yakawlang. The mini-van was already full, but we knew if we didn't catch this ride now, we'd have to wait a week until the next Friday, when all the Afghan tourists come to the lake, to get our next chance. So, we all did our Yoga in order to fit inside of the vehicle and were baptized for the first time (Oh no.... but not the last!) in our lives... with dirt! Still though, we were excited to move on to a new and different village and we were still in Afghanistan, so we knew that anything could happen at any moment. Upon our arrival at Yakawlang, I (since I was getting sicker) sat with the backpacks, while all of my friends split up to see what, if anything was in this village, but primarily to find a ChaiKhana. Those same routines would be repeated over the next few days as we kept arriving in new villages, with someone different standing watch over our foreign looking backpacks.
Meanwhile, while my friends were gone, word had quickly spread throughout the village that some weird looking whitey's had arrived. Within minutes, it seemed every male in the village, young and old had come out to see the "whiteys". They formed a huge circle around me and since they don't understand the "comfortable space" between two strangers, that we all take for granted in this part of the world, they got "all up in my Grill!" They were innocently curious though, but it didn't take them long to come to the conclusion (since I had a Taliban worthy beard at that point) that I looked like a homeless-hippie-terrorist! Anyway, my friends had to push people out of the way like they were in a mosh pit, in order to tell me that the head man (police/political head) wanted to talk to all of us before we stayed or moved on.
So, we met the boss man and he tried his hardest to look more important and powerful than we all suspected he really was, but he was nice and respectful to us. Sharing a pot of tea with us he just wanted to know who we were and what we were doing there. When I told him I was American he just couldn't understand why I didn't hire a car in Kabul, since I was rich! In his defense, from Yakawlang westward to Herat, buses are non-existent and flying coaches (mini-vans) are few and very far between. There aren't many backpackers on a budget here and no one just shows up in some village and waits for the next flying coach to come along. Almost every tourist rents a private car, or sticks to the main roads between Kabul and Mazar-E Sharif, or the okay road from Kabul to Bamiyan and a bit further maybe to Band-e Amir. So waiting hours, sometimes days for a ride turned out to be part of the Afghan backpacking experience. Both of these processes too (meeting the head dude and waiting for a ride) would end up repeating themselves again and again, every time we arrived at a new village. And so it was that in every mud hut, village or town from Band-e Amir westward to Herat, (well, actually Yakawlang, Panjab, La'lva Sar Jangal, Gardani Garmab Pass and Chaghcharan) an Australian, Chinese/Canadian, German and American traveling together, all beat up, sick, skinny, dirty and smelly, met the power drunk man in charge of each his own territory and impressed upon them the superior cleanliness of the developed world.
By the time we got to Lal (La'lva Sar Jangal), Sue the Chinese/Canadian, was ready to give up. Not only did he get food poisoning (or something just like it), but he was also being eaten alive from bed bugs and flea's, so adding the baptism of dirt, the bland food (the same everywhere... never want cotton seed oil again!!) and the terrible roads, didn't help much! The rest of us were sore, and running very low on Afghans. To boost our moral level we finally found a well that wasn't surrounded with woman (not that WE cared) and we each washed up there. Not a shower, but damn it was nice. The woman were beautiful in this part of the country too. The only time we would get a glimpse was while they were washing dishes or clothes at the wells. They didn't wear Burkha's in that part of the country and usually didn't even cover their faces. Their eye's were beautiful and their hair style only added to their beauty . They braided their hair, wrapped it around their head and clipped it across their forehead and their clothing had, what I can only describe as a Tibetan style to it.
