PAKISTAN
itinerary:
2001.06.15 - 2001.06.28 + 2001.07.26 - 2001.07.28
pakistan wasn't my actual destination on this trip, but as i couldn't get a flight to kabul i decided this would be the easier route into the country. pakistan being one of the three countries to recognise the taliban as rulers of afghanistan.
anyway, i arrived in karachi late on the 15th after a short stop in abu dhabi. after passing customs and changing money i immediately booked the first train to peshawar. it was just before midnight and my train wouldn't leave until nine the evening after. and there ware only third class seats left. fortunately i was still able to book the baggage rack to sleep on, seeing as this was going to be a 24 hour trip (or so i was told) on a hard wooden bench.
i decided to spend the night at the airport. it was after midnight and i didn't like the prospect of looking for a hotel in karachi when i had no guide book or notes about this area of pakistan. it didn't seem to be much of a problem as plenty of taxi drivers (i assume) were sleeping on the grass in front of the main entrance.
awake at the crack of dawn i relocated to the train station and tried to get some more sleep. i had done no research about the south of pakistan as i was only passing through. i did have a lonely planet for the karakoram highway which only covered the north of pakistan. this was to be my backup plan in case i didn't get an afghan visum. i'd be "stuck" in pakistan for six weeks which should be plenty of time to get to the chinese border and back. the highway goes on to kashgar in china, but i didn't have a chinese visum (or much chance of getting one quickly).
i didn't get much sleep. besides the usual noise to be expected in a metropolis policemen seemed very concerned for my safety and woke me up every few minutes to remind me how dangerous it was. after being chased into the station i found out it was the wrong one. fortunately somebody took pity on me and dumped me in a rickshaw (and pointed out the taximeter, something i hadn't expected). there i spent the rest of the day trying to inconspicuously sleep until the train left, delayed by only an hour.
the 24 hour train ride turned out to be a 43 hour train ride, unexpectedly going by rawalpindi near islamabad. i was very glad i had been able to reserve the baggage rack to sleep on and nobody seemed to mind having to move their bags for the night. not that i slept much on either of the two nights in the train. besides the heated arguments between the passengers and the train conductor there were people cooking and listening to music. add to that that the train stopped at several station during the night with people getting in and out (and fighting about seats) i was reasonably wasted by the time i arrived in peshawar.
i headed straight to the peshawar inn, a cheap hotel where all afghanistan wannabes stay (according to my research). the peshawar inn was a real el-cheapo setup, just a line of beds against the wall in two large rooms. small courtyard with (rancid) kitchen, seats and a tv. quite a social arrangement it turned out as there was always somebody hanging around. it turned out several others staying at the hotel had applied for an afghan visum and were waiting for weeks...
first things first: shower, neat clothes and off the the afghan consulate just around the corner. i was too late for applying that day but i at least got a application form at an office at the entrance. back at the hotel i ran into a brit (let's call him... steve) looking for the consulate as well. i gave him the info (come back tomorrow morning) and we agreed to go there together.
we spent the rest of the day wandering through the bazaars. steve was a fanatic chatter and couldn't refuse any offer from locals to stay and drink tea. this meant we didn't see much of the city. i did discover an osama bin laden t-shirt. not with his mugshot but a map of afghanistan, an ak-47 and pro-osama texts in urdu (or so i was told). and they only came in size xxs. well, it's not like i was ever going to wear it and who can complain for one euro. they were on the same rack as bootlegged (american) designer labelled t-shirts, ironically...
next morning up nice and early, off to the afghan consulate with steve. i was dressed quite conservatively, long pants, shirt with long sleeves, while steve was wearing shorts, sandals and a mc-shit t-shirt (with a mcdonald's logo). according to him, the "anti-american" t-shirt would increase his chances of getting a visum...
anyway, once at the consulate we were sent of to a building hidden on the compound. after asking directions a few times we arrived at a guarded office. inside, as we stood shoeless on the thickest carpet i have ever seen, we were briefly scrutinised by an exceptionally authoritarian man with a massive black beard (not quite zz-top, but close) and matching robes and turban.
we handed him our application forms which he scribbled on without saying a word. as he then continued with other work and didn't even look at us, we silently left the room, back to the entrance. there we handed in our forms with a photo and a copy of my passport, which steve didn't seem to need to hand in. i took it that increased my chances.
we parted, as steve wanted more bazaar, and i wanted the refugee camps.
