After this, I’ll never be the same

We decided to leave Kabul sooner rather than later, everything is overpriced there and we were all looking forward to checking out Bamiyan and the rest of Afghanistan. Jacques, Steffan, Shu-San (a Chinese Canadian dude that we met in Kabul) and I, all took a 4 a.m. bus from Kabul to Bamiyan (10 hours – 250 Afghani’s. One $ = 50 Afghans). The ride was uneventful, but the scenery was great. Desert plains roll into hills and then turn into mountains. The occasional shepherd will be seen blocking the whole road with his entire flock of Fat-Tailed sheep as well. Fat-Tailed Sheep are the best, right up there with Water Buffalo. They have the biggest asses anywhere! They can hang with the best of them (in fact they are the best of them), their booty shakes with every step and it didn’t take us long to start yelling out cat calls and whistling as we passed. The driver finally understood what we were doing (took him a while) and didn’t hide his amusement, but the shepherds never quite got it. During one trafic jam (sheep crossing) we jumped out and started taking close up shots of their boo-tay! The shepherd got kind of pissed off and to avoid having him chop off one of our limbs we dove back in the van with our tails between our legs! A few hours later, as we got close to Bamiyan our driver yelled out Zohak! and pointed to a old fort built on the top of a steep hill face. A lot of the walls were still intact and some structures still remained. We all wanted to make sure we came back and checked it out before we left Bamiyan.

We finally arrived in Bamiyan tired, after 10 hours of bumps and dirt, but very excited. Bamiyan is a very small, clean, and well kept town. It also home to the Hazara people (they were the main targets of genocide by the Taliban) and former home of the largest Buddha statue in the world until the Taliban destroyed them (the statue’s)! We stayed at Mama Najaf (250 Afghani’s each), a restaurant for the bus drivers and some locals, with three empty rooms upstairs built onto the roof. We all packed into one and they gave us cushions and blankets to sleep on. There was a killer toilet on the roof too(next to our rooms), they pretty much built four walls and cut a hole in the roof. Down below was a new unmarked land mine zone, made by us (toxic, but not deadly)! We had great views from the roof top though. We could see the whole mountain side, a huge, flat, wall of a rock face with little black dots (caves) all over it and two big niche’s carved into it, were the Buddha’s used to be.

Although the Taliban destroyed the statue’s, the Buddha niche’s are still there as well as an elaborate network of caves, in which some people still call there homes. Unfortunately, the whole area (as well as much of the country) was carpeted with land mines, and only recently have some area’s been de-mined. It’s easy to tell if your in the mine zone though, red painted rocks mean live land mine area’s and white rocks mean the area has been de-mined. We all went our own ways while at the niche’s. I climbed up into some caves and checked them out and met a few family’s who still live in some of the larger ones. We all met up at the niche that used to hold the smaller of the two Buddhas and took our time walking back into town through a peaceful, old village.

After two or three laid back days, Jacques and I decided to hitch a ride back to Zohak. We had read a little about Zohak in our room. We copied some pages of an old Lonely Planet Central Asia guide book while in Pakistan and next to the Bamiyan section there was a small write up about Zohak. Which really made us want to check it out, I’ve since found this about Zohak…

Written by Nancy Hatch Dupree- “An Historical Guide to Afghanistan”

“This mass of impressive ruins was once the principal fortress protecting the entrance to the City of Bamiyan during the reigns of the Shansabani Kings in the 12-13th centuries A.D. The natural defenses afforded by the cliff had been recognized from much earlier times, as might well be expected. Archaeologists have found evidence that man had built defensive works here as early as the end of the B.C. era, and, when the Hephthalite Huns fought for possession and power within these mountains in the 6th century A.D., there was a considerable complex here. The present remains, however, are those of the fortress which withstood the advance of a Mongol army led by Genghis Khan’s favorite grandson in 1221. The resistance was stout and determined and during the melee on the plain at its foot, the young commander fell mortally wounded. In revenge Genghis Khan vowed to destroy the valley, which he did, most thoroughly.
Today’s visitors enter the fortress via the very pathway used by the original defenders and one can easily envision the passage of mounted cavalry, with all the attendant sounds, smells and confusion. On the way are attractively decorated towers for guards on duty. These towers had no doorways but were entered by ladders which were pulled up later to make the tower totally secure. There the soldiers stood on wooden platforms laid on heavy supporting beams, and shot their arrows through loopholes.
…city-fortress of glowing magenta, atop such cliffs, must of necessity have inspired romantics with tales of legendary kings and heroes. So it is not surprising to learn from the inhabitants of Bamiyan that this was actually, in fact, the royal abode of Zohak. A wilder occupant for this fairyland city could hardly be found.

Zohak first appears in the Shahnama as a noble prince of Arabia, a devoted son well-beloved by his people. He became, however, possessed of the Devil who induced him to usurp his father’s throne whereupon the Devil appeared disguised as a loyal subject who asked to kiss the new king on the shoulders in token of his complete submission. No sooner had he done so, and vanished, than two black serpents thrust their heads out from where the kisses had been placed. Attempts to cut them off only resulted in their immediate return and their increased demand for human brains, the only food they would accept.

At the same time that Zohak was being seduced by the Devil, civil war broke out in Iran and Zohak marched in as the champion of one faction and was enthroned as the emperor of Iran. For a thousand years his rule brought terror and chaos to the land, but then the hero Fraidun was born. After many escapades, Fraidun finally succeeded in taking Zohak prisoner whereupon he took the dragon-king to a far off mountain peak and left him there to die. The Shahnama ends the tale here but, typically, Afghan legend goes on to elaborate by saying that, deprived of their daily meal of brains, the serpents turned on Zohak, bit into his scalp and fed upon his brains until he died.”

Anyway, it was great exploring the ruins, but getting back to Bamiyan was much harder than getting out. We waited at a police check point and when the cops finished asking the drivers and passengers questions we would ask if we could catch a lift back with them. Every vehicle was full (it probably didn’t help that I looked like Bin Laden at the time either), but after a couple of hours we finally met some friendly guys who were nice enough to let us pack into the back of their SUV. After our visit to Zohak and the occasional chat with some Kiwi Army personnel, we were ready to head off to Band-e Amir, the killer, deep blue lakes further west. Although my stomach was steadily becoming worse and worse (dyheria) I did my best to ignore it and move on. After all this would probably be my one and only time in Afghanistan and I wasn’t about to sleep the whole experience away! As I’d find out a week or two later though, this wasn’t just some travellers dyheria and I couldn’t just ignore it.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 14th, 2005 at 5:29 pm and is filed under Afghanistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.