by Dina Bennett
I can’t help but gaze admiringly at my visa, which he shows me has been stamped for entry. When a guard walks over and motions where we should bring our luggage for inspection, the senior officer waves him away. Perhaps he feels things have taken long enough. He points to the exit door. As I walk through into Iran, my headscarf stays in place.
River Boundaries
KHOROG, TAJIKISTAN AND AFGHANISTAN, 2011
We bump at 15 mph along the stony road, a brown cliff rising steeply to our left, the great roiling mass of the Panj River flowing to our right. The Panj starts in the high Pamirs, where we are heading, and then flows southwest to join the even mightier Amu Darya, the biggest river in Central Asia. Right now its turbulent slate-gray waters move in the opposite direction from us, and far more swiftly than we can. We are in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan, perhaps fifty yards from Afghanistan, which claims the other bank of the Panj, but I’ve never been able to launching anything, stone or otherwise, further than twenty feet. When it comes to borders, the Tajikistanis lucked out. On their side of the Panj, the river has deposited sufficient cobbles and gravel for a broad bank to develop. It’s enough to hold a road on which two cars can pass in opposing directions, for villages to have space for orchards and fields, for the slopes beyond to be modest in height and gentle in slope. Not so Afghanistan. On their side, cliffs drop straight to the water, and space for villages is scraped from the rubble of landslides regularly deposited at the base of cascade-filled gullies, through which is incised a path often no broader than one donkey.
Hour after hour, for hundreds of kilometers, while Bernard maneuvers our Land Rover along the torturous road, I watch that marvel of a path etched into the brown rocky hills on the Afghan side. Wide enough for two people to walk abreast, for a donkey to carry a reasonable load, in some sections even for a motorbike to proceed with caution, it connects isolated sunburnt, mud hamlets, now green with tall corn, broad fanning trees, and bright fields. I see flat roofs piled high with hay for the winter. A small herd of black and mahogany cows tentatively negotiate the steep gray sand bank for a drink. Even here satellite dishes polka-dot the village scape.
The track brooks no obstacle. It runs at roughly the same line of contour regardless of whether it is a pearl-gray path or an acrobat’s delight carved into the side of a russet cliff. A gap over a small cascade is spanned by a short stretch of wood plank bridge. In some steep sections where the rock prohibited engraving a flat path, steps are carved, dry laid with rocks, or patched together with branches.
We have driven east, far in land from Dushanbe. When our road first joins the Tajikistani side of the river, the track is there. We stop across the river from an Afghan patrol post, a small building marked by their black, green, and red national flag. In this place where nothing happens, they notice us immediately. “Hallooooo,” we hear. We halloooo in exchange, and wave both arms. A figure holding aloft a rifle waves its stick arms back.
Before leaving the US for this latest drive we secured a visa to enter Afghanistan, planning to cross on foot at the Ishkashim border post. In 2011, the war had been going for a decade, the Taliban had wrought all kinds of destruction on society, monuments, and the economy, and Bin Laden had just been killed by a crack Navy SEAL team in May of that year. There was every reason to believe our application would be viewed with suspicion. Even though we were going to a part of Afghanistan where I didn’t expect roadblocks or bullets whizzing by my headscarf, I still expected we’d be asked to prove we had relevant business there, such as journalism or fighting. But no one cared. We just filled in a form, which compared favorably to that from other countries that were not at war, asking for name, address, places we’d visit, personal bank account. Actually, that last one wasn’t asked for, but all the rest was, same as any other country fond of knowing who was coming in and why.
Although the south of the country was still riddled with IED explosions and suicide attacks, the Wakhan Valley where we planned to go, a tiny peninsula sticking like an aneurism out of the country’s far north, was an enclave of peace populated by Ismaili Muslims. The Ismaili are an offshoot of Shia, which along with Sunni forms the two main branches of Islam. But the Ismaili are unusual in that they follow their own private Imam, the Aga Khan; they’re considered quite benevolent and are less hyper-critical than their brethren. I did not hold it against the Aga Khan himself for choosing to reside in France. He was more of an improvements-on-the-ground leader, with a foundation making community improvements, like the guest house we’d slept in two nights earlier, a place that had given jobs to quite a few nearby villagers.
