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4. Afghanistan
Herat -
Kabul -
Bamiyan -
Khyber-Pass
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Kabul
It was an exhausting journey through a scraggy landscape. Some of the hard
wooden seats of the bus were in need of repair and desert dust entered the
bus through the cracked and damaged windows. During the midday heat we took
a long break in Kandahar.
Between Herat and Kandahar
Photo by Hans Grimm - 1975
I refilled my dried fruit provisions and in a
teahouse I was offered a chilled Bhang Lassie (a drink made of milk, yoghurt
and cannabis).
What a wonderful refreshment, it made the rest of the journey more bearable
and turned out to be a good 'sleeping pill'. At the break of dawn we finally
reached Kabul and we saw the first foothills of the Hindukush.
Contrary to Herat and Kandahar, Kabul had about everything western tourists were used to. I took a room at the Hotel Bamiyan and went straight to Sigis Restaurant, another one of those legendary places. It belonged to a German from Erlangen; he lost his probation after comitting several break-ins to pharmacies and fled to Afghanistan.
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Hans Grimm
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In the centre of the garden there was a huge game of chess, the squares on the chessboard were 30 x 30 cm big and the chess figures were 90 cm high. People would sit around it and watch when a game was played and enjoyed the most delicious food. People sat around it, watched the players and enjoyed a great meal whilst doing so. The puddings and potato salad were delicious but also rather expensive. Some people were busy killing flies with flyswatters.
"They will be reborn as flies!", I thought.
I felt disgust at watching this and went to the roof where one could smoke joints and water pipes and could watch the goings on. Downstairs smoking was forbidden.
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Chessboard
Photo by Ian Watkinson - 1976
Upstairs I met Antoine and Chantall. They invited me to my very first Chillum, an Indian hash pipe and introduced me to their friend Claude, who had just returned from Goa. We were listening to "Gold & Silver" by Quicksilver Messenger Service. Claude was raving about Fullmoon-Partys and flea markets – and was on his way back to Paris. He planned to be back in Goa by Christmas, but needed to earn some money first. My friends, Antoine and Chantall, invited me to travel to India together with them but I wanted to see more of Afghanistan and my words of farewell were:
"I’ll see you Christmas in Goa".
I walked through Chicken-Street, passing small supermarkets and hippie shops. Here one could find silver jewellery with the typical Afghan dark-blue lapis lazuli and the light blue turquoises from Persia. Tibetan jewellery with green turquoises and coral, Afghan clothing with a hippie touch and wares from India. I left the shop with a multi coloured vest and went to the Bazaar.
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Ian Watkinson
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Market
Photo by Hans Grimm - 1975
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Bazaar
Photo by Ian Watkinson - 1976
On the way I encountered several rather unhealthy looking freaks. I followed them and landed in a dark opium den. A bitter-sweet smell welcomed me. I couldn’t smoke more than two pipes and didn’t feel like taking part in the ‘smoking contest’ where quite a few people had overdone it before. Intoxicated and tired I returned to the hotel where I had lived already two years ago. At that time I was here with Fritz, Mike, Franco and the Sattler twins to sell an old Opel Blitz police team-car, a 1953 build. During the week-long negotiations (in the end we could not even manage to settle our hotel bill) my passport was stolen. My friends proceeded to India after the sale of the car but I had to remain in Afghanistan. I got a new passport within two weeks but no exit visa. The Afghans suspected a note in my old passport indicating that I had imported a car, cassette recorder or something else that could be sold. For one month I kept running from one government office to the next; finally I had to return to the Islam Quala where after searching for hours my ‘note’ was found, stating that I had not imported anything. In Kabul I then got my exit visa. At that time I made used of my exceptionally long stay to visit the Buddhas of Bamiyan and the Lakes of Band-e-Amir.
Kabul wasn’t only paradise for weed heads but also junkies. When I saw one of them trying to beg something off an Afghan I decided to leave for Bamiyan. Here everything was about drugs. There were a few people, however, who were on a spiritual journey. They were on the way to Rishikesh to see Maharishi Mahesh Yogy, famous Guru of the Beatles, or on the way to Poona to see Bhagwan Shree Rajnesh.
On the way to the bus station I met Stefan whom I invited for breakfast. The German Embassy had loaned him a couple of Dollars and in a weeks time he could fetch his new passport and return ticket to Germany. He told me that the Embassy was filled with people seeking help; amongst them a junkie from Berlin who sold his passport to finance his addiction. Who knows perhaps I needed to take a different identity one day and would buy a passport from one of these junkies. Stefan was going to try to be in Goa for Christmas, despite the bad experiences he has had.
At least he – with the help of the German Embassy – could return to Germany as a free man. Should I show myself in the Embassy I would be arrested, since I was on German territory then. So I drove to Bamiyan to be blessed by the Buddhas.
further
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