April 24, 25 1972: Arriving in Afghanistan, Customs and bus to Herat, meeting Miriam

 Taken From All About My Hat The Hippy Trail 1972 

(images found on line)

Al and Keith took their rucksacks from the roof of the bus and headed into a wooden shack labelled, in English, ‘Passport and Customs’.

This was close to a small town called Islam Qala.

It was April 24 1972.

 Inside the shack were wooden tables and chairs and in the corner a window to a small office. At the window stood a line of ten or so people waiting to get their visas stamped. It was all done speedily and efficiently, so there was not too long a wait. Al stepped to the window first, passport in hand, dragging his rucksack. A sad-looking official sat at the window, but as Al approached, he smiled.

“Ah, you from Inglant, why you come to Afghanistan?” said the official.

“Just to see the country and the people,” said Al; “We're travelling to India.”

“You smoke hasheesh in Inglant?”

“No I don't!”. Al thought in this instance it may be best to simply say no.

“Okay, good. You no smoke hasheesh. You no buy hasheesh in Afghanistan. You buy, you smoke, big problem, prison, very bad.”

“No, no, we won't smoke it”.

With that the official stamped Al's visa and told him he could go through without his bag being searched.

Then it was Keith's turn. Al stood nearby waiting and listening to almost exactly the same conversation again. At the end, Keith asked if there was somewhere to sleep.

Following the officials suggestion, we left the shack and walked a short distance down a rough road to find a guest house offering “dirt cheap” accommodation, sleeping on rough mats on the floor, in their own sleeping bags. The only facilities were a shared hole-in-the-floor toilet and a shared wash-tap and drain-away sink. But despite his initial impression and appearance, the man on reception smiled and tried to help, although he spoke little English. He was indeed a very large man, at least 6 foot eight, and wore a long black beard and turban-like hat. He was dressed in a blue suit and white shirt without a tie. He held up a card with the price per person for one night. They handed over some of the Afghan notes that they had bought earlier at the border – the currency was the Afghani. How imaginative, Al had thought.

The room was surprisingly large with space for maybe six people to sleep on the rough dirt floor, which is why it was so dirt cheap, thought Al.

But Al and Keith were the only two to sleep in that room that night.

They sat on the thin mats and were both reading their books, when there was a knock on the door.

Keith jumped up and opened the door to see the reception manager grinning at us.

You no smoke hash here, big trouble with police!” he said.

“No we are not smoking, we are reading,” replied Keith.

“OK said the man, “Do not buy outside.”

With that he bowed and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

“Fucking hell, I'm not sure I dig this place,” said Keith. “Not sure we'll get a safe smoke if it's all going to fucking be like this.”

But within minutes the door opened again and in walked the giant grinning and carrying a large colourful water-pipe hookah. He placed it on the ground and said “I give you some tobacco so you only smoke that, OK. You happy men? Welcome.”

Without more ado, he walked out again, this time closing the door more gently.

“What's going on?” said Al. “Seems a weird chap. We said we weren't smoking!

“Well, we may as well smoke the tobacco,” said Keith, “Looks like he may have left something in that newspaper.”

Somewhat gingerly was how Al was feeling, as he unwrapped the newspaper, wondering in fact what strange thing he was going go find. It was in fact tobacco, chopped up and extremely dry. It was dark brown in colour.

As they had both smoked plenty of cigarettes including the dry rolling tobacco in Turkey, the only new thing here was the hookah itself. It was about three feet high, a round clay bulb and clay neck with a flexible tube to suck on attached, and the smoking bowl at the top of the neck, made again of clay. The whole thing was painted and decorated with short strings of tiny beads of many colours. Al felt it was more of a precious ornament than tobacco pipe.

Keith poured some of the dry tobacco into the pipe, put his mouth to the tubing and a lighted match to the bowl, and sucked – one long, slow but deep suck.

He sat upright holding the smoke in his lungs a while before blowing out a massive cloud of smoke.

He doubled-over, coughing. His colour changed from tanned brown to dark green. He looked like he was about to explode.

But he didn't. A bout of coughing later and he was passing the tubing to Al to try.

I sensed that Al was a lot more wary than Keith had been, as he sucked gently on the pipe. He inhaled and immediately blew out a small cloud of smoke and coughed.