As we continue our drive, so the track continues without a break. It is there when a full ivory moon rises over the village of Kalaikhum, where we eat a plate of cucumber salad and roast chicken at a restaurant above an icy tributary that in any other place would be a major river, but here is a mere thread to the sinuous rope of the Panj. That night we sleep at a simple but clean hostel built for travelers by the Aga Khan Foundation. The track is a constant, there in the morning when we depart, alongside me as we drive. For five hundred kilometers it is as unfailing as a new lover, as steadfast as a diamond jubilee husband. Before dark the next day we reach our second night’s stop in Khorog, a lovely inn with grape vines, terraced lawns, and duvets on the bed, where I fall into a restless, enervated sleep as the river flows relentlessly outside my window. And it’s there in the morning, as we head sixty miles south to Ishkashim, the border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan.
I notice two men ambling the track in white trousers and shirts, with black vests and caps. One is turned toward the other, perhaps engrossed in conversation, as they move with ground-eating strides. That afternoon I see a small group of boys in black pants and white shirts, some with backpacks. They remind me of schoolboys everywhere, moving at the dawdling pace that indicates they’re on their way from school, with important things to hash out before reaching home. A couple of women in black with bright headscarfs linger over each step; they must relish the privacy the path can offer. If the racket our Land Rover makes managing the rocks, potholes, and jagged bits of old pavement weren’t so infernal, I’m sure the lilt of laughter would waft across the river, no visa needed.
Through it all, the Panj accepts the tributary devotions of countless lesser, unnamed rivers, their water a pure glacial green that disdains mixing with the Panj’s heavily silted gray brown. This mighty river convulses with mammoth rapids, that can only hint at the monstrous boulders that must lie on its bed. Over the ages, they have tumbled from peaks that rise 7,800 sheer feet in front of us, a sere range tinged brown, yellow, and ashen, impossibly barren and convoluted, to an altitude where snow hasn’t melted. The river is alive. It bunches and flexes, stretches and coils, like the veins and muscles of a well-oiled Mr. Universe. It proceeds thus for fifteen hundred miles from its birth in the High Pamirs of Tajikistan, and what we have been privileged to see thus far is but a sliver of the whole.
For us it is a glorious two days on what must surely be the most remarkable road in one of the most extraordinary places we have ever been. The river’s movement seems to transport us through the centuries, to give breath to the ancient stones around us. We are captivated by a sense that time has stood still here while at the same time being yanked writhing straight out of the river’s depths into the twenty-first century. And the mighty Panj flowing onward out my window reminds me that not all borders are gated and stationary. Some flow, though they are not fluid.
We continue onward into the High Pamirs, along the Pamir Highway, where the rivers are sapphire and emerald with rapids of white frosting, spanned only occasionally by a pedestrian bridge made of slats wired together and secured on either end by rocks and old cables. In the not-so-far distance, twenty-thousand-foot peaks are crowned with the first deep snow of a coming winter.
When we pull off the road where two trucks are parked, I give a sidelong inspection to a local war dog, so named because they gu
ard the herds and fight off wolves, and also are set to fighting each other. This one is a massive mastiff, his black-tipped beige coat matted, his leonine black head ignoring me, though I can see immediately that one side is caked with old blood and the eye on that side is winking shut. We head into the White Fish Café, intent on their one eponymous dish: small white fish, sautéed so crisp we can tear each six-inch fish apart with our fingers and crunch into it, swallowing delicate bones and sweet flesh. Three tureens of yak yogurt topped with a skiff of orange butter fat are curing on the stove in the low-ceilinged room where we sit on the floor on red woven carpets. A big bowl of yogurt is brought for us, along with a china pot of tea. The yak yogurt is sumptuously rich and, when plied with sugar, makes an excellent dessert. However, the cushions around us smell of too many stinky feet and sweaty bottoms—or vice versa—so we do not linger longer than it takes to devour four fish, a flat round of local focaccia-like bread, and many spoonfuls from the yogurt bowl.
