The girls, who came from Nepal or who came away from India and wanted to go back to Europe, were not the girls that I had taken to India.
Some of them certainly did not have proper personal hygiene, manicure, decent clothes, linen or shower.
Also they probably didn't have money for going to a hairdresser.
And the guys looked even more wild!
None of them had more money and so they bought themselves a bowl of rice and ten Chapattis. They drank water from the large earthenware jars, which were in teahouses and were intended for the Indian drivers. They were used to it.
After all, Europeans got all kinds of disease because of the water. It didn’t matter to our hippies - they were already immune to diseases! It was time for these young people to go back to the European civilization, before it became too late. I remembered the old woman during my last trip.
I brought my troop in good health to Kabul. I explained to them that the bus had to go for a bigger inspection and therefore there would not be any sleeping possibility in the bus. After two days we wanted to drive on.
I met Dahoud in the Chicken Street, he wanted to help me find a workshop. I told him that he could take himself to the devil, but he only laughed and said that there was so much of place in the bus. Definitely he meant place to hide prohibited gifts. The woman from the Café guaranteed me a reliable workshop, to which I then brought my bus for inspection. I made the acquaintance with an Afghan, who also had a bus parked there. He eyed and examined and counted the seats and looked at the engine, chatted with the person in the workshop and then came to me with a spontaneous offer of purchase.
He wanted to offer me 4000 USD for my bus, if I would sell it immediately. I asked him for time to think till evening, when I would come to either pick up my bus or would go from the workshop with 4000 dollars. I didn’t have to think long.
Of course I pretended that I had to part from my bus with a heavy heart. Nothing better could have happened to me. Already on the next day we were at the Ministry of Finance and at our Embassy, to get the documents duly stamped. With 4000 dollars in cash, I left our Embassy. I gave back the already paid money back to my hippies and bought a ticket to Frankfurt from Ariana, the Afghan Airlines.
Twice a week there was a direct flight from Kabul to Frankfurt announced and there was a flight already the very next day.
I was at the check-in counter punctually around six in the morning the next day and my travelling bag, my only piece of luggage was taken from me. With the information that I should pay attention to the announcements, I was told to be in the waiting area. The machine was to depart at half past eight. There was an announcement at 10 a.m. that there was tea and biscuits available and that we should be patient, the aircraft was delayed. Now probably everyone had noticed that the aircraft had been delayed! At 1 pm, we were told that the aircraft had landed and the check in would start. Far and wide, I didn't see any "Ariana"- aircraft, because you could easily see the runway. But an English "Britania" had just landed and was rolling out. I had an inkling that it could be our machine.
Impossible to fly non-stop in this small machine. Up to Tehran, maximum up to Istanbul, we would not come further. But we still had to practice patience, because mechanics came to the runway and they tinkered around at the propulsion unit.
Finally, it was already 14.30 Hours meanwhile; the ladder and the tool trolley were being taken back. We were allowed to walk on the runway to the aircraft. When I stepped into the plane, there was such a stink that hit my nose that I would have preferred to retreat back, but how could I? I wanted to fly to Frankfurt. The space with the first ten seats were filled with stacked jute bags. There were untanned sheep skins from Kashmir in these sacks, which were to be sold in an auction in London. They stank badly. How could they put us in this stinking box and that too, guaranteed for 15 hours?
The Captain said to us that the "Ariana"- aircraft had been used for a pilgrimage to Mecca and since there were so few passengers, they had made a stopover and invited us. Now he and the three lovely hostesses would accompany us on our trip to Frankfurt and we would have a short stopover in Istanbul. He wished us a good flight.
The three-day "Non-Stop" flight with Afghan Airline" Ariana"
No explanation about the smell. We took off and the few passengers clapped, probably because it now finally started. But hardly three quarters of an hour in the air, we were landing again. The airport of Kandahar, we had scarcely flown 500 km, what was going on already?
After landing, we were requested to sit on our seats to stay, and have a little bit of patience. The doors were opened and now added to the terrible smell there was heat and flies, which did not want to miss such a stink festival, into our cage. These were no houseflies, as we know, the beautiful blue blowflies, which wanted to have the delicious mutton hides, flew to us.
The 18 passengers had to only complain, and they listened to us and we were allowed to walk over the hot concrete and to a waiting room.
I felt sorry for a German woman with her baby - after all the waiting in Kabul now we had to wait again and especially everything in scorching heat. This airport was the very last thing we could describe as an airport. The young woman with her baby wanted hot water, that is, boiled water for the feeding bottle, to feed porridge to her baby. But there was nothing here, not even cold water, let alone hot water.
The technicians and also the captain of the plane were in our machine again busy tinkering around.
I would have loved to take a taxi and returned to Kabul or better still to Tehran. But I did not do that but I waited quietly and patiently like the others, stewing in the heat. The dawn was already breaking as we sat in a bus and were driven into the city. The trip was to start on the next morning, our bus driver told us, not without adding an Insha'allah. At 10 a.m. he wanted us to pick us up, Insha'allah. Well, if God wanted, we would also arrive at Frankfurt!
