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Kabul was obviously a place of intrigue and people tended to congregate in the relatively safe place of the British place that I think was the consulate. There was a swimming pool that we thought was a good way to cool off until Joy’s silver ring started to go black, and the smell of the water was … not good and she suggested that ammonia from pee might be colouring the silver, so we showered quickly and just sweltered on the beds around the pool.
We had heard about the money changing fiddle where Pakistani and Afghan travellers exchanged money for their Haj to Mecca and there was a blackmarket in a café where we would get more Pakistani money for our dollars. The café was where we met Kelvin who had been at Alnwick Teacher Training College with Joy in those heady days when there were no fees and as a mature student you were paid a grant to go and be trained, so he got a three year paid holiday, had a wild time and now was driving for Treasure Treks, having driven in Africa for them before his College break. Kelvin knew all the fiddles and smuggles and explained how the truck always carried something for the border guards who were so badly paid. At one border it would be porn magazines, at another it was whisky. He said that the regular hippy travellers had even worse transactions involving drugs, and worse. But this lift was going to be straight forward, especially because the Pakistan border was tight – I wish I had listened more closely to him later on …
Up early to get to Kelvin’s hotel to get a lift over the Khyber Pass with him. The Khyber gorge is great but only as spectacular as some we came through on the Istanbul to Tehran train. Khyber is long, messy, well fortified and interesting. Afghan customs is chaos but clean. Pakistan’s customs is about to close and we are rushed through with Kelvin’s mob. A goat eats our melon skins. We arrive in Peshwar in Pakistan.
In Peshwar we stay with Kelvin the truck party in the grounds of an old Dakh bungalow with very dirty toilets and only one tap. Another truck is stuck there having broken down with a broken spring centre pin and it has to be repaired by the driver and partner with hard work and ingenuity. Kelvin sells whisky at £16 for 750ml bottle which costs £3 in UK. He tells us the whisky is good to lubricate a way through customs and there is a gradation of bribes with glossy porn mags the starting point then whisky then possibly money. He says that some hippies smuggle big dogs because in his words “women are for children, children are for pleasure and if you can’t afford them get a dog”. Yuk to the whole culture! He tells us that Transit vans are in demand for about 20,000 – 70,000Rs.
We eat at an air conditioned restaurant with OK and pitch our tent to camp with the Treasure Trek truckers.
Goodbye to lorry and its polystyrene ice box! We gave Kelvin £2 and said we would meet him in Kathmandu.
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I’m writing this while I sunbathe on top of a houseboat in Srinagar in Kashmir India. Large buzzards wheel overhead and occasionally small boats are punted by their punters, looking for punter to buy their fruit or trinkets or offering their services as a water taxi. Yesterday we saw a raft of logs being punted along this shallow lake and shallow river.
The last chapter was written up to Khyber I think.
The Pass was bumpy – people don’t seem to worry about missing road surfaces for a few hundred metres then returning to tarmac. It makes the truck very bumpy. The Aussies and English young people on board say that when they were travelling along the desert there was often literally no road and people sitting at the rear of the truck were sometimes thrown higher than the sides of the truck.
We found that coming on the bus from Jammu to Srinagar that the road was so bumpy there was a danger of dislocating your neck. That road was very winding and like an Alpine pass but cut into the steep hillside with narrow road and occasional mini landslides leaving stones and debris on the road. The hillsides were covered in lush vegetation like the green Eden valley but much bigger by far (am I getting nostalgia). Some trees looked like a cactus but shaped and the size of a small monkey puzzle tree. Weaver birds make hanging basket nests.
To keep my thoughts structured I’ll go back to the diary form. I must get some more film and buy postcards, we have not bought postcards for a while, an oversight if the film fails or is lost or stolen. It is probable that many of the places that we will visit will not have 35mm film and even if they do it may not have been kept in dry or cool conditions so I need film from UK.
Message to home:
We urgently need proper student ID cards so can anyone help and send them to us. Please can you send a Kodak 36mm slide film ASA 25 will do. How’s Pauline? Hope the students are OK. Hope Kev’s found something rewarding to do. Don’t forget for mail and the film send by letter mail in a jiffy padded envelope to poste restante Central Main Post Office, New Delhi, India or Kathmandu, Nepal.
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Continuation of journal diary
Over the Khyber Pass in Kelvin’s truck with his passengers. Arrived in Peshwar in Pakistan and camped in the grounds of an old Dak bungalow. These Dak bungalows are government guest houses that are all over India and Pakistan and were established in the days of the British Raj. This one was derelict but the one in Jammu that we used later was like a giant hostel and cost 20Rs £1.35 for a double room with shower. We like the food in Pakistan especially the spinach lamb ghosht.