That night we reach a homestay on Karakul, Tajikistan’s largest lake, a deep blue splash on an endless flat brown plain at thirteen thousand feet. I’d asked about a place to stay while we were filling the Land Rover tank with diesel from a jerry can after lunch. When the jerry can owner indicated a grimy hovel behind him as our proposed lodging, I pointed to my watch to explain it was too early for us to stop. Through gestures—pointing out where we were on the map and searching for the place names he mentioned—I helped him pinpoint for me that the next guest house was on Karakul’s eastern shore, about three hours drives ahead. I then handed him a pen to write the name down, not at all sure this would result in anything but him pocketing the pen to sell later. Having a place name written by a local has helped us find where we’re going on many of our trips, though it doesn’t always work, as not all locals can write. This time fortune is with me, as he hands back my notepad with a little drawing including dots to denote a village, and X to denote that the guesthouse is next to the road on the village edge, and mountains to denote mountains (this last unhelpful since we’re in the Pamirs, with mountains everywhere).
The map is a charm, with the guest house exactly where the X among the dots suggests. When we pull in, the mountains beyond are curtained in heavy clouds. Our well-equipped car is a sure sign that we are travelers and the mistress of the house steps outside to welcome us, ushering us out of the chill air into the entrance/kitchen/living room of her home. It’s wonderfully warm inside where we remove our shoes so we can slouch on cushions and carpets strewn around the raised platform across from the stove. Our host brings us small bowls with handmade steamed noodle dumplings filled with potatoes. We tear chunks of bread and dip it in the local honey and a surprise bowl of strawberry jam. We drink more black tea. It is bitter and hot.
Meanwhile our hosts set to heating their new shower cubicle, a six-by-eight concrete hut with a dung-burning stove above which is welded a ten-gallon tank with a spigot. Two hours later our host beckons me with a small wave of his hand. I follow him out into the cold, eager and uncertain, taking the towel he hands me as we walk on pebbled dirt through the deepening blue dusk. With shy courtesy he opens a creaking metal door, pulls a chain to illuminate one bulb, and salaams goodbye.
The stove has heated the room and it’s a delight to strip down, fill a small pot with scalding water, splash some cold water from a bucket into it to perfect the temperature, and pour the resulting mix down my front and over my back. Every once in a while, I splash water onto the stove, which releases a burst of steam. It’s a bath, shower, sauna, and steam room all in one. A generator keeps the bulb bright till 8:00 p.m., after which it’s literally lights out. We sleep on piles of futons on the floor with flowered quilts thrown over us, in a room with quilts on the walls and ceiling. It’s like bedding down inside a flamboyant, flowery bubble. I dream of rippling rivers and ribbons of road carving through rumpled peaks which scrape a sky so vast and blue it can conjoin divided countries.
Missed It
GAURIGANJ, NEPAL TO INDIA, 2012
What if you knew a border was there somewhere, but couldn’t find it? I’m not talking about terrifying mistakes, like those made by hikers along Iran’s border some years ago. I’m referring to an ordinary border between friendly countries … of which you are not a citizen. A border where everyone but you can pass so freely that there are no longer signs saying STOP HERE, or CUSTOMS, or TURN BACK, no outposts with razor wire-topped gates like Iran and Afghanistan, no Kyrgyz officials dressed like the local shepherds they are, idly smoking next to the meek fire of a charcoal brazier, no armed guards as in China. I wish I couldn’t answer that question, but I can.
My education began on a sunny early October day in southeastern Nepal. To our crash course in border mistakes I brought an overweening desire to make progress, a smattering of carelessness, and considerable hubris stemming from eight thousand miles of driving during which we’d successfully entered and exited ten other countries far less friendly than these two. Hell, we were border connoisseurs. If we knew anything at all we knew that this border would be a quickie, an in-’n’-out of the simplest order.
