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Kabul-Khyber
E.Route : Kabul - Peshawar : ETD 0800 : ETA 1600 : Dist. 180m.
A.Route : Kabul - Peshawar : ATD 0754 : ATA 2100* : Dist. 184m.
- Depart Kabul (Kargah Dam) 0754
- 0825 - 0935 Kabul: water and refreshment stop.
- 1014 - 1030 Photostop ( Kabul Gorge )
- 1037 - 1053 Foot of Gorge : Convoy assembly.
- 1115 - 1113 Photo stop
- 1140 - 1150 Shop stop
- 1209 - 1214 Bogstop
- 1241 - 1346 Lunch
- 1410 - 1415 Bogstop
- 1430 - 1440 Fuel stop
- 1539 - 1835 Frontier clearance.
- 2005 - 2018 Fruit inspection.
- Arrive Peshawar 2030*
Est.A.Spd : 22.5 mph. : Gross A.Spd 14.6 mph. : Net A.Spd. 30.6 mph.
Stop time : 6:34 hr. : Speedo TD 9104,1 : Speedo TA 9288.0
Comment : (*) - Time throughout Afghan. Highly dramatic night passage through the Khyber Pass, although the record time taken for clearance by Pakiatani customs ( 2 out of the 3 hours ) was responsible for this. As it was, no-one was shot, despite the highly glamourised tales from last year. The fruit check: was an example of Pakistani humour, but the sudden increase in humdity was certainly not.
Jim Lindsay's diary:
14 August
The departure from Kabul was slow and rather apathetic, delayed by visits to the British
Embassy for mail (Johan got us lost on the way) and a last water replenishment at the US base.
The Kabul Gorge is approached across a frankly uninteresting plain but the Gorge itself was
truly spectacular, and it was inevitably a big photo opportunity, which Greg used for publicity
shots of us stopped there en masse. He seemed to hope that we could be induced into travelling
in convoys again. This was not to be. In the general confusion Ricky confirmed his
unpopularity by driving off without everyone being on board and some of the contingent
had to hitch a lift onwards with Oxford.
From there to the Khyber Pass the country was arid and undulating, with every so often a
bright blue lake and a little village on its margin. Then we hit the border. There was an
Afghan customs check some miles before Torkham, and another cursory one at Torkham itself,
but then a ridiculous delay at the Pakistan customs post, leaving us with nothing to do but
to forage among the grubby shops of the little town and admire the gaudy lorries with their
painted route advertisements - Pesh-Raw-Kar and so on. It was getting dark and the Pass
officially closed at dusk, but we were offered the chance for a late passage if we ferried
someone through. Eventually we left a few minutes after the official closing time but somehow
managed not to pick up our passenger.
The top of the pass is not far after Torkham and the first part was as impressive and dramatic
as anyone could wish, with fortlets and beacon fires glimmering among the darkening peaks to
either side. After Landi Kotal these ceased. The last of the westbound traffic had passed
through and we were on our own in the total dark. We had noticed how males of all ages seemed
to be toting rifles, and it was not difficult to imagine them up on the hillsides lining us
up in their sights.
Light relief came in the form of an official vegetable import check. We were forewarned about
this by a radio message, and carefully hid most of our stock but left a melon, some cucumbers,
and potatoes in view. At the checkpoint these were spotted and we were offered the choice of
eating them or having them confiscated, officially for incineration, so we ate the cucumbers
and melon and gave the officials the potatoes. It was all very amiable and they sold us coke,
so this was probably quite a comfortable little post with an endless supply of fresh produce.
Our pre-arranged overnight stop in Peshawar was Hardynge Hall, part of Islamia College. It
had an air of decayed Raj grandeur complete with cloisers and white-clad servants. Peshawar
was humid and we slept on charpoys out in the quadrangle. It rained briskly during the night.
After Kabul by Liz Y
If we imagine a series of the most fearsome and stomach-churning rides at a theme park, this would be nothing to
the descent of the Kabul Gorge. The road veered to left and right like a snake weaving down the sheer rock face
to the river at its base. We peered from the bus as lower sections of the road became visible twisting this way
and that far beneath us. I can report now that motion sickness pills supplied by the student health service for
this part of the journey did not work, but nothing could detract from the thrill of being here in this amazing,
primeval landscape.
It took nerves of steel for the Comex drivers to negotiate this perilous, steep, narrow pass. With only a low parapet
between us and the cliff edge, one false move could send us hurtling to oblivion in the chasm below. The road had been
completed and paved less than ten years earlier. It is hard to conceive of how much more difficult this stage of our
journey could so recently have been. In the past, motor traffic had to take another even more precipitous and dangerous
route towards Jalalabad and the Khyber. This was Kotal-e Lataband, meaning the pass on the Mountain of Rags. It was
customary for travellers to make a wish and tie pieces of cloth to undergrowth along the way. Most wishes must surely
have been for safe transit over the pass.
We stopped several times as we crossed the Kabul Gorge and convened for a while with the other contingents, spell-bound
by the awesome scenery. There had been development projects to harness the waters of the Kabul River. One time, we
stopped by the Sarobi Power Station built in the 1950s. The recently opened Naghlu Dam was located further upstream
and we couldn't see that.
Beyond the gorge the road ran parallel and close to the Kabul River till some distance after Jalalabad. By this time,
we had been on the road for over four weeks. The heat and the trots were beginning to take their toll and perhaps
causing a little dissonance in other ways, such as the driving-off-without-everyone-on-board incident. These things
I guess were par for the course. It is remarkable now how at ease and safe we felt in Afghanistan in 1969. In later
years, roads we travelled and places we visited were ravaged in conflict.
Accounts differ about when and how often we stopped to swim in the Kabul River. In my mind it was on our return journey,
but I may be wrong after all this time. I do remember the shade of the trees on the river bank and the translucent blue
of the water, how clean and clear it was.
Now and then we could make out the pale, flat-roofed contours of little villages, barely distinguishable against the
arid slopes of distant hills. We reached the border at Torkham in late afternoon and received dire warnings about the
risks in crossing the Khyber. We were told not to stop on any account or to take photos of tribal women. It was getting
dark as we drove through the pass, with an eerie feeling of being players in the set of a dramatic film. There were men
with guns. We passed forts, relics of past empires and invading armies. We could see lit beacons on the hillsides and
sensed we were watched by unseen tribesmen.
We imagined how Pashtun tribal people had fiercely controlled this choke road between Central and Southern Asia. What
was the Pashtunwali, the complex principles of the Pashtun way of life, which spoke of pride, honour, chivalry, bravery,
loyalty and revenge, principles which also talked of hospitality, forgiveness and asylum to those in trouble? If Cuddles
had broken down on the pass, would we perhaps have been okay?
Our journey was a small snapshot in time and place. Today there are plans to build a four lane motorway across the Khyber
Pass. The future of the Silk Road may be a speedway.