Here at the hotel there was even hot water, to eat and to drink. They even had a room for two with a fan. My roommate was an Afghani, who spoke a bit of English.
The young man was traveling to Germany to buy buses.
I did not mention what my job was currently, but I told him that I was a tourist and on the way home.
The next morning our bus driver came to pick us up. But it was already 11 am, God had wanted it so.
The driver said that we had so much time anyway, the aircraft needed a spare part, which had to be brought from Kabul by car. The part also just arrived and was being installed.
We drove through the runway directly to the aircraft. There was no flies in our airplane, they had gotten rid of them using insect spray but the gas tank was bigger. Around noon we were back in the air. Despite the infernal stench, not only due to the skins but also due to the pesticides, we were all glad that we were flying again.
But our joy was not to last long and we heard the friendly voice of one of the lovely hostesses that we should all strap our seatbelts and be ready for a landing in Tehran. What were we going to do in Tehran?
Was it going to be a little bit of tinkering work again on the engine? We were asked to leave the aircraft with all of our hand luggage and wait in the transit area for further instructions. When anyone who has ever waited in such a room, knows what kind of a torture it is. Finally we were sent to an aircraft of Iran Air, in front of which our luggage stood, which we had to identify.
After that, we were allowed to board the airplane.
In the early hours of the morning on the third day, we were in Frankfurt!
It was probably the longest “non-stop flight" promised, which an airline could offer.
The woman with her small child said at the counter for passports, where I met her again, that she would never step into an airplane ever again. The greatest fear that she ever had in this stinking plane was always the thought that we could crash! Most probably she had forgotten the experience in the next flight to Afghanistan. After this three-day adventure, I too was fed up and had
to first allow myself a few Pils.
At my parents’ place, some things had changed considerably. Both the daughters were with my parents and went to school. My father had retired and had a lot of time to undertake things with the children, which the two of them liked very much. Now if I have to stay at home, we were almost a perfect family, Mother said to me with a questioning look.
But my dollars convinced them that I had to continue with my hippy transport. Of course, I left behind some of the dollars for the family. But I had to Neu-Ulm to Käsbohrer. But before that, I had to clarify some things with and because of the woman who was still my wife!
She had indeed brought some girls from Ceylon, who went hooking for her and had to sell their bodies.
Whether that would go well?
I did not want to have anything to do with the matter and so I wanted a divorce.
But during the visit I made in Frankfurt, she showed me a document. She had the divorce has been filed in Ceylon, because I had left her with malicious intent.
Her German attorney-at-law had also filed a lawsuit against me at the district court because I had not paid the maintenance for her and for the two daughters and thus she had a claim of 80,000 Deutschmark from me.
That just knocked me over!
How could she go about, talking such shit?
She wanted money from me, sue me since she supposedly had the kids - because I had left her with malicious intent!
She could probably not show a greater insolence!
This story had to grow first of all.
The courts are also not stupid.
I did not want to say anything to my parents first. They would definitely get upset for nothing. Chitra would probably not get through with the fabulous dreamer of a lawyer with that. May be it was just one of her suitors, who was then allowed to shag her for free. At that moment, I did not care and I drove to Ulm. I bought a nice bus, which possessed all the comfort, which was available at that time on the market. You could elevate the seat and move it to the side, so that you had more space in between. Especially in the night they were almost like reclining seats in a car. There were individual air vents to adjust, a toilet, a music system, through which every individual could listen to music with headphones, night lighting, curtains and small table like in an aircraft.
People would be amazed in Istanbul about this bus! The bus was a transfer-bus the Kuwait airlines and had been only between the city office and the airport on the road, so in proportion, it did not have many kilometers, but it had transported a lot of guests. And so it had to be scrapped by the airline.
The bus should cost DM 15,000. But since I showed the photos of its predecessor, as promised, the seller was very satisfied. So I had to have 12,000 DM. My hippies would be very comfortable in this luxury coach.
But there were not just sunshine, there were also bleak days in my bus driving period, such as in one or the other trips.
For example, the misfortune occurred during a trip by another bus between Tehran and Mesched. The bus stopped, because the gearing mechanism went on a strike. We were in the Demavand Mountains for two days and had to wait for a mechanic, who came with a new, much more reconditioned gearbox and installed it.
What are four days on the edge of the road without possibilities for washing or toilet?
Such a minor incident does not bother a traveler or good hippy. During another trip, the machine gave up its ghost. Due to a small war between Iran and Afghanistan, the border between the two countries was closed.
We had to drive from Tehran to Qom, Isfahan, Kerman, Bam and to Quetta, then towards the North, to Lahore and to Amritsar. This route made me very scared because I knew the wonderful gravel road from my Ceylon trip in the Mercedes.
