Crossing into Afghanistan

We left Mashhad as the sun set and soon it was dark. We made various stops when the road disappeared, and the injector pipe broke and the headlights started flickering. We arrived in Torbat-e-Jam at about 8:30 and dashed off to eat. We made a mistake not eating with the flock - had rather poor rice and chunks of lamb for 40R each. Not a good meal. We then had an interlude while the natives tried to chat up the birds and were off again before 9:30.

We reached the border at about 11pm. Border control staff had knocked off about 7pm. The road wasn't as bad as that over Peč pass in Montenegro. Nowhere to sleep so I chatted to customs and Brian, Ian and I slept on camp beds in the entrance hall to their dormitory which was open to the elements, but we had a roof over us. Most of the other passengers slept on the bus. Dallas came and joined Ian, then I was oblivious till there was a fantastic wailing of prayer from 4:00 till 4:30.

We were woken again at 6:00. I was curled in a fantastic ball against the cold, only my feet were cold. Not bad for such a poor sleeping bag. I got up with surprising alacrity, packed everything back in my kit bag. Unpacked and repacked the bus boot as my tools were all making a bid for freedom. Got everything sorted out much better (so that Brian's bag is now on top) and had an excellent cup and a half of soup and a wash. At that time of morning things are rather vague but at some stage I availed myself of their facilities (hole in the ground) and joined the passport queue soon after the customs post opened at 7am.

Well the process was absolutely ridiculous, but eventually (after shouting "snap" much to Ian's dismay) I got my passport stamped. The border customs man looked very hard at the bit about the car. Apparently the story was that the Wave's engine blew up and that it was too expensive to repair. So officially it is dead. We wondered if the Tehran customs man did the right thing to my passport, and to the Carnet de Passage so that the Iranian Government wouldn't send a demand for duty to the RAC. All was well. At last we got onto the bus, and down to the post office to post letters.

Then we were through and out into Iranian no man's land to the final checkpoint. After a few more kms we came to the Afghan forward post and into the Afghan customs. The process took several hours and we finally left at two o'clock, which is now three o'clock in this country - so the border crossing has taken no less than seven hours. While we were waiting we produced quantities of tea and soup (using our petrol burning "primus" stove) because the only available restaurant was charging too much. Serves them right! We were popular with the other passengers.

We are now in the fabled country of Afghanistan. We drove on to Herat, arriving at sunset. The first hotel we tried was too expensive, the next full, so we went off the main road and into the town where the charge was 40AFFs a night. Joined Tom of America in a room, then Kevin, Brian and I went in search of a restaurant. The first street yielded only sticky bun shops, so we tried the one towards the centre of town. Here was a place where we had rice and some meat for 9A each.

Next door was an excellent chai shop where sitar and bongos were being played - rather well. The music was much more palatable than anything we heard in Turkey or Iran. We sat cross-legged on the carpeted stone bench and had a pot (of chai) each and listened. It was excellent. The room was very dimly lit and after a while one character started to show off by lighting a hubble-bubble. The smoke was unbelievably acrid and smelt of wood smoke. Next the same guy went and sang for us, which obviously required our applause and approval. A very pleasant atmosphere, apart from the smoke - no wonder he coughed.

We bought several different types of sticky bun and returned to the hotel. Tom had my key and Leon had the key to Kevin and Brian's room, so we found the room occupied by Robyn and Dallas, and invited them to join us in a sticky bun. It's surprising how many people don't have a sweet tooth. Brian and I did well on the sweet ones, but the others hoovered down the biscuits. After we'd been there for a while Little John appeared with a miniature brass hooker and some hash, and we were off.