Once out of Delhi we were again on the Grand Trunk Road which runs from Calcutta to Kabul. From Delhi it goes west to the Sikh city of Amritsar and on to Lahore in Pakistan, crossing the border at Wagah. In 1969 the only border crossing was near Ferozepore, further south, requiring us to divert for a time from the GT Road. For much of the day we travelled through the Punjab, a green and prosperous looking area where Sikhs in their distinctive turbans were very evident. We spent the night in Ferozepore and crossed into Pakistan in the morning without incident. The road was wide and smooth and it rained for most of the day, which was cause for celebration as this had not happened since Ceylon. We passed quickly through Lahore glimpsing the famous Badshahi Mosque along the way and reached Rawalpindi by evening.
Next day, while our visas were being arranged at the Afghan Embassy, we tried to find a replacement spring for the Fiat. The variety of cars in Pakistan was greater than in India, but there were no Fiat 600s. In the bazaar in Rawalpindi we found an automotive spring specialist. His stock was an enormous pile of rusty car springs of unknown origin. The idea was to try to find one that matched as closely as possible the broken spring from the Fiat, which had been removed. After much searching he admitted defeat. Our resourceful mechanic was not concerned, he would have the old one welded! I could not imagine how a coil spring could be successfully welded and survive the trip ahead of us, but maybe it would get us to a point where a suitable replacement could be found. The spring welder carefully welded together the two parts of the fractured spring, then fashioned and welded reinforcements across the weakened area.
We continued on gingerly to Islamabad where we had an introduction to a librarian at the university. Although a Moslem, he was having his children educated at a Christian school, he said, to give them a broader outlook. Islamabad is a model city built from scratch, like Canberra, and at that stage was still being established. We rejoined the Grand Trunk Road and reached Attock on the mighty Indus by sunset. The river was very wide but shallow, with swiftly flowing channels winding between large sand islands. The chowkidar at the Inspection Bungalow, which stood on a hill overlooking this magnificent scene, warned us not to take photographs as it was a military area. Some things never change, as Alexander the Great and his army crossed the Indus near this point over 2000 years ago.
Our eyes were firmly on the west as we passed through Peshawar, capital of the North West Frontier Province, and reached the village of Jamrud where a stone arch marks the entrance to the historic Khyber Pass. It was just like something out of a movie. The town was full of turbaned Pashtuns, all armed with .303 rifles, ammunition belts across their shoulders, and pistols in holsters around their waists. Highly decorated buses roared through town with people hanging out the doors and perched on the roof. There was a toll levied for the trip to the border and there was a curfew on the road which closed at night, due to the prevalence of banditry. These are the tribal territories where government control is limited, and lately, home of the Taliban and al-Qaida.
The climb through the Khyber Pass was not particularly steep, the road was excellent and the scenery starkly magnificent. Forts perched on rocky ridges were in evidence everywhere and many were still in use. Even the local villages were fortified by mud walls with lookout towers and gun slits. One of them, Landi Khotal, is a notorious smugglers’ town, most recently dealing in opium. At key mountain defiles there were often monuments to the many regiments that had passed this way in colonial times.
The border was at Torkham. Here we ran into a little difficulty over a currency declaration I had made entering Pakistan. As was our custom, we routinely understated our assets on entering the country so that we would have money to change on the black market undetected. I had done this entering Pakistan, but we had passed through so quickly that the excess money had not all been spent. As a consequence, I appeared to have more US dollars leaving the country than I had brought in. How could this be? I argued that I had miscounted earlier, but the official clearly did not believe me. We were held for some time ‘to think it over’, but I stuck to my story and finally we were released.
After crossing into Afghanistan, we followed the Kabul River into its narrow winding gorge. The highest mountains visible were capped in snow. Past Sarobi (a checkpoint in the London-Sydney Marathon), we began to climb the steep and spectacular Lataband Pass, which rose from about 3000 to 6000 feet in a few miles. The Kabul River formed a continuous series of rapids occupying the narrow floor of the defile. With the road clinging precariously to one side of the gorge, we climbed in zig zag fashion to the top of the pass and then continued on, after an extraordinary day, into Kabul. We quickly found the Khyber Restaurant in Pashtunistan Square, surely known to every traveller on the overland route, and took a room at the nearby Habib Hotel.
There were no remarkable sights to see in Kabul except Kabul itself. It was like being transported back to the middle ages, particularly in the older parts of the city. It was a pleasure walking through the bazaars in the cool morning air. The shops were crammed with goods, modern and ancient. Streets were divided into sections where the shops sold one particular thing. We had heard that leather products were particularly good in Kabul. Afghan sheepskin coats were all the rage in Europe at that time, but it took us all morning to find the right street. In one of the leather goods shops we came on our friends Vic and Chris O’Connell again. They were planning to catch a bus directly to Istanbul from Kabul.
The Russians had a considerable economic presence in Afghanistan, even in 1969. There were many stores selling Russian cameras – Fed, Zorki, Kiev and Leningrad – at very reasonable prices, although they did not have the precision feel or finish of a German or Japanese model. I ended up buying a Kiev, which was actually a pre-Second World War Zeiss Ikon Contax, made in the Ukraine using equipment removed from Germany at the end of the war. It cost only US$35. We subsequently found Russian cameras in other cities in the Middle East but they were never as cheap as in Afghanistan.
Many of the cars on the street were also Russian, principally Volgas and Moskvitches. Our Fiat was overdue for a service so we had this done in a small workshop specialising in European cars. The proprietor was very friendly and had a low opinion of the Russian vehicles, saying that they were built like trucks and not very reliable. While the car was up on a hoist, he noticed our welded coil spring. He said that it must have been done in Rawalpindi and that he knew the welder. He was the only man who could do such work in this part of the world – and we had been lucky enough to find him.
Stuart and I farewelled Vic and Chris at the Khyber Restaurant, which served the most delicious, juicy, tender steaks imaginable, or so it seemed at the time.
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