Taken From All About My Hat The Hippy Trail 1972
(images found on line)
Al and Keith spent almost a month in Kabul and smoked a great number of chillums and sat at that spot many times..
Al enjoyed discovering the city. But Keith was paying his way. There were no letters at the post office - the Poste Restante - and no money to collect at the American Express offices,
Keith had mentioned several times that he wanted to sell his cheques on the street so the two of them could go to the Afghan Government building to apply for visa extensions.
Keith sold some cheques, without problem. They simply went closer to the big hotels and waited for a street money-changer to approach them.
Keith gave Al the equivalent of ten pounds in English money, but Al did not feel that would get him very far on public transport and with hotel bills, albeit that it was all so comparatively cheap here. It certainly would not get him to India.
He had a couple of cotton shirts that he sold to the two brothers at the hotel. And a compass set on a plastic base..
Al went out with his compass and, seeing a small shop that seemed to be selling junk and second-hand clothes, he entered. Inside was an old man dressed in a brown gown, sitting behind a counter, Al said hello but it was obvious that this man spoke no English.
Al showed the compass and tried to explain its function. He took out a map of Kabul that he had been given by the hotel, and showed it to the man, pointing to the North on the map and to the compass needle. He thought that the man had no idea at all what this was about, but sensed he was fascinated that the needle always pointed the same way, however the compass was turned – it pointed to the door to his shop!
Al knew the symbols for the numbers by now, and gingerly wrote on the back of the map “2000” and said Afghani. The man immediately went to a drawer and came back and gave Al a few bank notes – it was 1200 Afghani. He took it happily, although it was only about six pounds in English money it would last for ages here. He could give Keith some money and still have enough to get by for a while – and strangely enough six pounds was what the compass had cost back in England.
By now Al and Keith had found Chicken Street, a street known to be popular with Western Travellers. There were small hotels and eating houses that sold food such as pizzas and burgers, milkshakes and a range of herb teas. Most of the places played Western music, including from Bob Dylan and The Band to Jimi Hendrix, Janice Joplin, Joni Mitchell who made Al think of Miriam, The Doors, The Animals, The Byrds, The Beach Boys, Jefferson Airplane, Captain Beefheart, Frank Zappa, Cream, The Rolling Stones - all the music Al liked - and of course The Beatles and Elvis Presley.
There were several with cushioned rooms and young people smoking joints. They chatted with many of them – some going East and some going West, and heard many strange tales of their experiences, some good and some bad. They heard of a woman supposedly a psychic, at the Pakistan – India border, who seemed to know who had hash and where they had hid it, as people went from one country to the other. They heard bad stories of how those caught “smuggling” were treated until they paid hefty fines. But they heard worse about the Afghan – Iran border where anyone caught with a kilo could be taken out and shot on the spot. Al had thought how strange that was if the Afghan Customs Officer was selling it!
They spent many hours sitting in those places.
On one occasion they had smoked a chillum and gone out wandering and had found a small restaurant and gone in to eat – they both wanted boiled eggs.
It was an upstairs restaurant, quite a large room filled with wooden tables and metal chairs. They sat near the open window with an excellent view of the street below: there were several stalls selling melons and fruits and vegetables, and a couple opposite with smoke blowing across the street, selling cooked street snacks. The ground in between was rough and unsteady and the whole place was busy with men and women, many carrying bundles or pushing wooden carts with big wheels, several riding or leading donkeys and even one man driving sheep, maybe for slaughter in the deeper parts of this street market. Beyond that corner they could see the main street with its various forms of transport.
A boy who looked about fourteen approached them and spoke. It was apparent he spoke very little English but was asking them what they wanted. “Tea with milk” - that seemed to be understood.
“Two soft boiled eggs and toast,” said Keith.
The boy looked dumbfounded.
Al decided to try to communicate through sign-language.
He knew the local word for water was “Pani”.
So he made a shape like a saucepan in the air with his hands, pointed into the invisible top and said “Pani.”
The boy nodded.
Feeling good about that, Al took out a box of matches from his pocket and made like to strike one and hold it under the imaginary now pot of water.
The boy smiled.
Al made a shape like an egg in the air and pretended to place the imaginary egg into the imaginary pot of imaginary hot water – he signalled with two fingers and pointed to himself and Keith.
Meanwhile Keith had come up with his own idea of how to order eggs.
He was crouched down and started flapping his arms and making a noise like a chicken clucking. He pretended to lay and egg and pick it up, then a second egg. Then he pointed at Al and showed four fingers.
The boy smiled and bowed and walked off.
Keith shouted after him”And toast!”
A short while later the boy returned. He motioned to Al to follow him.
Well Al already knew that often several eating houses would share a kitchen and that it could be even 100 yards away.
