After this, I’ll never be the same

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 Herot 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 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 sittuation. 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…

Band-e Amir is excellent! This is just what we all needed, we’ve spent far too much time in Peshawar, and then a couple of days in Kabul after that. This is the perfect getaway!

The day before we left Bamiyan, a middle aged Aussie guy (peter) moved into one of the rooms across from us. He’s been EVERYWHERE and he travels on his Harley! Pretty sweet. Anyway, he was also interested in going to Band-e Amir and since 4 other English speaking travellers were headed there he decided to go with us and then come back to check out Bamiyan later, rather than sooner. He left his Harley at the guest house and we all spent the next morning negotiating a price to Band-e Amir. In the end we setteled on 1,800 Afghani’s between the 5 of us (The price included sleeping over one night and then driving back the next day), not bad and much cheaper then we were quoted in the first couple of hours, but still a nice fat amount of money for the driver. And yes, we all spent several hours,(separately) negotiating…

We ended up taking a Jeepish-SUV type thing, so for the first (and last) time in Afghanistan, were were actually very comfortable, plus the road there was good!! The drive only lasted about 3 hours and the landscape on the way looked a lot like Tibet, beautiful! The lakes of Band-e Amir appeared to be in a valley, more like a canyon and when we got to the edge of the cliff overlooking all of the lakes we were all stunned! The deep blue lakes were amazing, perfectly blue and the edges were turquoise. From our view point we could see at least 5-7 lakes spread out between a few miles. Some of them were attached to each other by no more than a foot or two of water, which would eventually make it’s way into the next lake, which would in turn be caught by a natural damn like wall of minerals and other earth like elements. Only small amounts of water are able to escape the security of the walls and would sometimes turn into small waterfalls themselves on the outside of the natural damn. That same waterfall freezes in the winter, would love to see that! To add to it all, the scenery had once again changed. The color of the cliff’s, mountains and natural stone monuments looked orange-ish and a lot like parts of Utah in the U.S. What we saw from the cliff top looked like an elaborate setting for a fantasy movie.

After snapping a few pic’s we jumped back into the jeep, all excited like kids on their way to the beach. After the long winding road we finally arrived. We quickly grabbed our backpacks and scrambled towards the main lake, not worried at all about ditching our driver. As we arrived lake side, there were actually about ten shacks set up selling snacks, drinks and other eatable items as well as the usual cheap tourist items. Next to the shacks, against a cliff wall and further from the water, were three Chai-khana’s (spl?). Chai-Khana’s are common in Afghanistan and they double as restaurants and places to sleep. Chaikhana’s are usually in one big, rough, empty room (no chairs, no tables) and everyone sits and eats on the floor. The kitchen is usually in a separate room and they just make a hole in the wall to make it more convenient to hand out the food. Carpets are rolled out and the food is served on them. When everyone is done eating, the carpets are rolled back up and cleaned outside. The price of dinner also includes floor space to sleep on (no beds though) and is usually around 50 Afghans. We all popped into one and having our priorities straight, in true Asian manner, before even checking out the lakes, we had a pot of green tea.
After negotiating the price for the night, we all set out to check out the lakes. The first thing we did was jump right in and after that, I quickly spotted an 8 meter (about 25 foot) cliff and had to try it out. Not knowing the customs, I jumped off with all of my cloths on. When I resurfaced from beneath the water a crowd had already formed and were clapping and yelling! It was great and I was urged to jump again. The people (sometimes very old) were like little children around the water, curious and playful. It was nice to see that side of those people that have a reputation (and rightfully so) of being hard as nails! To our surprise though almost none of them could swim, which actually makes a lot of sense since Afghanistan is land locked and lakes, even rivers are few and far between. The four of us knew right away that one night wasn’t gonna cut it. After hearing that transportation is spotty at best, Peter wasn’t willing to take the risk of getting stuck there for a week, with his bike in Bamiyan. So, after exploring much of the main lake, the shrine to Ali (another reason Afghans go there) and the surrounding area’s, we found our driver, we told him that we’d be staying until we found a ride further westward. To his credit, he tried his best to explain that we may be stuck there for a long time, we had already assessed that risk and it was one well worth taking. Of course when we got back to the Chai-Khana, the dude that we talked to had changed what we had agreed upon and thinking he had us cornered with no other options, raised the price for the night and also crushed us by telling us there was no more fish, which we really wanted for dinner!