Gardani Garmab Pass (they just say Garmab) was our next stop, it was only three hours (125 Kilometers) away and 100 Afghans each. It wasn't very far, but it was so hard to find any ride westward that we got all excited and we always clung to the hope that we would catch a direct ride to Herat at the next village. A bigger than normal crowd formed instantly in Garmab and they were right up in our faces again, they were so close to us that we couldn't even bend over to fix our sandals. Within minutes a young cop broke through the crowd saying that he just received a phone call from La'l (the head dude that we checked in with there). The kid cop (no older than 15) told us "you are very dangerous, you must leave now!", I think he meant that the town was dangerous? Anyway, without hesitating, we all told him "Yes! We're very dangerous, kick us out now! Get us a ride to Herat!!!" We told him to ask a nearby truck driver (who was leaving anyway) to take us and we would sit on the roof, but the driver wanted too much money and riding on the roof in Afghanistan wouldn't be fun! We were kidding around for a while after that about us being such bad asses that we got kicked out of a town in Afghanistan!!
The next day would be our lucky day, we found a driver willing to take us the rest of the way to Herat! Praise be to Allah! We were all relieved about the ride, no more waiting for hours or days, plus after we paid I had only 50 Afghans to my name (one dollar) and just 9 days left on my visa, great timing! Our moods quickly changed when it came time to find a seat and saw that there were already 12 people, plus their luggage inside the tiny vehicle! This was gonna be Bad! We had a broken seat, no cushion under us and metal bars (from the seats in front of us) digging into our knees, and we weren't even moving yet! We ended up driving 7 hours the first day, 15 the second and 5 the third! I will speak no more of my dark feelings in that vehicle! The one bright spot from that whole drive came when we passed a jeep that had a flat tire and no jack. Our driver, knowing that it could be a long time before another car comes along, did exactly what he should have, he stopped to help change the tire. We all ran out of the Van and stretched and kissed the dirt, we were so thankful to change positions! One by one we looked around and noticed a field with a few farmers close by. Then, almost all at once we noticed that it wasn't just some regular field, it was an Poppy field! We all ran towards it, looking for red rocks (land mines), but didn't see any. We had a close look at the Poppy plants and the farmer had a huge smile on his face (way too happy to be working in the sun all day...). We took pictures with the Poppies and the farmers, closely examined the plants and we could see where the farmers cut the poppy to let a soft tar like fluid run out. That (I think) is pure Opium and after they process it, it becomes the devil...Heroin! I wish we had more time there, but as soon as we arrived at the field, our driver was yelling to us to come back. We made him wait a couple of minutes, acting like we didn't hear him, but making sure he didn't try to drive away with out us, not that we couldn't run faster than he was driving though.
In a nut shell, that was how we got from Band-E Amir to Herat. The landscape got greener and greener the closer we came to Herat and the people that only a couple of hundred kilometers east looked Tajik or Uzbek (almost Mongolian looking), now looked more and more like what I expected Afghani's to look like. That was the end of three of the hardest days traveling I think I've ever had (starting back in Garmab), being as sick as I was (running behind a building after every stop, looking for a suitable place to make a toilet) and not being able to eat didn't help much either, the lack of water and dyheria resulted in me becoming dehydrated as well! Lots of fun! Still though, when we finally rolled up onto smooth pavement for the first time in over two weeks, we would have welcomed any city, no matter how dirty, with open arms. But, it didn't take us long to realize that Herat was anything but dirty. It was almost clean and it managed to maintain it's charm and an identity in a country that was almost totally destroyed by constant (30 years) war, that was a sweet surprise.
Then I slept...
- A Wise old Afghan Mujahed
After leaving Band-e amir the comfort level dropped dramatically! No more decent roads, or comfortable rides. From then on we crammed into already tightly packed vehicles (of all kinds) and had to share space with chickens, luggage and the rest of the people who had been waiting as long for their ride, as we had for ours. Saying that travel was slow in that part of the country doesn't paint a clear enough picture. The roads are coated with about a foot of powdery dust. Huge pot holes and stones in the road are the norm. Of course there's no air conditioning, so everyone opens the windows, allowing a tidal wave of dirt and dust to constantly drench us! We all had our turbans undone and wrapped around our faces, covering our nose and mouth, but that just made it difficult to breath. Before too long, it looked as if we all had dirty (hehe) blond hair. Dirt and dust covered everything, our faces, mouths, the inside of our noses, our arms, backpacks and the whole interior of the jeeps, or whatever we were driving in at the time!