So he followed the boy feeling confident he would see eggs and bread in the kitchen.
Down the stairs, turning right out of the door, up the market street passed stalls selling cloths, about 50 yards or so.
The boy stopped and pointed up a short alley. Al could see that it opened on to some sort of yard, but he felt a little uneasy about this. So he motioned the boy to go first, which he did.
When they came out of the alleyway, Al saw that it was a courtyard with closed wooden doors all around and two sets of wooden steps leading up to a wooden veranda with more closed wooden doors. Al looked at the boy and shrugged.
The boy smiled and pointed at one of the doors up the stairs.
“Strange place to have a kitchen!,” said Al; the boy obviously did not understand.
The boy waved Al towards the steps, so he ascended and walked along to the door and knocked.
There was no answer. He knocked again, with greater force.
Still no answer. The boy was shouting something.
When Al looked down he saw the boy seemed to be motioning Al to go in, so he slowly opened the door.
He was expecting to see a number of cooks at hot steaming stoves.
Instead he saw a hole-in-the floor toilet!
Al laughed out loud– so much for his eggs in hot water act – so much for Keith's flapping and clucking!
So much for boiled eggs on toast.
He resigned himself to going back to the restaurant with nothing. He didn't even feel the need to use the toilet..
But as he and the boy were walking back up the street passed the stalls selling cloth, the boy shouted something at the stall-holder and gestured towards Al.
The stall-holder motioned for Al to approach and suddenly produced a telephone, on which he spoke. He handed the phone to Al.
A voice on the other end said “Hello, Kann ich Ihnen helfen, was Sie wollen?”
Al recognised that as German. Something like “can I help what do you want”. They had tried to teach him German in school for two years but he had had no interest and failed the exams. But he inevitably knew some words and that included the words for four, eggs, water and bread.
“ Er … vier Eier in Wasser mit Brod, bitte” - meaning 'four eggs in water with bread, please.'
“Yah, gut!”
Al handed the phone back to the stall-holder who then listed and told the boy.
The boy laughed and pointed back up the street to the alley where the toilet was again, then at Al.
As they walked back to the restaurant the boy kept laughing - he was making a clucking sound!
As it turned out, after Al had returned to Keith and they had laughed about the adventure, they were pleased to see the boy return with tea along with four eggs and a pile of toast. Albeit the eggs were hard boiled but the lads did not care.
Most of their time in Kabul they ate meat-free Kabuli rice, pizzas, pastas and the lovely baked and spiced potatoes from the street stalls, and plenty of bread and onions and fruit and yoghurt.
They had been in Kabul for three weeks when they heard about the opium den. One evening they decided to try it. Apparently they did not allow cannabis or tobacco to be smoked inside, just opium pipes.
It was a rather dingy looking place off a small courtyard off a dirty back street. There was a man on the door that simply said “Twenty each” and let Al and Keith inside. It was quite dark but Al could see men sitting or laying round on cushions. In the centre of the room was the pipe-maker, sat on the floor, applying a light to the opium on the end of the long pipe that another man was sucking on. The sickly sweet smell of smoked opium reminded Al of that time in Iran and he thought once again he would enjoy it.
Here, however, there was no friendly feeling. It was just a commodity they had to pay for.
They smoked two pipes each and left. Little did anyone know the consequences that were to come weeks later, but I will reveal that at the right time. For now you can only guess.
Instead, they went to Chicken Street to meet friendlier people and smoke some hash.
Chicken Street consisted of stalls and two story buildings occupied by cheap westernised restaurants and shops selling trinkets, clothing wall hangings and mats, Afghan coats, breads and pancakes, even antique guns and swords – and hats and head scarves – it was where people went to meet and eat or to buy their souvenirs.
“Sigis” was a popular eating house that we visited many times. It had a courtyard with a giant chessboard.
Other restaurants we visited and sat about in were the Marco Polo and the Khyber.
At the end of Chicken Street was Flower Street where one could buy flowers, fruit and vegetables.
In the restaurants and so-called hippy bars one could meet people with advice on where to stay and they learned of the Hotel Rainbow in Peshawar, in Pakistan, their next planned stop.
We also learned that the Pakistan – India border was closed due to fighting but there was talk of it re-opening soon,
With all those chillums the days passed quickly and before we knew it Al and Keith had bought tickets for a bus through the Khyber pass into Pakistan and Peshawar. That region of Pakistan was called the North-West Frontier and was populated by tribes very different to most Pakistanis.
It was 180 miles from Kabul to Peshawar, across the Khyber Pass.
Great reminiscences Alun - I think we just missed each other as I didn't arrive in Kabul until the end of July '72, but what you describe is very similar to my own experiences.
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