“That's bloody dreadful,” shouted Al; “It tastes foul and just made me feel bad, not good. I am not bothering with that.”

Just then, once again, the door opened without any knocking, and once again in strode the giant from reception – this time followed by the grinning official from the border control post.

They looked at the hookah and sniffed the air. “Ah, not smoking hasheesh?” said the official with a massive grin. “Very good.

“Now we smoke good hasheesh. You want to buy, you buy from me OK. It is safe now.”

With that he threw his bag to the ground and pulled open the zip. He started to pull out some discus -shaped lumps of black hash.

 

“I have 100 gram, or quarter or half kilo good hasheesh from Mazar. I give you some to smoke, you want, you buy. You not buy, no problem”. He bit off a lump of about ten grams from the smaller block and passed it to Al. Al looked at it and then lit a match and warmed the corner of the piece. It smelled fantastic. He passed it to Keith, who took one smell, laughed out loud and proceeded to replace the foul tobacco with some of the crumbled hash.

They smoked a couple of pipes whilst the customs man and reception giant rolled and smoked joints made with American cigarettes.

“You want buy some?”

“No thanks we enjoyed the smoke but we don't want to be taking any with us and don't want to go to prison,.” said Al.

“No problem, very good very wise,” said the official. “In Afghanistan drugs very bad but it is OK here with me but when you go, do not buy drugs.”

The official and the giant left the room. Keith and Al moved a cupboard across to place in front of the door.

“Hopefully that'll stop them barging in. I'll roll a joint.”

The last cannabis that the lads had smoked was in Turkey, except for the one time with the Americans in the park in Syria, and I can tell you Al was very “high” and enjoying the experience. The two lads spent some time giggling at nothing. They ate bread, cake and fruit that they had bought from a shop on the way to the hotel. Washed down with bottled water.

Al stretched out on the mat, which seemed to be much more comfortable now he was laying down.

He fell asleep.

The following morning there was a banging on the door that woke the two travellers, and a shouting from outside:

“Mister come quick, bus to Herat going soon.”

So they scrambled to their feet, stuffed their rucksacks, grabbed the remains of their supper, and got out of the hotel, walking fast to the bus stop.

There were a few old cars on the street, and bicycles, as well with the men leading donkeys laden with crops. What was really noticeable was the trucks.

There seemed to be lines of trucks going in each direction, throwing up dust, honking their horns – but it was the way in which the trucks were decorated that was amazing to Al.

Each was painted in bright colours and in unique styles, showing depictions of buildings, people, animals, mountains and lakes. There were trees and flowers, birds and even insects.

Al spotted a truck with an elephant painted on the side, with the trunk going to the cab and then as if raised to the roof. There was one with a lion. There was one with people that looked like men and women dancing together. Several had large birds painted on.

Others were painted brightly in lines and patterns; reds, blues, greens, well almost every colour.

Most of the trucks had a box-like section over the cab, Al thinking that was probably where the driver slept for these would surely involve overnight stops. All the trucks seemed laden to the limit.

Al thought the drivers must be very proud of their trucks; maybe even named them.

When they reached the bus station, it looked like chaos. There seemed to be at least two bus loads of people with a massive amount of luggage. Huge cloth bundles were being passed up to the roof to be tied down.

Keith walked off and came back a couple of minutes later.

“God man, it's ridiculous,” he said, “they reckon that yesterdays bus never left so people had been here all day yesterday waiting, now they want to get on this one..

“Look they're getting bags back down off the roof. The driver said we should get on. I showed him the ticket, he just pointed inside. But I reckon it'll take hours sorting this out. There's still only one bus. Some guy told me this is today's bus and yesterday's bus has broken down so they have to get another one from Herat and that won't be here 'til tonight. Come on let's get on – you get two seats and I'll get the luggage onto the roof. I'll climb up and tie it myself.”

So that is what they did. They claimed two seats, put their coats on them. A while later they got off the bus again, for a smoke. Keith had some of his joint from the night before so they went up away from the people to smoke it. It was now about 9 o'clock. The bus should have left at 7.30.

In fact it was almost 11 o'clock before the bus left. The journey was along what seemed like one long straight road through desert, the occasional small village with mountains in the distance.