My machine became hot between Kerman and Bam and I stopped for water.
I loosened the radiator cap carefully and poured water and lo and behold, I had a steam machine! The result was that the safety plug, which is normally built-in against frost, flew out due to the steam’s pressure. It is a cork-like conical plug made of special metal, in the size of about a two Deutch Mark coin.
So that the engine block does not tear during the formation of ice, the above-mentioned plug flies out and the block does not get any tear. My car had indeed not had something like this, in those days in Kabul, because the car had then got a tear. So the plug was gone and the water flowed out. We could continue to drive only when the plug was in its place again.
No problem, if you had such a plug, but it was a big problem, if you didn't.
You simply cannot drive with your finger in it, insert something into it or if you seal it.
There were about 250 km to Kerman and I estimated that it was a little more than 150 km to Bam.
The quiz question was now where I could I get the part now.
I tended to travel to Kerman, since I already knew Bam and knew that there was even more desert than here, where we were stranded. I had just passed by Kerman and had seen a few workshops at the arterial road.
So I made some impressions of the hole in a soap and wrapped everything very carefully in toilet paper. Now I needed only a vehicle to Kerman. This was a route, which could not be described as very lively. After I had issued some instructions and assured the others that I would be back on the spot again on the next day and they wished me good luck. Just to be sure, I disconnected the battery and locked it in the tool box. Otherwise, they would definitely switch on the light to read or switch on the radio for listening and that would drain the battery.
Since I did not want to put my trust in them and could not monitor them, I had to take this measure.
A bus with 54 hippies without light and with a broken machine, without driver or super market in the near or further afield.
One problem would be water, because no one had taken drinking water for two to three days. I once again gave them the tip to ask the vehicles, which were passing by to ask only for water, since I knew that all the truck drivers had a 200 liter drum with water under their trailers.
I hoped that a truck would pass by!
I was lucky; a semitrailer stopped; I was able to explain to the driver what had happened and that he should take me along.
It was already dawn, as we finally drove away.
After a bumpy ride in the spacious Mack, we came shaken up after six hours of driving, to Kerman. The driver showed me when driving past where I could eventually get the required part the next day. I said goodbye to him in front of a small hotel.
The next day I was on the road already very early, but how could it be otherwise, it was Friday, the day of rest for Muslims. And so I also had a day of rest. On the following day, I had more luck. I had seven specimens of rotated, conically running copper plug. It was difficult to find the correct workshop, which also made such fine work. It also took me some hours to find the correct material.
The handymen were magicians and produced everything, once they had understood what you wanted.
But in the meantime, it was already evening and there was no one to take me back to my bus.
I also found no trucks, which wanted to go to Bam.
I found a pick-up driver, who promised to be at my hotel at 5 am to drive me to the bus. He came at 7 am and we had to do shopping, because it was the third day that the people sat in the desert.
I bought four large plastic cans, which I filled with ice and water.
Then I bought 100 flat breads and 100 Kofta kebabs and 20 whole "Murgh", chicken.
I could not do otherwise, but buy 25 watermelons.
Now the pick-up driver came as well and wanted a 20-liter canister with diesel for his return journey. He was afraid that his fuel would not be enough.
And in addition, I got a container with water for my engine.
We could now go on our trip. Such a small plug could cause so much of trouble and so much money!
No risk, no fun!
And we had fun on our route. It was probably already after ten am, when
we came away and we needed almost five hours for these more than 250 km. It was a shaking and vibrating drive in the pick-up vehicle. What is the difference - a truck is just a truck, even if it is small, like here. A bus had times better suspension. We arrived at my bus in the afternoon at 3pm; it was probably the hottest and at this time.
The people had made a kind of tent from the blankets, in which almost all of them sat, one played a guitar, another was playing a mouthorgan and some were singing. The other were lying down and were dozing. I had the impression that they enjoyed having such a tent camp in the desert.
Some pay a lot of money for an adventure in the desert and here it was included in the price!
Some of them grumbled and two people even wanted to their money back and not continue on the journey. They wanted their money then and there. I asked them if this was a joke but they were serious and they pointed to their backpacks, which were already placed on the roadside.
They wanted to hitchhike.
I was amazed that those two Italians could be so wacky and wanted to get off in the middle of a desert.
But then it crossed my mind that these two people were the ones, with whom I had stress, because I had caught them with a candle and a spoon, preparing syringes. I had very clearly told on the first day of every trip always that they could smoke as much as they wanted – except in certain situations such as during border crossings and in the vicinity of authorities such as customs and immigration. But syringes were absolutely prohibited in the bus! I did not want any junkies in my bus.
Nobody would miss the two of them in the bus and so I gave them back even money for part of the route from Tehran to Delhi. They also took the food and the water that I offered. Then they said goodbye and marched in the direction of Bam into the desert.
My Dream to Be Free Page 27