A Grand road trip up the Grand Trunk Road - Peshawar to Torkham

Back in 2004 when I first thought about planning a road trip to the Pak-Afghan border the general feeling was I had lost the plot and it was a one way road trip, to quote my loving brother one had to be a 'fool' to venture out in FATA in the 'current climate'.... things are never as bad as the press/media would have us believe or so is my unwavering belief.Who better to get a pulse than folks in the region, so I called my dear friend Babar (who by virtue of living in Islamabad and having family in Peshawar qualified)  and I recall the conversation ending along the lines of... ok if you really want to go then lets plan something and see what happens Inshallah (God willing).

That sounded good, still does to this day, road to trepidation, f**k yeah!I was by now familiar and comfortable venturing to that unknown region of Pakistan, the NWFP. British history, Southern bias and CNN had instilled apprehension and loathing in me from an early age but I knew that to be full of sh*t, and there is no place on the 3rd rock any of us could not venture out to, as far as NWFP was concerned it was a non issue, I speak Urdu most people in Pakistan speak their national language (and you would be truly surprised by how many rural folks can string together sentences with their extremely limited vocabulary of English in jest), I could blend in, can talk myself into and out of most things... that's a pretty safe recipe.

Major Saab made a few phone calls and arrangements were made and we had Shah Jehan Chacha leading the convoy, a mountain of a man with marshmallow at its core, and the 60's was still very much alive and kicking with this Pashtun. The road to trepidation suddenly became a joy ride... reckless meets jolly!Since we were venturing out the word was spread and family and friends started joining in for the jolly.

Don't get me wrong this was not just any jolly, some serious arrangements were made official and not so official, Shah Jehan Chacha invited a friend of his along, rightly nicknamed as the Mexican by my urban peers Ibrara and Inaam (you shall be introduced to them somewhere along the road) and the Mexican came with a bunch of gun totting guards.

Then of course this being the NWFP everyone was armed, I was handed one too though I knew if I had to use it it might be too little too late! the road to trepidation was back on,  this was going to be an awesome road trip. With a lunch date with Landi Kotal we set off from Peshawar, picking up and dropping off local tribesmen along the way for passage along their belts along the grand trunk road.

It is not by any means normal today or back in 2004 for Peshawarites to jump in a car and head to Landi Kotal and Torkham, I appreciate to this day the trouble and risks taken by my hosts to get this trip organised, the gravity of which never eluded me. Thank you all.A yorkshire man once told me (you know who you are brother)... 'I am your prisoner' ... that is a guest is at the mercy of his host. One reads about hospitality of the Pashtun but to know it you have to befriend them and experience it first hand.

Not painting everyone with the same brush (there are good and bad in all places, so if you end up as a true prisoner some where in North Waziristan because you wanted to take a road trip to Landi Kotal don't sue me) but my hosts demonstrated the values of Pashtunwali and set a new benchmark in hospitality. Having said that I am yet to come across an inhospitable people on the 3rd rock, though I have met my unfair share of assh*les, always in uniforms the world over!

Any how back to the road trip, we left Peshawar, past the all so familiar notice (to the wandering kind) forbidding foreigners from entering FATA. We picked up some more folks to ride shotgun just past the Bab-ay-Khyber and made our way past the Afghan refugee camps on towards the border.We made pit stops along the way, though I have forgotten the the exact geographical order, so lets re-visit them by order of fascination... We stopped at a place called Ali Masjid, evidently every invader of the fertile Indus plains from Asoka, Timur lane to the Brits had brakes put on their ambitions at this narrow pass in the valley.

Obviously the folks of Ali Masjid held the high ground and you could pass by either paying a toll or by taking them on... many armies did go past this pass... some paid up whilst others kicked butt.  Had we more time we could have visited Jamrud Fort built by Dost Muhammad Khan after the battle of Jamrud in 1837 but we did our thing and moved along, we had a lot of ground to cover (well aware we have to be back within Peshawar limits before dark).

Having stopped along the way in numerous other places all along our journey...Shah Jehan Chacha playing the informed tour guide, a Budhist temple here, a fort there, dried river beds used by grand armies of the past now littered with giant man made boulders to slow down any advance of the Soviet tanks had Afghanistan truly fallen to the red army.. but we all know how that ended.