The bus made several stops at tea houses and once in the middle of nowhere all the men got off for a piss. Keith too. The men lined up and all crouched down, pissing from under their gown-like clothes, mostly grey or white, some with stripes, and a few in blue. Looking out of the bus window, Al laughed. About thirty feet from the road on the sandy ground, in the middle of the long line of crouching men was Keith, standing up with his back to the bus, presumably pissing: dressed in jeans a T-shirt.

It was just then that Al heard an American-sounding voice. “High man”.

Al had not even noticed any non-Asian looking people in the queue or on the bus, but soon learned that sure enough the guy was from the US. He explained that he had arrived from Mashhad had three nights ago. He had missed his bus, bought another ticket only to find the next day that bus was broken down. So then this morning he had turned up late but managed to swap his ticket and some money so he could get on this one. From the general conversation, Al gathered that the American was travelling alone and was hating it. Almost everything he said had the word filthy or the words nuisances or stupid in. Al was actually quite glad when the guys started getting back on board and the American went back to his seat.

There was a stop for refreshments, at what were basically a shack with charcoal stoves in the street outside. It was all pretty dirty looking and smoky. People from the bus crowded round barging each other about as if there was a limited supply of gourmet treats.

In fact there was only one choice, a set menu, a watery-looking soup and a meat and rice dish, and bread.

Nearby was a tiny stall selling vegetables. Al bought bread and spring onions and a few bottles of Fanta orange drink. That would have to do.

And both vegetable stall and shack café were hassled by flies. Several donkeys in the street, a few dogs, probably open hole-in-the ground latrines. Hardly hygienic. In both the shack and the shop the bread was charred looking, unleavened, covered with flies. The locals did not seem bothered. Al wondered if he should eat anything at all.

The men here were mostly wearing head-coverings that looked like puffy pancakes, flat hats of grey, white or black wool, called Pakols. 

 

Other men were wearing scarves of varying colours or what looked more like a towel, thrown over their heads.

What women there were wore black garments from head-to-toe and were always seemingly carrying baskets, buckets or bales.

 

I felt that all the men, seeing me on Al's head, shading his eyes from the glaring sun, wanted me.

Almost all the men wore beards, many quite long. They looked weathered.

 Al wondered what the American thought of this, but he was still on the bus.

Al was surprised to see the size of all the vegetables and fruit on sale. The spring onions, red and green peppers, tomatoes, apples, melons, onions, carrots were all massive. Two or three times the size he had seen before. There were nuts and open pots of yoghurt sitting in the sun, and bunches of various green leaves. Cans of fizzy drinks and packets of American tobacco were also on sale

The bus stayed there in the heat for about two hours. Everyone seemed irritated in the heat with nothing to do but wait, but the driver was not going to move. Al fell asleep.

Al was awakened with a bump. The bus was speeding down the new road which was said to have been built across Afghanistan through deserts and paid for with Russian, American and British money. But there was nothing to keep people or animals off the road. Apparently the bus had hit a dog. That was it. The dog was left in the road and the bus carried on.

There were also plenty of Bedouin tents close to the road and sometimes small groups of men leading camels.

 Eventually and none to soon, they pulled into Herat just as it was starting to get dark.

It once again looked dusty and ramshackle, the roads far worse than the highway. There were a few cars about, trucks as well as donkeys.

“Hey man, Al, let's get our gear and find a place to stay fast” said Keith, “Before all the rooms get taken..”

To Al's amazement their bags were already off the roof of the coach before they got outside, and they immediately spotted a sign across the road that said “Hostel”. 

They went in; the receptionist spoke English and was pleasant. He said there were many Westerners staying there. He explained that tomorrow many would go on buses to the border or to Kandahar and Kabul. They served an evening meal and breakfast. It was remarkably cheap and looked clean so they booked a room that turned out to have two beds.

The receptionist explained that the bus to Kabul left at 3 o'clock each afternoon and would take almost 24 hours, stopping in Kandahar. He said he could buy their tickets the next morning. Keith and Al gave him the money, about two hundred Afghanis, worth about one pound in British money.

