Some place names have something particular about them, their own sound, something that sparks the desire to travel. As Mandalay, or Madurai or Luang Prabang or Jaipur. Although Jalalabad doesn't trigger an immediate desire to travel, the name is definitely worth remembering.
However, we will leave the friendly city, which has accommodated us for one night, with good feelings, because we are heading further, towards the Pakistan border.
And today a special goodie is waiting (if it turns out to be one) - the Khyber Pass. And now we really get to the magical names that trigger something. Old stories of wars with muzzle-loaders, battles between men with turbans and machine-gun-carrying white soldiers. For a century, Pashtun tribes and British regiments fought deadly duels there.
These skirmishes are part of the past, but in 1974 the pass is still a particular challenge. It is, so the returnees tell, tedious and dusty, but a real highlight, not to be missed in any case. Muggings are rather not to be expected, which in our case may have to do with the dilapidated appearance of our vehicle.
After yesterday's exertions, the road to the border is rather easier stuff. Occasionally, we pass, somewhat astonished, fertile areas that do not fit at all to the surroundings. Surprisingly, not only the environment, but also the population becomes friendly. Once again, the old wisdom applies that man is a product of his environment.
Our car is purring like a kitten. Since the dark ages in Tabriz our friend has developed into a beloved, reliable companion, and we keep patting him on the back respectively the somewhat dented tin roof. Let's hope that he keeps his positive side also on the Khyber Pass.
It's mid-November now, time for change, time for some warmth. We have come a long way – and that much is now clear – despite many difficulties, much further than we had imagined with the greatest optimism. We don't know how much luck or coincidence played a role, or our way in dealing with all sorts of problems, and it doesn't matter either. The happy fact is that we are already at a border again – Pakistan.
Fortunately, you never know beforehand what will happen, whether it will end, and where it will end. Our life is made up of such ignorance.
The border – and a new country
And so we are standing at the border in Torkham the last place on Afghan territory. Unlike the picture below, there is no traffic jam, it is quiet and it takes surprisingly little time to cross the border.
So farewell.
Then bye-bye Afghanistan, it was great with you (and in a few months we will meet again). Now it is getting interesting, because Afghanistan is one thing, Pakistan is something else, a completely different category, a different world.
It's only a few kilometers inland to Landi Kotal, the border town on the Pakistani side, but diabolically we have to drive on the wrong lane, because from now on left-hand traffic applies. What the hell have the British got us into?
I take a short breath, because until the return trip sometime in spring, we now have to get used to the fact that the right lane is just for overtaking and nothing else. The two orange VW buses, whose long-distance destination is Australia, wisely bought their cars with right-hand drive from the very beginning.
At first glance, not much has changed, but at second glance it certainly has. The illegible writing as before, the clothes more or less the same, the stores with the familiar junk on offer - and yet something is different. As always when you cross a border. We don't know what it is, we don't know much at all, except that we are in a strange world that is becoming stranger by the day.
Some wise man claimed: The paradox of all knowledge is that the more we learn about a small part of the world, the more we realize how vast the unknown and our ignorance are.
I have to agree with him.
The Khyber Pass
Well, the Khyber Pass, the famous, infamous one, is just around the corner. It is barely 60 kilometers long, the pass a little over 1000 meters in altitude, located in the Safed Koh Mountains (“white mountains”). Apparently no one knows the number of curves. We will learn to fear them. Shortly after Landi Kotal, we are first bid farewell by a gate or rather a kind of triumphal arch. Actually, the only thing missing is a hint of what is waiting for us (Hail Caesar, the moribund greet you), or something like that).
But of course, as always, we are clueless and just drive off.
The Kyber pass represents a geographically, historically and economically important link between Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. The political and economic importance of the pass, as well as its strategic location, has resulted in control being in the hands of Pashtun tribes for many centuries.
However, the pass had already been the most important connection to the Indian lowlands in ancient times. Alexander the Great made use of it, as did the Mughals and Marco Polo on his way to India. The southern arm of the Silk Road also used this route. In the 19th Century the pass came under British control. However January 1842, the British army leaving Kabul for India was completely destroyed.
Today, in 1974, the situation has subsided, but as we know, the subsequent years will again be marked by violence and oppression.
Dust and rocks and wasteland
Well, as expected and dreaded, the ride starts out dusty. Not as bad as on the Tahir (which has already disappeared from short-term memory), but close. We are glad that the traffic is moderate, oncoming vehicles crossing slowly, the occupants casting curious glances at us. For them it is hardship, for us as well, but voluntarily.
The road ahead is clearly visible, winding uphill and downhill, disappearing somewhere in the background where the mountains vanish in the haze.
From a plane's perspective, the road winds through the mountains like a snake. But in the background, visible in the evening haze, the wide plain lures. There we will take a breath and swear to drive only on flat terrain in the next few weeks (of course we are mistaken, because a few days later we set off for Kashmir).
Anyway, after the Tahir, there's actually little that can shock us, so the 60 kilometers are tedious and dusty, but all in all an experience of a unique kind.
Is it possible that we are beginning to enjoy tough challenges?
Peshawar
We leave the mountains behind, the lowlands now lie ahead. The motor seems to breathe an audible sigh of relief. Now it's time for endless stretches across flat terrain, right across Pakistan, southward to Lahore near the Indian border. And then the promised land - India. The sacred destination of all hippies.
And indeed, a lot is changing.
We become aware of that as soon as we get to the first major city - Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Today it has a population of over 2,3 million, much less at our time, but as we know, Pakistan and India are countries with a large population growth.
And for the first time we are now confronted with the chaos, the noise, the endless honking, the stench of the metropolises on the Indian subcontinent. It will be our constant companion during the months to come. Are we appalled? Not really, because what awaits us in India, away from the developed roads, where the average speed is about 10 kilometers per hour is still a long way off and beyond our imagination.
We find a suitable campground, in the evening we sit in front of the cars without freezing our asses off for the first time in a long time and enjoy the warm sun.
Under the curious eyes of some locals we first have to wash the laundry, not with 30 or 60 or even 90 degrees, no, with pretty cold water at the public fountain. Never mind, the main thing is that the stuff gets clean.
Matching song for the year: James Brown – Please please please
And here the trail continues... to Lahore in the south