Any how we then made another major stop, this time at Michni Post, an old British post, one with an illustrious history and if you get the benefit ever of visiting this place and having a commanding officer like Major Babar you would hear the fascinating tales of this post and region along the GT road.

From Michni you can see Afghanistan, and the peaks that were used by the Soviets to keep an eye on cross border movements (wonder if NATO uses them for the same purpose now) and occasionally fire rockets into Pakistan, down in the valley ahead of Michni is a prison built into the mountain face, I was told this was built by Timur Lane, who evidently did kick butt and stayed on to torture and leave behind a scar on the land scape.

From Michni we continued our journey, next stop was the Khyber rifles officers club, and no it is not open to the public I was in connected company!

The officers club is as you would expect, pomp, ceremonial, neatly kept gardens, pruned rose bushes, a visual delight in the rugged surroundings.  But it wasn't the briefing room, the awesome dining hall, the corridor lined with pictures of past dignitaries who have visited the mess or the desk of the founder of Pakistan Mohammad Ali Jinaah that is the most fascinating thing here, but an old Oak tree that has been under arrest since the 1920s! in the 1920’s when the British were still garrisoning the Khyber a drunk officer stumbled out of the officers club in the early hours of the morning and thought he saw the large oak tree in front attempting to desert the post without proper orders. He had the sergeant of the guard place the tree in chains and those chains remain there to this day.

I was told by Major Babar that the Tree has been detained at her Majesty's leisure! some things never change... the Raj is long dead but not gone, a nation freed and two carved out of it yet the poor Oak remains a prisoner in a free land... I am contemplating orchestrating a rescue mission... any volunteers?

We could see Landi Kotal from Michni, and we were nearing lunch time, the thought of freshly cooked and not forgetting world famous karhai gosht (sheep meat cooked in a wok like contraption with tomatoes, salt, red chillies and coriander in its own fat.. yum) was too much to bear and we were no longer entirely interested in what the Officers club had to offer, it was time to move on towards our lunch date, there were about 20 hungry mouths to feed! and there was still Torkham to visit as well.

Arriving at Landi Kotal was a bit of an anti climax... I was expecting something else, exactly what was I expecting I do not know but it wasn't a bustling town! which Landi Kotal is... littered with NGOs and UN offices doing god knows what and what not, evidently to little avail for the poverty and underdevelopment is heart wrenching. Which brings me to this young boy you see in the picture here...on road to Landi Kotal I spotted and was quick at drawing my camera to capture this amazing shot of this boy sitting in  a recess  in the walled barrier on the grand trunk road, my reaction was a wow what an amazing shot, in fact the visual impact of that sight was not entirely captured by my novice hands.

Inam Khan's words following my joy at spotting, capturing this shot as best I could hits a raw note when ever I see it, Inam who was driving and saw the kid and my speed draw and the shot said "this is life for him...". This is life for him, and we in the west think we could bomb these folks into submission... could life get any harder for what appears to be an early teenager?..how about making it easier for them and theirs to come? this kid ought to be in school, he ought to be dreaming of being  an engineer, medic or something! This kid sitting in a recess in a supporting wall of the  grand trunk road, an ancient highway, he sees the world go by him and probably wonders his place within this world, with no or little education, no real opportunities other than being used and abused by others to further their agendas whatever those might be, what is this kids motivation, what is his end game? I doubt if he has the comfort to have one? it is a daily grind for him and many like him, and what right do I have to snap him up and have his image to prick my conscience every so often? does this image represent life or a life sentence? regardless this is life for him.I thank god for what I have been blessed with.

My resolve to do what ever, when ever and however  much I can to alleviate such poverty and lack of opportunities grows stronger. Trade not aid, education and opportunities not cash to their overlords and certainly not drones bombing the sh*t out of their villages. So we get to Landi Kotal, and invade a road side restaurant only to be told we would have to sit on separate floors for there are simply too many of us... this was the first time I realised how large a contingent we were and how safety in numbers does work! we were still very much reckless and jolly but we were over 20 reckless and jolly and we still had our Mexican with us! in fact the atmosphere of the place was such that it is referred to as Mexico by the middle class Pashtuns of urban Peshawar, every man is armed, usually with spare magazines strapped to or in their military vests and the only thing they are missing is sombreros.. it is the wild west for every so often you would hear a few shots ring out! not necessarily aimed at any one but someone just having a jolly and letting a few off in the air.