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A train goes from Peshwar to Lahore, about 500 kilometres but we thought that we would have to fight for seats because a local warned us about overcrowding and said that if we paid him he would lock a compartment for us and stand guard until we got on but since it was unofficial and illegal I ignored him and prepared to push and shove for a seat. We ganged up with 4 other Europeans and some Pakistani students said they would help us find a seat.
While we waited on the platform some carefree casual plainly clothed people came with a book and wanted our names, passport numbers etc. They said that they were police but we did not believe them and I made him produce some identification and wasn’t sure if it was OK or a simple forgery so I told him to wear a uniform. I was getting very short tempered with the locals, they hassle so much more than Afghans. One pony and trap man rod alongside us for nearly five minutes trying to get me up on his cart even though I said go away continuously. In the end I lost my temper and started towards him and he saw my look and galloped off. Back to the platform; it’s 8:30 pm and we have an 11 hour ride ahead for the 500km train journey. I don’t want to sleep in the corridor so I start really pushing the people who are already in the carriage. Our Pakistani student friends calm me down and explains that the whole carriage is reserved for their college students’ outing. We finally have a seat and a singsong starts which we contribute to and there is some dancing but Joy climbs up onto the luggage rack and sleeps. I refuse their offer of dope and manage to lay on the floor between their feet and catch some sleep.
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We are “met” at the station (ie tourist travellers targeted) by someone who is a Pakistani and explains that the strict military government says strict Islamic laws must be obeyed ie no booze for Pakistanis. Only foreigners can get booze and must first apply for a booze permit like a drinking or driving licence only you don’t have to pass any competence tests. He persuades us to get this licence in exchange for 50 rupees £2.50 and a free accompanied tour of Lahore and he will then deposit us at the train station for the next part of our onward journey.
We spend the morning seeing a beautiful mosque and then suffering police bureaucracy to get the permit and his booze. We were worried for various reasons of being caught out either by him or the authorities and I refused the offer of a party that night and insisted on the tour and the meal before we got the licence. Eventually we got the licence, he got his bottles of whisky and we were deposited at the train station. Then my stupidity became apparent to even thick me; how do I explain that I consumed four bottles of whisky in one day when I go through customs when I leave Lahore for the cross border journey to Amritsar over the border in India?! Do I stay another few nights so I can persuade the authorities that I had a big party with European friends who helped me to drink the whisky. We decided to risk it and I worked out some contingency plans with Joy for her to ignore me and find the British consulate. We queue up at customs which is a bench along the platform at Lahore station and a customs official opens my passport and I don’t know to this day if he saw the stamp or not but he covered it with his thumb and stamped the exit permit. I thank God and Allah and luck and promise not to be stupid again. I wish I could keep my promises!
Eventually we left Lahore and the train dropped us at Amritsar in the Punjab where we were searched out by a hussler, as usual, who said we could have a free rickshaw ride to Vikas Guest House. The hotel was recommended in our travel BIT bible so we went. We expected a motorised three wheeler put-put but we were given a young man on a cycle rickshaw, a three wheeler but human powered, so we sat behind him and loaded our rucksacks on as well. We had strange feelings of embarrassment at this sweating man and us rich western decadent exploiting him. The feelings caused me to get off and walk beside him but the heat was too much and so I got back on board.
Hotel Vitas was 18Rs £1.21 for a clean double room with fan and shower. A kid came to deliver the padlock for the door which seemed an indication of security and safety but while our attention was on the padlock he casually put his hand in Joy’s bag so I smacked him lightly but complained to his mum. Food was good vegetarian curry.
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The Golden Temple in Amritsar is magnificent and unique. The temple is in the centre of a man made square lake which is surrounded by marble pavements and since our shoes are removed at the entrance the marble is too hot to walk on without it being a test of pain versus the desire to explore it all. Around the perimeter of the lake are buildings housing the Sikh museum and some tombs. A causeway is the only connection from the perimeter paving and buildings and the path of the causeway is gold and leads to the golden covered temple in the centre. The walls of the temple are either gold leaf or are a marble with a marquetry effect of inlaid coloured marble on the white marble background making detailed and fascinating pictures.
Inside the Golden Temple a service is being conducted with a priest presiding and a choir singing to music provided by a piano accordion sort of thing but the shape of it is like a large book being balanced on its spine, the keyboard being the edges of the pages facing you and the bellow being the hard back of the book being squeezed closed and opened by the left hand.
Sikhs who are visiting the temple throw coins onto a huge pile. A young Sikh who is studying for a MA in English literature meets us and we discuss religion and metaphysics and have tea and meet later that evening to chat. Sikhs seem nuch more honest straightforward trustworthy people than the Moslems.
We only get 7.89Rs to $1 whereas in Kabul we would have got 9Rs to $1, 10% more so Kelvin and the travellers were correct about the deals that we could have done. We knock the Amanda Hotel down from 40 to 15Rs double room and eat at a very “locals only” place with good curries with mango curried to be like a soft onion in a picallili sauce, a real taste bomb.