It was September 1970, and my two companions and I had camped for the night in the small garden of a run-down hotel that European travellers aptly nicknamed the "Herat Hotel of Horrors." For a modest fee, the hotel allowed travellers to camp on its premises and use its basic toilets. Before setting off on the next leg of our journey, we wandered through the Herat bazaar in search of ice. Unfortunately, I didn’t know the local word for it. I tried every word I could think of—barf (ice), thanda aab (cold water), and any other phrase that might convey what we needed—but none worked. In desperation, I attempted to explain to a shopkeeper that I wanted something colder than very, very cold water. “Agha! Aab thanda. Yakh thanda!” I exclaimed. To my relief, he understood. “Yakh! Yakh!” he repeated excitedly, pulling away a wet gunny bag to reveal a large slab of ice. It was then that I learned the word for ice in Afghanistan was the Persian: Yakh.
As we travelled through Europe, Rob and Eric were able to explain our needs at petrol stations, shops, and other places. However, once we crossed into Turkey, I was left to manage on my own, with only a limited knowledge of the languages of the countries we passed through. In a small wayside shop in Turkey, I tried to buy eggs. After several unsuccessful attempts to explain what I wanted, I resorted to flapping my arms like a chicken and made clucking sounds. An attractive girl sitting behind the counter started giggling, and the proprietor, thinking I was flirting with his daughter, became furious. He angrily ushered us out.
In Afghanistan, particularly in Kandahar, I discovered that many shopkeepers spoke Urdu. Eric wanted to buy a leather jacket, which were in fashion. However, the shopkeeper was asking an exorbitant 80 dollars. I suggested that Eric look elsewhere and told the shopkeeper in Urdu, “Chori to na karo” (Don’t steal). The shopkeeper was startled, but as I was walking out, he held my arm and asked in Urdu, “How much do you want?” He was offering me a commission on the sale and I pushed his hand away. Later, I told my companions about the incident, and they had a good laugh. Eric suggested that I should have accepted the commission and returned the money to him.
I had learned to drive at the age of 14, and by the time our parents took my sister and I to Europe and the UK for a vacation in the summer of 1970, I was a fairly confident driver. We toured the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and the UK in a second-hand Mercedes 200 that my father bought and he coached me on the rules of the road. However, he was very short-tempered, and I received many "rockets" along the way. My elder brother Hassan had already twice travelled back by road from London and before we left Pakistan, my father had made up his mind to allow me to return home by road – and Hassan gave me very detailed instructions. In London, I visited the large office of the Automobile Association in Funam House in Leicester Square. It is now the premises of a large McDonalds. I paid 5 pounds for a membership and for another 2 pounds, it took them two days to assemble a 30-page booklet for the route I wanted to take. It had distances, recommended stops, cheap places to stay and eat, petrol pumps with bathrooms, AA offices enroute etc. They had all the information about the Hippy Trail, because Kathmandu was the weed capital with no legal restrictions and board/lodging was cheap.
As I walked out of the AA Office, I was stopped by a decent-looking man in a suit holding a pad. “Excuse me, sir. I am doing a survey of visitors to London and would you mind answering some questions?” I agreed and he asked me as to where I was from, why I was there and how I had arrived etc. etc. Then suddenly he held up a camera and took my photograph. “Now, sir”, he said, “If you give me one pound and the address where you are staying in London, I will send you this photograph.” My father had given me 10 pounds to spend on myself in London and there was no way I was going to give him one pound. When I told him so in no uncertain terms, he became aggressive. “Now look here, sir. You asked for this photograph”. “I certainly did not,” I replied equally aggressively. I had no intentions of being scammed. He then tried to intimidate me, threatening to call the police. However, as an army officer, his threat didn’t faze me in the slightest. “You can call the Queen of England for all I care, but I’m not giving you one pound!” I retorted. So saying, I walked off to have my photo taken at a booth for 5 shillings or 1/4th of a pound, for an Afghan visa.
Those were good times: except Afghanistan, I needed no visas for the 10 countries I was to pass through, and fuel was cheap. I dropped my parents and Shama in Eindhoven where they were guests of the Philips company, famous for making bulbs and radios. Bidding me farewell, my father said with a smile, “If you get it back to Pakistan in one piece, I’ll believe you’ve grown up." Though I was only 21, he had obviously decided that I was responsible enough to undertake the long journey. From Eindhoven I collected Rob, the son of Bib Van Lanscot and from Stuttgart I collected Eric, from whose father the car had been bought. The car had a complete checkup at the Mercedes garage with adjustments to the tappets and brakes. However, they did not inform me that the tires had been retreaded and it created problems for us in Iran and Afghanistan. My brother had suggested that the shortest route was through Belgrade into Turkey, but we decided to take the more scenic route through the Black Forest into Mozart’s city of Salzburg in Austria; and then down to Trieste on the Adriatic coast. From Trieste, we drove along the pristine coastline of erstwhile Yugoslavia and passed through all the provinces that ultimately broke away into independent nations; Sloviena, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo.
Hooking over Albania, a hardcore Communist nation, we entered Greece and arrived on the coast of the Mediterranean at Thessaloniki, which I have never known how to pronounce. We intended camping all the way and managed to locate a site but the owner saw our passports were of three nationalities, said it was “too complicated” and waved us off. To this day, I have not been able to figure out why he objected. We finally bedded down on the beach near a bar which allowed us to use their toilets. In spite of the blazing music from the bar, we fell asleep – but I woke up in the middle of the night because something felt out of place. Actually, the music had stopped and the silence awakened me.