All of that paled in comparison to the pain and discomfort we felt from sitting on bad, or no seats, having our knee's dig into the seat in front of us (sharp metal bars many times) and going air born with every bump, hole or stone in the road! Sometimes we couldn't move our legs for six to eight hours at a time and we could never stretch them. We had all been traveling in Asia for a while at that point (well over a year) and had been on countless chicken buses, with little to no leg room, but with the heat, the dirt and the long stretches of driving with nothing to look forward to (no cold drinks at the next stop and no showers at night) and the pain of being stuck in some advanced Yoga position, with metal digging into your knees and people puking out the windows, nothing had prepared us for this test of endurance (since, that's kind of what it turned into).
So, there's the background info, now I can fill you all in on where we went after Band-e Amir, and now you know all about our happy times driving there.
We finally talked a driver into taking the four of us to the next village, Yakawlang. The mini-van was already full, but we knew if we didn't catch this ride now, we'd have to wait a week until the next Friday, when all the Afghan tourists come to the lake, to get our next chance. So, we all did our Yoga in order to fit inside of the vehicle and were baptized for the first time (Oh no.... but not the last!) in our lives... with dirt! Still though, we were excited to move on to a new and different village and we were still in Afghanistan, so we knew that anything could happen at any moment. Upon our arrival at Yakawlang, I (since I was getting sicker) sat with the backpacks, while all of my friends split up to see what, if anything was in this village, but primarily to find a ChaiKhana. Those same routines would be repeated over the next few days as we kept arriving in new villages, with someone different standing watch over our foreign looking backpacks.
Meanwhile, while my friends were gone, word had quickly spread throughout the village that some weird looking whitey's had arrived. Within minutes, it seemed every male in the village, young and old had come out to see the "whiteys". They formed a huge circle around me and since they don't understand the "comfortable space" between two strangers, that we all take for granted in this part of the world, they got "all up in my Grill!" They were innocently curious though, but it didn't take them long to come to the conclusion (since I had a Taliban worthy beard at that point) that I looked like a homeless-hippie-terrorist! Anyway, my friends had to push people out of the way like they were in a mosh pit, in order to tell me that the head man (police/political head) wanted to talk to all of us before we stayed or moved on.
So, we met the boss man and he tried his hardest to look more important and powerful than we all suspected he really was, but he was nice and respectful to us. Sharing a pot of tea with us he just wanted to know who we were and what we were doing there. When I told him I was American he just couldn't understand why I didn't hire a car in Kabul, since I was rich! In his defense, from Yakawlang westward to Herat, buses are non-existent and flying coaches (mini-vans) are few and very far between. There aren't many backpackers on a budget here and no one just shows up in some village and waits for the next flying coach to come along. Almost every tourist rents a private car, or sticks to the main roads between Kabul and Mazar-E Sharif, or the okay road from Kabul to Bamiyan and a bit further maybe to Band-e Amir. So waiting hours, sometimes days for a ride turned out to be part of the Afghan backpacking experience. Both of these processes too (meeting the head dude and waiting for a ride) would end up repeating themselves again and again, every time we arrived at a new village. And so it was that in every mud hut, village or town from Band-e Amir westward to Herat, (well, actually Yakawlang, Panjab, La'lva Sar Jangal, Gardani Garmab Pass and Chaghcharan) an Australian, Chinese/Canadian, German and American traveling together, all beat up, sick, skinny, dirty and smelly, met the power drunk man in charge of each his own territory and impressed upon them the superior cleanliness of the developed world.
By the time we got to Lal (La'lva Sar Jangal), Sue the Chinese/Canadian, was ready to give up. Not only did he get food poisoning (or something just like it), but he was also being eaten alive from bed bugs and flea's, so adding the baptism of dirt, the bland food (the same everywhere... never want cotton seed oil again!!) and the terrible roads, didn't help much! The rest of us were sore, and running very low on Afghans. To boost our moral level we finally found a well that wasn't surrounded with woman (not that WE cared) and we each washed up there. Not a shower, but damn it was nice. The woman were beautiful in this part of the country too. The only time we would get a glimpse was while they were washing dishes or clothes at the wells. They didn't wear Burkha's in that part of the country and usually didn't even cover their faces. Their eye's were beautiful and their hair style only added to their beauty . They braided their hair, wrapped it around their head and clipped it across their forehead and their clothing had, what I can only describe as a Tibetan style to it.