Looking back, I can pick out the hints that I should have attended to. There was the hut on an otherwise building-free corner, with three soldiers relaxing on chairs in front of it. Each had a rifle across his lap. As we drove by I noticed one had a two-way radio hooked to his thick black leather belt. The street crowds skirted the group, their body language broadcasting, “I have no business with you and you none with me, so let’s ignore each other,” the universal idiom of those who want to remain invisible to officialdom. I didn’t digest what I’d seen; I didn’t even chew it over. I wiped my hands of it and tossed it out my open window, more intent on helping Bernard avoid grazing a pedestrian than pondering what I’d just noticed.
Next, there was the cluster of low gray buildings with a scrappy lawn bordered by thick-leaved plants bursting with juicy red and yellow blossoms. On a stretch of road monotone in its beige dust and dirt, this very greenness and trimness spoke of a gardener hired especially to prune and water the shrubbery. Such sprinkling and snipping were a luxury no ordinary citizen could afford. And then there were those two men in sandals, slacks, and button-up shirts without rips, talking on their cell phones. As we drove by, the chubby, balding one slammed his open palm hard on our car’s hood, making a loud bang.
“Speed up,” I shouted to Bernard, afraid we were being accosted by street bandits. My analysis made sense to me. I knew we were somewhere near a border. I also knew from enough border crossings to fill the twenty-six pages in my original passport and require twenty-six more, half of which were already used, that people always have stealable items on them in such places. They have extra cash, are returning home with purchases, or are carrying special items to sell. Borders are a prime area for petty theft and I had no desire to swell an already-bloated crime statistic.
We scooted away from the two hooligans. When they ran after us as fast as their sloppy thongs would allow, I knew we’d made the right decision to escape while we could. A slow five minutes later, during which we dodged stop-start vehicles picking up walkers and dropping off riders, the thugs reappeared, this time on a motor scooter. The thin one was driving, the chubby one inveighing into his cellphone. His face was flushed, his mouth gaping and puckering like a gasping fish as he ranted about something to someone. “Probably calling in thuggish reinforcement,” I said to Bernard, pointing out the impending perpetrators. Darting close enough to touch our car, the chubby one banged on the Land Rover’s rear door. It made no sense. Why would ruffians, even inexperienced ruffians, make their dire intentions so clearly known?
Now they were shouting at the pedestrians to clear the way. They pulled alongside, the chubby one pounding on my door as I hurriedly rolled up my window. From behind the glass I could see him mouthing something at me. I was the bad monkey in a cage, he was the kid outside making faces. I refused to look at him, staring straight ahead instead, cringing, expect
ing him to grab the door handle and be hauled forward with us. If he did, we’d only be able to shake him by hurting him. Escape was one thing, damaging a body, chubby or otherwise, quite another. I had no stomach for the latter.
While Bernard wove the Land Rover through cars, cyclists, and walkers as fast as he could without crushing anyone, I twisted in my seat to make sure we’d lost them. As I turned around, I caught a large billboard out of the corner of my eye. It said INDIA. “How interesting,” I thought to myself as I sighed with relief that the scooter-riding goons were no longer in view. “India’s advertising for itself in Nepal.” On the narrow pavement, the traffic going our way was clotted with pedestrians. In the opposite direction was a long line of cargo trucks at a standstill, engines idling, drivers out of the cabs spitting paan and sipping Dixie cups of chai. “How odd,” I thought to myself again. “Those trucks should be moving since they’re already clear of the border.”
Just as I began computing the math that added one INDIA billboard to miles-worth of stationary trucks, the scooter reappeared. This time chubster and his slender sidekick were not to be denied. They zoomed around us and braked to a halt broadside in front, blocking our way. For a second I entertained the notion that these thieves were inordinately brazen to hold us up not only in broad daylight, but with hundreds of people around. But when the fat one stuck his arm through Bernard’s still-open window and tried to muscle out the car keys from the ignition, I knew something else was up.
His face was livid. Soon Bernard’s was, too, as he batted and punched the man’s arm away, shoving it forcefully back outside. The two of them grappled with each other, grabbing at biceps, pinching at shirt sleeves, slapping away hands, neither going the next step of making a face assault, but not backing down either. “Get away,” I screamed. “Leave us. You cannot have our keys!” I reached across Bernard for the window handle and began rolling it up till the short man outside could no longer reach in. Bernard finished the job.