The Afghan jail detour

Right,...
You know when sh*t really happens,..like, actual really intense sh*t,..
There just never seems to be a way of filming it...
Either it doesn't cross your mind cause your brain is already overloaded trying to process the bombardment of sensory madness every moment throws at you...

Or

Well, you just cant!
Here, in Afghanistan, I experienced this like never before...
The more you film, take pictures and,ask questions,
The more you stand out as suspicious and unusual...

This is not the place to increase the amount of attraction you already generate as a foreign, white tourist trundling through their country!

So here I accompany one not so in depth video, with one way out of my depth story...

SOOOO....

The story goes something like this...

After spending so much time passing along the Afghanistan border in Uzbekistan and now
all the way along the Afghan border in Tajikistan, and spending so much time staring at that untouched, unknown land, I would have hated myself for coming so far
and not stepping at least one dirty foot into it!

So when we got to Khorog, the capital of the Pamirs here in Tajikistan, me and Steve (A guy from Austria I met in Dushanbe) decided to hit up the embassy and find out about visa possibilities...

After a couple minutes a man appeared at the gate of the consulate, peared through a small hatch in the wall, and disapeared. Shortly after a women came to the front door and in perfect English invited us in to meet with the ambassador. We all chatted, laughed and had small talk, and within 10 minutes were told for $50 we could have to visa within an hour! Crazy easy!!!
We looked at each other and without a second thought, both nodded in agreement!

One photo, and a signature on a life in danger waiver form later
and we both had a month ticket to Afghanistan!!!!!

Only one small problem...

We couldn't get another entry for our Tajik visa! So we essentially only had a one way ticket to Afghanistan!!! Either way, we were excited and hitched the next possible ride 3 hours to the Afghan border. We met some typically generous,inviting Tajik man, who invited us to his house where he fed us, and gave us a place to stay. The next day (Saturday) he drove us to the border crossing and to the Saturday cross border market where people from both Tajikistan and Afghanistan
 trade every weekend on an island in the middle of the river that divides the two countries. 

We planned to stay there and enjoy the market for most of the day, and then, when people started to head back to Afghanistan, try to hitch a ride with one of them. Also we planned to slyly offer the border guards on the Tajik side a little incentive bundle of dollars to not stamp us out of Tajikistan and let us pass freely back through in one week.

It turned out after meeting an Afghan border guard in the market who spoke
 some English and expressing our little problem, he said money can solve any problem here!

We ended up waiting until the whole market was closed, and everyone had gone home  so a smooth bribing transaction could take place without unwanted eyes. This however only helped to intensify the whole process, being stuck in a very tense situation with many corrupt military, police, border guards and even Interpol, all in the middle of nowhere!

This endless moment, being passed and dragged between so many officials
had way too many opportunities where it could have gone horribly wrong!

But eventually, with $100 tucked snugly into someones back pocket, we were through!! Stamped into Afghanistan without being stamped out of Tajikistan. I think we are probably some of the only people in history who wanted to bribe there way IN, to Afghanistan!

The adrenaline pumping through our bodies as we passed the first destroyed tanks we didn't even notice there were no cars to take us the 6kms to the next town and just started to walk.

The next 2 days were mainly spent fixing permits and paperwork needed to actually be able
to travel in Afghanistan (Yes, apparently a visa isn't enough). Also adapting to the giant contrast with Tajikistan, learning Afghan culture and just coming to terms with the overly paranoid way of doing just about anything in a land where life comes and goes very fast.

It soon became apparent that hitchhiking and staying with families in there houses for free was
near impossible! Not because the people weren't friendly and open but because we were westerners, and westerners attract all the wrong kind of attention and require danger pay for anyone to be willing to risk helping them! Local people wont even ride in the same car as you because they are afraid they could also be killed if the wrong people decide to show up!

On the third day we bit hard and swallowed the $150 price tag for a four wheel drive to take us over a possibly closed snowy mountain pass through a somewhat lowly populated Taliban area to the city of Faisobad. We had the plan to go all the way to Kabul to fly kites with the kids and maybe even blag a Pakistan visa while we were there...

The journey started along probably the worst road I have even seen in my life! I have never
 before seen rocks and boulders balanced on the edge of a mountainside used as an excuse for a road! Our driver loved his car, he loved his job, and most of all he loved the accelerator!

The back tires sliding around corners, knocked and tumbled stones down the cliff face into the river hundreds of feet below. The guys foot never lost steady downward pressure even on the most precarious of blind corners. After about an hour and a half we neared the 3000 meter mark and the dirt road turned white with snow. We skidded around as the driver seemed to effortlessly dance his
 car along the thin winding tracks though the mountain valleys.

This was only a small nibble of what was to be the most memorable and intense taxi ride of my life! 

The mountains fell away behind us and the scenery grew alive with the colors of Autumn. The villages teaming with people riding overloaded donkeys, women dressed in full blue burkas, men with all array of head-scarfs and turbans, and market sellers yelling of the freshest vegetables.

This was Afghanistan! We were there! Alive! Living it! Like tasting a forbidden fruit!

An then there was the first checkpoint...

What sort of checkpoint? I had no idea! But there was guys with big guns and they were
blocking the road and demanding documents! Also I didn't mention that there was 4 of us in the car. Me, Steve (The Austrian guy), Obide (The driver), and Azim (A guy who worked as a tour guide, spoke fairly good English, and came along as he was heading in our direction).