outside peshawar are large refugee camps, there since the seventies. there was also a vast market/bazaar squeezed between the fenced off road and buildings/huts. bedford busses ran from near the hotel to the camps, a fifteen to twenty minute ride. on the road were policemen everywhere, trying to control several hundred cars, busses and rickshaws. just a few meters away, on the other side of the fence, it seemed everything possible was for sale, ranging from cheap chinese electronics to booze and porn (both of which were/are prohibited in pakistan i believe). this travelled on for a few hundred meters until a roadblock stopped most cars and all tourists. this was the road to the khyber pass and on to afghanistan.
as i walked along the the stalls with under-ware and vcd players i came across the occasional old man selling some strange black, oily looking, potato sized lumps of something. after asking several of these merchants, each giving more or less the same vague list of ailments it should help, i suspected it must be some cheap opium sort. my suspicion grew when i discovered a drug users mall... most bazaars are divided in product areas, all the shoemakers together, all the hat sellers together. here, just before the roadblock, was an area entirely devoted to hash/opium sellers. about twenty shops around a courtyard, each with their wares clearly on display. after a quick look and several refusals to invitations from the merchants, i made i swift exit. being so close to the roadblock i was spotted by the police who scolded and searched me and sent me on my way. it seemed they were not searching for drugs, as later i heard (an saw) there was a weapons area of the bazaar just beyond that point.
after wandering around peshawar and the camp bazaars for another day i felt the need to move on. as i didn't have much info on the area, besides a few photocopies of old travel guides and that 'lonely planet: karakoram highway', i followed some fellow travellers advice and headed for chitral. the night trip was in a minivan which was only four hours late leaving, partly due to an overbooking and the resulting complaints. i was squeezed into the minivan for over an hour with nineteen others in the sweltering heat while this went on for what seemed an eternity. during the drive there we were stopped twice to let all tourists register their passage (name, passport number, occupation, etc) with the police in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere (then again, it was dark end i didn't have my contacts in...)
the small town is situated in the closest valley to afghanistan, at the foot of mount tirich mir (7690m), the highest peak in the hindu kush mountain range. the route i followed was through the lowari pass (3200m) which is only open in the summer; the winter route ran through afghanistan. i woke up at dawn, just before the pass. unfortunately i didn't have my contacts in yet, so i didn't see much. maybe just as well, as with the several hundred meter drop and far to narrow road was a bit to hollywoodish to be safe, and the driver overtaking cars constantly, maybe blind trust is better.
once in chitral i had to register with the local police, as this was in tribal territories. this included the standard preach on how dangerous it was by the police chief, in his office. this reasonably sized room had every wall stacked to the ceiling with documents, here and there two rows deep. every other flat surface had a pile, leaving only a small walking space and a few chairs. even his desk was too full to leave room for me to fill in the obligatory forms, which landed on top of yet another stack of paper...
as i was getting tired of the continuous comments about my long hair i bought an arabian headscarf. i felt a lot more like an idiot tourist but the remarks disappeared and the locals stopped staring. the other tourists started staring more though...
i spent a few days wandering through the hills randomly, soaking up the atmosphere. there were plenty of people in traditional salwar kameez and waistcoat (an afghan addition) and i noticed i got more response with my few words of farsi than in peshawar.
i decided to go back to peshawar instead of further up the valley as i was extremely curious about my visum application. the trip back to peshawar was by the same route, but during the day this time. fine by me, as i could enjoy the view. it only dawned on me later that the driver probably makes a round trip, driving from peshawar to chitral and back in one go. not very encouraging, what with the recklessness of his driving...
back in peshawar i still had several days to wait, but i decided to turn up at the consulate early every morning just to show how determined i was. and it was a good excuse for getting out of bed in time.
i had heard about a village nearby devoted to making firearms and the like, darra adam khel. off to the bus station. once there, several bus drivers going in that direction refused to take me, probably because it's off limits to non-locals. finally i found somebody prepared to take me, but i had to sit in the back, inconspicuously, in the nearly empty bus. we were stopped once on the way there, but i wasn't noticed. perhaps my headscarf, shaggy beard and suntan were convincing enough.
out of the bus i only got about two hundred meters before being stopped by two policemen. they asked for my permit, knowing i probably didn't have one, as i was without driver and/or guide. expecting this, i played dim and acted as if i knew nothing about needing a permit. i had never offered baksheesh before, so i very carefully asked if i could buy a permit on the spot, to save me travelling all the way back to peshawar. the policemen and i all knew i would never get a permit in peshawar any time soon, if at all (unless i was a journalist or something). for some reason one of the policemen took pity on me and suddenly claimed the permit was only necessary for travel, and as i was already here, they would have to take care of me until i could take a bus back.