I was obviously asked and asked again, would you like to fire an AK-47, a pistol or something else?  but why would I want to disturb the tranquility of the awesome landscape in this part of the 3rd rock, much to my surprise quite a few of my hosts appreciated my point of view.Any how we moved over to another road side restaurant (for lack of a better word to describe those establishments) to another until we find one where all of us can sit together, Shah Jehan Chacha and the Mexican place the order... lots of meat, and then some! we leave behind a few of our gun totting guys and wandered of exploring Landi Kotal in smaller groups.

At this point I have the most awkward request to put to my hosts... is there a western toilet around here (I can not visit a hole in the ground!) and to my surprise the answer is a simple yes of course! excellent...Ibrar and I make our way to what turns out to be a long ledge over a cliff with a large shack over it, it gets more interesting for once inside the western toilets are a chair without a seat and there is a man made hole in the ledge.. yes it goes straight down, no flush needed... its pure gravity... how green is that!There is a guy outside selling toilet rolls and for a few extra rupees he would clean the chair for you!  I no longer needed to use the loo! Peshawar did not seem too far away!Next was the visit to the famous bazaar of Landi Kotal where they say you could buy or place an order for anything under the sun from a pen gun to a Rhino and these folks would have it or get it for you, dedicated personal shopping to satisfy the most demanding of folks! So we make our way to a few shops selling the not so legal stuff that is all legal here in Landi Kotal, from washing machines, DVD players, Toyota corollas, hashish, guns, washing powder, canned soup, fixtures and fittings of all kinds this place makes Wall Mart look like a corner store, and these folks offer rock bottom prices too for everything here is smuggled and tax free.

One of the more interesting run ins I had was not in any of the stores but on a street in Landi Kotal, in general the folks were friendly, the kids playful and curious but there were others who did not like the urban contingent and we were arousing suspicions every now and then.  On one such street as I walked along with some of my hosts I spotted a perfect shot, two old men who could easily play the roles of wise men in a B movie were engrossed in a conversation, behind a fire from afar the intensity of their conversation, the smoke, red embers in front got my notice as my camera did theirs, and as I raised my camera to get them in view they hollered out something in Pashtu, the atmosphere turned intense in a flash (haha) and I lowered my camera, and we walked by these two old men whose eyes kept digging at the back of our heads even as we turned into the next street.

While the younger generation here is curious of outsiders the elders or at least a good many of them are suspicious of outsiders with little hesitation of letting their suspicion be known.Having toured the bazaar and most of what Landi Kotal's high street has to offer we made our way back to the restaurant to indulge ourselves with delicious food and kava (green tea with mint). To this day I maintain the best Karhai gosht ever is in Landi Kotal, pity many of you would not venture out to this troubled part of the 3rd rock just for an awesome meal!  Though there is a place where you can get real close to the same flavour minus the atmosphere and the travel risks, the Mecca-Medina Truck stop on the outskirts of Karachi, but thats an other blog post (may be).

Truly stuffed we made our way from Landi Kotal towards our final destination, Torkhum that is the Pakitan-Afghanistan border. This probably ought to have been the most anxious leg of our journey but it is amazing once in the midst of the frontier how comfortable one gets, I suppose you know you are well and truly in the zone so why stress out. Any how we got to Torkhum and our first stop was the Pakistan Army's local  commander's offices to send back a message to Peshawar that we had safely arrived at our last leg and there was no need to send out a rescue party! LOL

We were greeted with the usual pomp of the army and were asked.. would you like to go to Afghanistan? errr I don't have my passport with me... well none of us do! but that was not a problem, an officer made his way with Shah Jehan Chacha (by the way the Mexican disappeared for our Torkhum leg) to the border crossing and made arrangements while we wandered around.

The funny thing is that I noticed little kids running back and forth between Afghanistan and Pakistan they would be carrying jute sacks back and forth, a local explained this is smuggling 101, the kids are mules for everything from spare parts to what not!Any how the negotiations were going on for us to step into Afghanistan..check out the scene (which was no different than that on this side of the border) and head back, I was informed the Army officers were getting assurances that the gates would not be closed behind us as we crossed over, which was apparently a common occurrence, then you would have to pay the Afghan border guards money to be let back inside Pakistan! I raised my concern to which I was told don't worry they wont try that sh*t with us. Cool I think with some trepidation!