The lads decided to drop their rucksacks into the room, lock the door and go for a walk before it got too dark. The room had two beds. These would be the first beds they had slept on since Tehran. The beds had sheets and thick woollen blankets. In the corner was a table and two wooden chairs, and another small table with a wash basin and large jug containing water. They could see the street from the window.

Al told Keith that he had hardly any money left.

That was when Keith first told Al that he had fifty British pounds in travellers cheques that could be cashed at a bank or maybe sold for more on the illicit market on the street. So really they had no big money problems if Keith would give Al a loan until his money arrived. Al had left Turkey weeks earlier and travelled many miles on less than £20. Surely they had enough to get to India? Fifty pounds was about two weeks wages in Britain. Al had lived on his ‘grant’ of £10 a week for three years, four pounds of which went on rent and the rest of books, bus fares, food and beer. Then he had worked on a building site erecting fences for twenty pounds for five days work. Here in Asia so far, it seemed that £20 was worth more like £500.

It was getting dark now and the temperature was dropping quite quickly. They walked up the main street that the bus had stopped on, past tea and coffee houses, small eating places, shops selling foodstuff or with butchers meat hanging as if a feast for the flies, hardware shops with piles of metal and clay cooking pots outside, a baker's shop with a window full of chocolate brownies and other cakes, and shops selling cloths.

They bought some bottles of water, chocolate brownie cakes, rusks, soft cheese, yoghurt and tobacco, and headed back to the hotel.

“Well I can't see there's much here,” said Al, when they were back in their room. “What's it say in your book?”

“Aw man I'm hungry, I'll read some later, let's see what they're serving up.”

So they went to the dining room in the hostel and to their surprise it was filled with western men and women. Some were sitting at tables eating and others were sat on large bean-bag cushions on the floor. Some of the men had long hair, but some short; same for the women. Some were dressed in jeans and T-shirts or sweaters, some in Indian garb, white pyjamas, and a couple in orange robes. There was a girl sitting on a cushion singing and playing her guitar. Songs by Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, as Al recognised.

Al sat at a table and a few of the other diners said “hi”.

The man from reception appeared at the table holding a small blackboard with a list of food for sale, in English. Al was amazed to see Pizza, Burgers, Fried Potatoes and Milkshakes listed. But he and Keith decided to try the vegetarian goulash and yellow rice with beans and salad, and a milkshake each.

“Bloody hell, it's cheap,” said Keith.

He turned to one of the others and said “Hey man, is the food OK?”

“It's actually very good,"said a chap with a very English accent, “best we've had since Athens.” The guy explained that he and his girlfriend were going to Nepal and had left the UK six months earlier. They had chosen to go across Turkey to Iran, rather than the route taken by Al and Keith, but had got stuck in eastern Turkey due to a bad storm and landslide. They had had to wait weeks whilst the road was cleared.

They were correct in that, the food was superb and the two ate their fill to the sound of peace songs from the girl on the cushions. Al thought she looked very pretty with her long black hair and smiling face and wondered if she was going to same way as he and Keith.

After dinner and after most of the others had left, Al and Keith went back to their room and Keith rolled a joint with some of the hash he had left. He shared it with Al and then opened his guide book and started to read about Afghanistan.

“It doesn't say much about Herat man,” he said, “just that it's a stopping off point for hippies going east or west. But there's a good bit on Afghanistan.”

“Do you know, “said Al, “I never heard of it except I remember it from when I collected stamps as a kid, still got some from here. A mystery adventure."

Keith read aloud:

“A landlocked mountainous country with plains in the north and south-west, Afghanistan is variously described as being located within Central Asia or South Asia.

“The country's natural resources include: coal, copper, iron ore, lithium, uranium, rare earth elements, chromite, gold, zinc, talc, barites, sulphur, lead, marble, precious and semi-precious stones, natural gas, and petroleum, among other things.

“At over two hundred and fifty thousand square miles, Afghanistan is the world's forty-first largest country, slightly bigger than France and smaller than Burma, about the size of Texas in the United States. It borders Pakistan in the south and east; Iran in the west and China in the far east.

“I'm glad we don't have to remember all that, I always hated having to remember dates in school” said Al.

“Pashto and Dari or Persian are the official languages of Afghanistan; bilingualism is very common. A small percentage of Afghans are also fluent in Urdu, English, and other languages.