so they gave me the grand tour. first along the main street, full of shops selling only guns in all shapes and sizes. cheap copies of warsaw pact copies of western pistols for less than twenty dollars, pen guns (a pen for writing, but with one bullet inside instead of ink, real james bond stuff) for five or six bucks. local made ak-47's for just under two hundred dollars, imported chinese ak's for an extra fifty. and there were merchants at the side of the road selling munition, piles of bullets on a blanket and weighting scales to buy by the kilo.
the story behind this abundance of firepower production in one place comes from the nineteenth century. the british, then rulers of india (and pakistan) turned a blind eye to the practises in return for safe passage, and to create a buffer state between them and afghanistan. nowadays the central government still doesn't have all that much control over the region, which explains why they don't want tourists getting themselves in trouble in these areas.
from here i was brought to one of the many side streets leading off the main street with a few small buildings, each with several milling machines inside making different parts of guns. raw blocks of metal would start in the first building and continued up the street until it finally came out as a complete pistol. outside several parts were treated by blackening to prevent corrosion, giving the weapons their black coating. just like an assembly line, but without the automation. i was told it took about fifteen men a week for a gun to be made completely, but over a hundred were made every week in this street alone. and these were only pistols, there were also facilities for producing the ak-47's and pen guns i had seen earlier.
suddenly the police decided it had become to dangerous for me to stay any longer, so i was escorted to a minibus waiting to leave towards peshawar. i tried again to offer them some compensation for their troubles and for the tea they had bought me at different stages of the tour, but they would have nothing of it. well, who was i to complain about a free armed escorted tour of the village with complementary drinks?
on the way back we were stopped at a police roadblock (like on the way there) but this time i was recognised. the police were furious and demanded to know what i was doing here and where my permit was. i played dim again as they could only send me back to peshawar. they searched me, even my boots (but not my headscarf), scolded me and the driver and sent us on our way.
back in peshawar again i spent another day wandering around the city, mainly browsing bookshops looking for secondhand books on afghanistan, but the few relevent books i found were too expensive for my liking. on the eighth day of waiting i was told i could pick up my afghan visum the next morning. this left me with one day to organise a ride to the border. i would also need an armed escort, but to arrange that i would first need proof of passage (ie a visum). after refusing several taxi drivers asking far too much the uncle of the owner of the peshawar inn was prepared to drive me, although i had to do some hard bargaining before i got a price i was prepared to pay. the uncle even complemented me on my bargaining skills afterwards, as did several others.working at the inn.
i got up exceptionally early and headed off to the consulate for my visum. i was well known by now, as i had been there a dozen times in just over a week. the clerk behind the counter nodded politely and then let me wait for two hours before beckoning me over. after signing and stamping several forms he stuck the coveted visum in my passport and wished me god's luck on my travels as he handed the documents back to me. i of course immediately checked my visum, more just to see it than to look for errors, and to my horror i saw "travel only to kabul" written in english and farsi along the side of the visum sticker. unfortunately the clerk didn't know the reasons for limiting my travel, but i was assured the ministry of foreign affairs in kabul would know more. major bummer, but it was better than nothing.
i raced back to the peshawar inn and announced my success to the inn owner and the few tourists staying there. all were surprised as several tourists had been waiting for weeks without avail. my bags were packed and the bill was paid, the uncle was ready so we left. first to the police station for my escort and permit. the permit only took a few minutes, but the uncle had apparently organised a different car and driver for me, obviously keeping a commission for himself. ah well, it was still cheaper than a taxi, and they might have done the same. we drove off to a barracks to pick up my armed escort, a policeman younger than me, armed with the obligatory ak-47. the road to the border lead us along the refugee camps and bazaar, where we picked up a local as an extra passenger. my new driver must have made plans beforehand, seeing the chance to make an extra buck.
my papers were checked at the roadblock at the end of the bazaar, just before the gunshops and after the dope shops. from there we drove through the countryside and several villages for half an hour. low quality roads kept the speed low even though we were in a four wheel drive pickup with yet another reckless driver. most males over twelve in the villages we passed through seemed to be armed, with an ak-47 slung over the shoulder or within easy reach. i'm not really sure how much use the policeman would be...
we slowly carried on the long winding road up the khyber pass, stopping at several police checkpoints on the way. each of these checkpoints had numerous fortified posts higher up the mountainside looking down on the roadblocks. when we finally arrived at torkham the driver more or less demanded a fee, even though the uncle had assured me everything had been paid in advance. as the pickup quickly filled with locals for the trip back the policeman lead me off towards what seemed to be the actual border. just before he left me he too asked for a small contribution. slightly exasperated and just wanting to get on with things i gave him a tip and left swiftly to cross into afghanistan