Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Early on the second morning, we were told we would be leaving for Afghanistan
in an hour. We packed up and piled into the truck to take us to the boat. The big
problem now was that the train wagon with all the equipment and the Polish goods
for barter had not yet arrived in Termez. Had the whisky bribe for the goods-yard-
master in Moscow been enough? With heads bowed and cameras hidden, we Brits
were sent across the Oxus with Voytek and Doc to Mazar-i-Sharif while the re-
mainder of the Poles stayed behind to await the equipment.
Crossing the river on a barge-like motor vessel, we could see the huge scale of the
docks, clearly not intended for normal river traffic. Machine gun turrets marked
every few hundred metres on the Soviet side above well-irrigated fields, but to pro-
tect the population from what? I realised they were there to keep people in. Fool-
ishly, I tried to take a photograph. In the same instant there was a shout and an
armed soldier grabbed my camera. 'фотографии запрещаются! Вы потеряли
Вас камера! Pictures are forbidden. Your camera is forfeit.'
Voytek appeared and had a protracted and calm conversation with the soldier
some way off. I sat on the deck feeling a thorough idiot. I feared I was going get in-
to deeper trouble having broken an explicit order not to take photographs. To my
amazement, after about ten minutes Voytek strode over and handed me my cam-
era.
'Bury it deep in your sack. You know, we have a saying about these encounters
with Russian soldiers: funny but frightening, like fucking a tigress.'
The endless deserts of northern Afghanistan drew closer as we manoeuvred up-
stream. Customs consisted of a table with a rather corpulent Afghan officer and a
couple of shabbily uniformed privates who tried to sell us large blocks of hash be-
fore stamping our passports. We trucked to Mazar-i-Sharif, meaning 'tomb of the
exalted', named for its famous blue mosque - the Shrine of Ali - with its exterior
faced with the holy stone lapis lazuli. All the women wore full burqa, every man a
turban of a colour befitting his status.
We settled into a hotel configured like a traditional caravanserai, the motels of
the medieval trade along the Silk Road from China and India westwards. One large
internal quadrangle provided parking for the ubiquitous Tata trucks. Three floors
of rooms faced each other around the quadrant. Long caravans of camels moved
through the streets to the edge of town and beyond. These were nomadic people
from many tribes travelling in long lines of ambling beasts laden with goods. Wo-
men in jet-black
chadori
clutched infants atop the loads as they plied the timeless
headed east on the back of trucks, we passed many black tents that looked like bats
clinging to the ground, always pitched just out of reach from the road.