You can see the elders and the officers negotiating with the Afghan guards for our passage in to and out of Afghanistan at the border crossing in the picture on the right, which was taken from within Pakistan. Another observation was that in this gun totting region the only place civilians are not allowed to 'tot' their guns is around the border crossing so we had to leave our considerable fire power and our little private army a few hundred meters from the crossing, but with the presence of the Pakistan Army in numbers security was not a concern at this point. Another local informed us that Torkham has two faces, one by day and one by night, during the day the Armies and border guards on both sides are in charge and at night the Taliban descends into the area from their hide outs wherever they are and the face of Torkham changes (or so was the case in 2004), by now it is mid afternoon and me and my urban contingent start checking our watches more often.

The arrangements are made lets go, and so we go. Things are no different on the other side, we venture about a hundred or may be two hundred meters into Afghanistan (wow I think... I am in proper Taliban country and will live to tell the tail... freaking awesome!) the only difference is the poverty, there is poverty on the Pakistan side but on the Afghan side it was worse, on the Pakistani side at least their soldiers are well fed and look like soldiers, the Afghan Captain chaperoning us could have used some of that meat we were devouring a little while ago. I can not remember the Captain's name but he was a pleasant fellow, over joyed to be the centre of attention amongst tourists (assume he does not get to see many).

We stood out like bulls in a chicken farm... We were soon surrounded by locals who were very keen to be photographed unlike the miserable, intense old men we left behind in Landi Kotal, so we snapped away, showed them instant results on our digital cameras, got awes and oohs from the locals and then made our way back into Pakistan shortly after. At this point I am wondering if this detailed confession of having crossed international boundary without papers and that too having crossed into Afghnistan albeit for half an hour is going to land me in trouble the next time I fly into the United States...? if it does I shall let you all know.We make our way back to the Pakistani side and though no one is mentioning it we are all a little relieved, mind you not all of us crossed over, most of our party opted to stay firmly on terra Pakistan.

The funny part or so it seems with hindsight was how the first thing we all seemed to do was get snapped in front of the 'Welcome to Pakistan' signage a few meters from the border!We make our way back and get some more pictures by the Army post and then one of the officer mentions... "...see that building there on the Afghan side... that is a CIA building, they take pictures of everyone going in and out of Afghanistan..." I wondered if that was a cruel joke, to tell us that we might have been photographed playing silly tourists by the firm. It occurred that I will be flying to the states in the not too distant future and the oh sh*t feeling dawned on me.. but it was too late. It would appear it all worked out fine.

Consensus was; braved the first ten meters of Afghanistan, good job, now we ought to start heading back for the late afternoon was getting closer to early evening and I could feel the worry of my hosts and some of the more 'in the know'  urban Peshawar contingent, things were different here after dark and our little army may not suffice! and where was the Mexican?

We started our journey back to Peshawar, we still had an evening of music to look forward to by Warsik dam, call that an excuse but our return journey was a speed run with a few drop offs along the way, we were in a hurry to leave the tribal belt behind us before dark. If I recall there was an 'incident' somewhere along the road to Peshawar ahead of us that we were made aware of but thankfully we were not effected by it. We got to Warsik just as the sun was setting and what a serene place the banks of this damn are.

The evening at Warsik was truly a memorable one, we had some local folks, the old man in the picture is playing the Rabab (a local string instrument) the other bloke is playing a clay pot and we had a local celebrity (famous for his voice) drop by to sing us a few local songs,the most popular number being 'Datsun wala' (the Datsun man), though I could not understand much of the lyrics it was a parody (I think!) of people who own Datsun's (those of you who are wondering what a Datsun is... that is what Nissan's were called in the old days.. and still are in the old country!).

Our evening was obviously followed by another awesome spread and more tea!The most fascinating thing about this road trip was being on the grand trunk road... soaking in the history of the route taken by countless invaders, traders, refugees, diplomats throughout history, and now me!Since 2004, I have revisited parts of the grand trunk road in the frontier province, another  memorable trip was with friends from England... it was great fun but stressful to say the least but that's another post.