Without missing a beat, we grabbed our backpacks and checked out the other two C-K’s. None of them would even listen to us, I guess the first place had a lot of pull in that area. Just when we were preparing to sleep outside, we ended up meeting the coolest old dude, who had a modest (OK, a beat-up place) little place directly under Ali’s shrine. It had a dirt floor and was cold, but we were all more than happy to not have to sleep outside for the night, on principle. Not only did he (the coolest old dude) give us a better deal than we had first agreed on at the other place, but he also told us that he had fish for dinner!! Ohh Yeah! Since I got sick hitchhiking in Pakistan, my stomach had been terrible and I just couldn’t take all the cotton seed oil that they cook with in that area of the world. At that point my stomach was becoming a real problem and I would have to force myself to eat and then quickly run the toilet!

So, for the next six days life was good! Peter did end up leaving the next day (first morning) and we never saw him again, but the four of us had a blast exploring all of the lakes and walking miles and miles to reach the lakes further away. We even took blankets and sleeping bags, made a fire lake side at the furthest lake, and hung out for the full moon, which made the area completely magical. No mushrooms were needed for that transformation of perception to take place! There is a feeling in the air that’s indescribable in Afghanistan, but much more so in the nights, especially when we were all by ourselves with not a person or light (besides our fire, the full moon and the stars) around for miles! That’s something I won’t ever forget.

We tried to catch a ride further west every day, but no vehicles were heading that way, at least none with any room in them. So,after checking out all of the lakes, we wandered into a near-by village, checked out a school and let the kids laugh at our weird looking selves, then headed further into the village. Some farmers spotted us and brought us some freshly picked pea’s, still in the pods! They were delicious! Any change of diet at that point was (I thought) more than welcomed! I was low on energy by that point, since my stomach was still bad. It sounded like there was a fish in my stomach (and it had been keeping my friends awake at night for days) and I could feel it moving (my stomach) and hear it making loud noises! So, I decided to stop under the shade of a tree and my friends continued on in the same direction. After a quick rest I headed back to our C-K, but I took a different route back, just to see more of the village. I saw a man working hard to make an extension on his mud house on the way and he asked me in broken English where I was from. I told him America and he almost had a heart attack! He begged me to come into his home and have some tea with him, I happily excepted the invitation.

He started yelling into his house and in seconds his five children and wife were there! They all had something in there hands. Blankets, cushions, brooms… They went to work cleaning the area and making it fit for a guest (which they treat as royalty in Afghanistan, make no mistake, these people are amazingly friendly and generous) and in minutes I was sitting down, more comfortably than I had been since Hunza, drinking tea with his beautiful family! Anyway, tea turned into lunch and he proudly told me that he had some special food that he was glad to be able to share with me. His wife brought out delicious freshly made wheat chapatti’s (flat round bread) and right behind it, he was proud to announce, Goat brain!!! You’re really gonna love this! Goat brain is a delicacy there, meat in general is a treat, so I did what any grateful, respectful guest would do, lapped it up with gusto! The meaty chunks actually weren’t bad, but after a minute or two they were gone. With only a soupy, slimy, liquid remaining my meal got a LOT tougher, but I sucked it up (literally) and finished what was intentionally left for me, the guest, to eat! The guy was great though and he told me how happy (no, it’s not a typing error) he, and the whole village was that “the Bush got rid of the Taliban!” I was shocked to here that. It’s hard to find someone who speaks English well enough to have a conversation and if they do politics are usually excluded. He went on to tell me that the Taliban had called the whole village out to witness the execution of six people! Since the village is so tiny, it was no surprise that they were all his friends.

After a couple of hours, I finally left and thanked him with my whole heart for sharing, not only what little food he must have had, but possibly the best food in the whole village. The next day we finally found a ride to the next hiccup of a town, ended the last of our easy, comfortable days in Afghanistan and began the hardest leg of travel that I’ve been through anywhere in the world…