Gardani Garmab Pass (they just say Garmab) was our next stop, it was only three hours (125 Kilometers) away and 100 Afghans each. It wasn't very far, but it was so hard to find any ride westward that we got all excited and we always clung to the hope that we would catch a direct ride to Herat at the next village. A bigger than normal crowd formed instantly in Garmab and they were right up in our faces again, they were so close to us that we couldn't even bend over to fix our sandals. Within minutes a young cop broke through the crowd saying that he just received a phone call from La'l (the head dude that we checked in with there). The kid cop (no older than 15) told us "you are very dangerous, you must leave now!", I think he meant that the town was dangerous? Anyway, without hesitating, we all told him "Yes! We're very dangerous, kick us out now! Get us a ride to Herat!!!" We told him to ask a nearby truck driver (who was leaving anyway) to take us and we would sit on the roof, but the driver wanted too much money and riding on the roof in Afghanistan wouldn't be fun! We were kidding around for a while after that about us being such bad asses that we got kicked out of a town in Afghanistan!!
The next day would be our lucky day, we found a driver willing to take us the rest of the way to Herat! Praise be to Allah! We were all relieved about the ride, no more waiting for hours or days, plus after we paid I had only 50 Afghans to my name (one dollar) and just 9 days left on my visa, great timing! Our moods quickly changed when it came time to find a seat and saw that there were already 12 people, plus their luggage inside the tiny vehicle! This was gonna be Bad! We had a broken seat, no cushion under us and metal bars (from the seats in front of us) digging into our knees, and we weren't even moving yet! We ended up driving 7 hours the first day, 15 the second and 5 the third! I will speak no more of my dark feelings in that vehicle! The one bright spot from that whole drive came when we passed a jeep that had a flat tire and no jack. Our driver, knowing that it could be a long time before another car comes along, did exactly what he should have, he stopped to help change the tire. We all ran out of the Van and stretched and kissed the dirt, we were so thankful to change positions! One by one we looked around and noticed a field with a few farmers close by. Then, almost all at once we noticed that it wasn't just some regular field, it was an Poppy field! We all ran towards it, looking for red rocks (land mines), but didn't see any. We had a close look at the Poppy plants and the farmer had a huge smile on his face (way too happy to be working in the sun all day...). We took pictures with the Poppies and the farmers, closely examined the plants and we could see where the farmers cut the poppy to let a soft tar like fluid run out. That (I think) is pure Opium and after they process it, it becomes the devil...Heroin! I wish we had more time there, but as soon as we arrived at the field, our driver was yelling to us to come back. We made him wait a couple of minutes, acting like we didn't hear him, but making sure he didn't try to drive away with out us, not that we couldn't run faster than he was driving though.
In a nut shell, that was how we got from Band-E Amir to Herat. The landscape got greener and greener the closer we came to Herat and the people that only a couple of hundred kilometers east looked Tajik or Uzbek (almost Mongolian looking), now looked more and more like what I expected Afghani's to look like. That was the end of three of the hardest days traveling I think I've ever had (starting back in Garmab), being as sick as I was (running behind a building after every stop, looking for a suitable place to make a toilet) and not being able to eat didn't help much either, the lack of water and dyheria resulted in me becoming dehydrated as well! Lots of fun! Still though, when we finally rolled up onto smooth pavement for the first time in over two weeks, we would have welcomed any city, no matter how dirty, with open arms. But, it didn't take us long to realize that Herat was anything but dirty. It was almost clean and it managed to maintain it's charm and an identity in a country that was almost totally destroyed by constant (30 years) war, that was a sweet surprise.
Then I slept...
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