From Kabul to Istanbul
After my Taliban encounter in Kandahar, my last days in Afghanistan were comparatively easy. The Bus ride back to Kabul in the morning went well, no breakdowns, no drama and the road was actually good for about half of the ride too. I was dumped off on the side of a traffic jammed road in the middle of Kabul in late afternoon and negotiated my way through exhaust fumes and the mayhem of rush hour. It took a long time to find a hotel, but when I finally got to my room I flopped onto the bed and didn’t move till morning. I struggled to get out of bed, but knew I needed to eat something, so I picked myself up and force-fed myself at the nearest restaurant. The food was nothing special, but I ate and finally had a little energy. I decided to head over to Chicken street to look for some travel agents, since that was the closest thing to a tourist section. I had accepted the fact that my “over land route” was finished and was too sick and tired to even be disappointed, I just knew that I had to leave the country soon.
Dubai and Istanbul were my first two choices, since I wasn’t going back to Pakistan and I couldn’t step foot in Iran. Istanbul became the obvious choice as soon as I looked at a map though, as if I needed to be reminded that I still wanted to get to France, by land preferably, even if my land route was broken up for the second time with a flight. So, Istanbul it was and if my energy levels had been low for the last few days, they soon would be topped up by the scalper travel agents annoying me with extortionate prices! In my fruitless search for the actual airline offices, I ended up bumping into an American I met in Peshawar, Pakistan and he was with two writers for the Lonely Plant, it was good to have some company, but they were on their way out of town. They showed me a REAL map of Kabul before they left and I traced a route to the Ariana offices on my old lonely planet map. After walking past the gridlocked Embassy streets, with all of there road blocks, blast absorbing walls, machine gun nests and razor wire, I finally found the Ariana office. Satisfied with their price, I bought my ticket to Istanbul.
Once I held the ticket in my hand, any disappointment I might have had about my failed “land route” disappeared for good. I was suddenly excited at the thought of an airport, flying again and most of all Istanbul, half European, half Asian, one of the most beautiful cities in the world with not just good, but amazing food!! At the time it felt much closer to home as well, a comforting thought for me. The rest of my time was spent getting stamps from the post office (some cool one’s), post cards and Afghan money to take home as souvenirs.
I arrived early at the airport the next day, before the check in desk opened. I read my book until I noticed the line forming at the same time as the check-in counter opened and all at once, the line became a mosh pit! I just stood behind the madness in no hurry until an Afghan security officer came up to me and told me in English to follow him. So I did and ended up around the corner at a second check in desk with only one person in front of me. within a minute I was checked in, and my passport stamped! I went up stairs and sat next the window overlooking the foggy runway. Then the security officer who got me through the mosh pit came up to me with a gentle smile and demanded money from me… I was already getting rusty, that wouldn’t have happened to me in India! It turned out that out of all the people to try to get baksheesh from I was the worst one. Not because it annoyed me, but because the only money I had on me was small Afghan notes as part of my souvenirs. After some arguing I gave him a about 50 cents worth of money, the rest was sitting next to me, hidden in my little backpack.
So that was it, the hardest travel I had even done and some of the most hard core experiences I had ever been through were behind me now, just outside of the airport I was sitting in and also to the south of Afghanistan and to the east of Pakistan. No more Orangutans breaking my door down in the night, no more Cannibals in my dorm, no more snow blindness to suffer through or Taliban to worry about… God I would miss all of that, but it was time to leave it all behind. I had left home 20 months ago and though I didn’t realize it at the time, I was changed forever. I was on my way to Istanbul to get healthy again and finish off the rest of my trip over land, what I didn’t know was how I would react to being back in the “modern world” after so long.
Tags: 1, Afghanistan, Ariana, Asia, Cannibal, Chicken Street, Europe, Hotels Afghanistan, Istanbul airport, Kabul Airport, Kandahar, Taliban, Turkey
Bear
December 7th, 2010 at 6:53 pm
Hi Bear, where are you now? I miss those blogs. I think read them several times already I think..hehe most not all. The dengue blog is so funny right next to the Orang visit.
More power & God Bless.