“Over 99% of the Afghan population is Muslim; approximately 80–85% are from the Sunni branch, 15–19% are Shi'a, and roughly 3% are non-denominational Muslims..”

“There's a bit about Herat, man, not much though”:

“Herat is the capital of Herat province and is situated in the valley of the Hari River.

“Situated in a fertile area, Herat dates back to the Avestan times and was traditionally known for its wine."

“Bloody hell,” said Keith, “I didn't think they'd be making wine!”

“Herodotus described Herat as the bread-basket of Central Asia.

“Herat was a great trading centre strategically located on trade routes from Mediterranean Sea to India or to China.

“Three quarters of the population of Herat lives in rural districts while just under a quarter 23% lives in urban areas. Around 50% of the population is male and 50% is female. Dari and Pashtu are spoken by 98% of the population and 97.7% of the villages. Languages spoken by the remaining population are Turkmeni and Uzbeki.”

“Hey man I'll read this bit about Kandahar too,” said Keith.

“It's the capital of Kandahar Provincey.

“Kandahar is one of the most culturally significant cities of the Pashtuns and has been their traditional seat of power for more than two hundred years. It is a major trading centre for sheep, wool, cotton, silk, felt, food grains, fresh and dried fruit, and tobacco. The region produces fine fruits, especially pomegranates and grapes, and the city has plants for canning, drying, and packing fruit, and is a major source of marijuana. The area is believed to be the birthplace of cannabis indica.”

“Far out, it's where the weed comes from. We may get some blindin' stuff there! said Keith.

“The region around Kandahar is one of the oldest known human settlements. Alexander the Great had laid-out the foundation of what is now Old Kandahar in the fourth century BC and gave it the Ancient Greek name Alexandria of Arachosia. Many empires have long fought over the city due to its strategic location along the trade routes of southern, central and western Asia.

“Early peasant farming villages came into existence in Afghanistan about 5000 BC., or seven thousand years ago.

Keith and Al smoked another joint. Al decided to go to see if they could get a cup of tea, so he left the room and headed to the reception area.

At the reception was the happy friendly man that seemed to be manager, waiter and maybe even cook and the guitar-playing girl from the cushions in the dining room, chatting. From her accent, he guessed she was Canadian.

Al ordered two cups of tea with milk. There was no sugar, just hard boiled sweets to suck on whilst the tea was sipped. Apparently, according to the man, there was often a shortage of sugar but never a shortage of sweets and cakes!

“Hi, I'm Al.” He smiled at the girl.

“Hi, I'm Miriam,” she said, smiling back. “I'm from Vancouver on my way east.” she said.

“I'm going to India,” said Al, “at least that's where we're heading now. We left England in a van and we were just going to Turkey and back. There were five of us. But I decided to head east with my mate and the others stayed in Turkey. We're going to meet them later. Well, that was the plan. Now it looks like we're going to India instead.”

“So did you come through Turkey and Iran?” asked Miriam.

“Yeah and Iraq and Syria. We were going to go to Beirut but we were put off, so we went to Baghdad instead. We've been on the road a few months now. "Actually, it's the first time I ever left the UK.“

Al felt good chatting to Miriam and they exchanged a few travel tales. They talked about the Pudding Shop in Istanbul and how bad it was in Tehran. Al did not mention the opium village though. Miriam did not look the sort that he thought would take opium.

In fact, Al was so busy chatting and sipping his tea that he completely forgot to take a tea for Keith.

Keith suddenly appeared saying “Aw man, where's my fucking tea? I made another number.”

He smiled at Miriam and Al introduced them.

“Get some more tea and come and have a smoke,” said Keith.

“That would be nice,” she said.

So the three went back to the room with tea and smoked a joint, then another. Miriam sat on the bed next to Al. I could tell he liked this girl and wondered what would happen. Would Al leave Keith and go with Miriam? I knew he was thinking of it. Plus it turned out Miriam was catching the same bus to Kandahar the next afternoon.

After an hour or so, Miriam said “Good night, see you!” and left, presumably to her own room.

Now Al was looking forward to the bus journey and maybe chatting with Miriam again and maybe more. With the pleasant feeling from the cannabis and from the girl, he got into bed and soon fell asleep.