In Istanbul, we could not locate the campsite and pitched our tents in a park. I had warned my companions when we entered Turkey to be careful with their belongings. I explained to them that the people in Muslim countries we were passing through were not well off and should not be tempted. Since we fitted very tightly into our tent, Eric took off his shoes and placed them outside. In the morning, they were gone. He cribbed about it till we exited Turkey. Actually, he was only 17 and a little immature. When I met him in Stuttgart, he had long hair which was fashionable. However, I told his father that since he looked like a hippie, we may have trouble at the borders, and that it would be best if he had a haircut. Eric objected but his father warned him that he would not be allowed to go unless he had his hair trimmed. He was very upset with me and, for the initial part of the journey, not very communicative.
The drive along the Turkish Black Sea coast to Erzurum was very scenic but not onwards to the Turkish-Iranian border crossing at Gürbulak-Bazargan. It first passed over a high-altitude plateau, then through rough pastures and finally the landscape became stark, with black volcanic rock and barren hills. Our highlight of the day was the snow-capped Mount Ararat which is close to 17,000 feet. The border station between Turkey and Iran was located in the middle of a desert and surrounded by brown sand. It was one large walled compound divided in half between the two countries, and both were competing in playing the loudest music while the poor tourist suffered in silence. The Iranian immigration officer had a glad eye for women. He would look down the queue for an attractive woman and signal her and her companion to come ahead.
We had a comfortable stay of two nights with my family friends in Tehran and were back on the road heading north through the Elburz mountains to the shores of the Caspian Sea. Compared to the dry and barren landscape that we had been driving through for the past few days; the lush greenery was a soothing change however further east it became arid. Worse was that the road was undergoing expansion with long sections of only gravel. and one of our retreaded tires finally gave way. We would have replaced both the rear tires at Mashad but the price was exorbitant and we decided to risk it and settled on one tire. After paying our respects at Imam Reza’s mausoleum, we headed southeast to the border crossing. The Afghan immigration office short of Islam Qila was in a large old building occupied by a big fat Afghan in a suit that had seen better days. When he saw Eric’s German passport, he got very excited and burst into what sounded to me like German. After 5 minutes of conversation which was generally one sided, he stamped our passports. As we drove off, I asked Eric as to what the official had been saying. “I don’t know”, replied Eric with a straight face. “But he was talking to you in German,” I remarked. “I don’t know what language he was speaking but it wasn’t German,” replied Eric and we burst out laughing.
Afghanistan was not a signatory to the International Motor Insurance agreement that I had obtained from the AA office for the car. To purchase a local insurance, we headed for the tourist office down the road. When Ghani, the young tourism official saw my Pakistani passport, he burst out in Punjabi, “Tussi to sade bra ho!”. (You are my brother), and gave me a hug. He had studied in Government College, Lahore for 4 years and had been a steward on Ariana, the Afghan airline flying frequently to Pakistan. In no time he issued us the Insurance and gave us a welcome cup of sweet milky tea.
The main road arteries in Afghanistan were excellent. In the southern half they had been constructed by the Americans and from Ghazni upwards by the Soviets – who used them 9 years later to invade the country. Sections of the road heading to Herat were poker straight and as we topped a rise, in the far distance was a dot on the road that enlarged into a broken-down truck. As we approached a man appeared from under the meagre shade of the vehicle and signalled us to stop. He was holding a metal glass and we topped it with water from a small can we were carrying for emergencies. He gulped the water down and we refilled the glass. As he profusely thanked us, on an impulse I handed him the whole can, thinking how much longer he would have to wait for his next drink.
About 50 miles ahead, the road began to climb through the hills. Rob was driving, and as the car rounded a corner, he skilfully avoided a large stone on the road. However, the rear wheel clipped it, resulting in a loud bang followed by a scraping noise. Upon inspection, the wheel appeared intact, but as the car moved again, the rhythmic scraping sound persisted. We removed the wheel and discovered that the inner rim was bent, causing it to scrape against the shock absorber. Rims are made of 1.5 mm thick steel and we lacked the tools to fix them. Our reconditioned spare tire was useless because the treads had completely come off. As we stood contemplating our next move, salvation arrived in the form of a French couple driving a small Citroën 2CV—the kind that resembles a frog. To our immense relief, they had a sizable hammer and with a few strong blows, the rim was back in shape. It felt like karma had come full circle; a good deed we had done 50 miles earlier had been repaid in our moment of need. Since that day, I have always carried a hammer in the toolkit of my car.
After spending a couple of nights in Kabul at the Intercontinental Hotel—a well-deserved break after camping most nights during our 20-day journey—we prepared to leave the lovely city. At the time, Kabul was a popular destination for Pakistanis seeking a fun-filled holiday. We drove through Jalalabad and onward to the border at Torkham. It was late afternoon, and we were eager to clear immigration and customs quickly, as the Khyber Pass closed at dusk for safety reasons. With Rawalpindi just four hours away, we were determined to avoid spending another night on the road.
Our first stop was the immigration office. The official examining my passport surprised me by asking, “Tum Tahirah ke bete ho?” (“Are you Tahirah’s son?”). Back then, a father’s name was listed on passports alongside the holders. He explained that he and my mother had played together as children in Aligarh, their hometown.
Thanks to this unexpected connection, he expedited our customs process, and we exited the Khyber Pass just before it closed. We arrived at my parent’s house in Rawalpindi for a late dinner. The car had travelled 5,700 miles and except for the tires, I had brought it back ‘in one piece.’ For the next two days I took my companions around the shops in Rawalpindi and then bid them adieu and headed to my regiment in Jhelum on the last day of my two months leave ‘ex-Pakistan.’