We met Azim in Ishkashim, near the border. After being given his card and thinking it would be handy to speak to someone in English, we called him, and spent most of the two days there with him. 

Azim informed us they want our passports and recommended that we also show them all other documents we acquired over the last few days. We handed it all over, they received them without gesture and proceeded to start going on quite abruptly in Farsi. Before we knew it we were back in the car, sandwiched between two heavily armed men and heading in the wrong direction. The car swerved to the right, down a small dirt road, past some armed barracks and stopped. We were directed
 to get out and head inside the building.

A few incredibly short uninformative introductions with the men inside and
the search began. First of ourselves...Our camera, our wallet, our money...

Then of our bags...every single item! All counted and recorded. Even suspiciously down to the numbers on my bank card! Then one soldier trudged in and placed a set of open handcuffs on the table. Me and Steve both side glanced at each other with a look that could say nothing more than..

"This cant be good!"

Finally the search ended and for a small moment I thought we would be just let free with a
"thank you for your co-operation, nice to meet you" and a handshake. We walked outside and before again climbing back into the jeep the man that had carried out the search appeared from behind us and gestured for me to put out my hands. when I asked a simple "Why?" he said nothing and began to take my hand and squeeze the metal cuff tightly around my wrist, and then repeated the same with Steve. In doing so he looked at us and said only "I crush this!" I looked at him puzzled to which he answered with "You no understand? I don't like this, I'm sorry!" and turned and walked away.

Sorry for what? I began to think.
What does that mean?

Then again in the back seat of the car, crushed between two guys armed with more
 ammunition than needed to clear out a small village, the driver was ordered to speed of!

We raced down the road in moderate silence and when I turned to Azim who was now sat in
the boot of the car, and asked him "Where are we going?" He panicked face wet with tears mumbled

"Don't speak, I don't know you! I am only passenger!"

I couldn't believe it! The local tourist guide had already bailed on us!
This did not help to make me feel more at ease about what was going on!

Both an insainly fast and a surrealy slow stretch of dusty mud road later and to the order of
one of the armed men we skidded to a stop just before a tiny village. At this point a convoy of 4 heavy artillery vehicles screamed up in front of us. About 20 men with AK47's climbed down and began to systematically make a secure perimeter for about 50 meters of road either side of us,
 ordering any locals to run away and not to look.

They forcefully dragged us out of the car threw us face first against one of the trucks,
 searched us for weapons , removed the pair of handcuffs joining us together and placed a individual pair of handcuffs behind our backs on each of us. Then we were taken our separate ways to the backs of two of the trucks armed with mounted machine guns. The Vehicles then all again filled with the armed men and accelerated off. Steves truck was first, followed by the jeep we came in, followed by the truck I was in, and tailed by a truck armed with a mounted rocket launcher!

I remember talking to a good friend of mine, Tristan, a few months back, while I was planning to go to the war zone in Ukraine. And I asking him if you think I will push it too far? and he replied ...

" I think you will keep pushing, until one day, You'll wish you hadn't!" 

Well ,...His words were ringing in my ears at this point! 

I still had no idea what was happening? Why it was happening? Who these guys were?
and mostly, Where they were taking us?

So at one stage of the journey I asked one of the monkeys with the guns
"Where we go Faisobad?"
, He looked at me and smiled smugly and replied,
"no! Warduch".

I had heard this name so many times over the last couple of days,
the sound of it made my heart sink! Warduch was the center of Taliban
 control in this area of Afghanistan.

"Warduch! Taliban Warduch!"

I fished for a different answer...

"Taliban kill me!"
I said, pointing to myself and slicing my throat with my finger.

He smiled again, nodded, and looked away!

My face collapsed into my hands and my mind yelled with the white noise of
Taliban execution films. I thought of all the people I loved in those moments. All the people who love me, I thought of my selfishness to go to this place and for it, never see anyone again! I thought of my family and friends and how sad I would make them for just one of my stupid decisions! I thought of the words I would say If I would have the chance to make one last message for the people
 I love in my life! What intense thoughts to even have to try a confront!

But something strange came from beneath the fear, the cold sweat and the unrelenting ideas of death...

I calmed myself, I promised myself I would die proud, happy and freely, I thought of the amazing life I had had the chance to live, I told myself I will not hate to people who do this as they
are only doing what they believe is right!

I felt not upset for me! but for my family and for my friends!

This was the single most intense, strange, and unthinkable experience of my life!

In my mind i was literally confronting and preparing myself for my death!

and so the race through endless nothingness, through mountains and villages continued.

I tried to use the general direction of the shadows cast by the sun the pinpoint our heading. I tried desperately to remember an image of an Afghanistan map I glimpsed on the immigration wall at the border. Trying to calculate where we could really be heading?

A hell-bound eternity later and my questions were answered...

The mud houses became more densely packed together, and our first Afghan city formed. I was almost sure this was Faisobad! Speeding through the congested streets with sirens yelling, both people and donkeys were close to diving for the sidewalk to avoid be mowed down. Then up ahead, the towering barded wire walls, men patrolled the front gates from above and below, and huge concrete blocks forced our cars to zigzag slowly as they got cleared to take us into the compound. Little did we know then, but this was to be our home for the next 7 days!

Obviously we still had no idea what was happening? What this place was?
 and especially, why we were there?

We were escorted from the vehicles and told to sit in front of a big white tent. Here we
met a man we would know as Rambo. A heavy built, stocky, dark man with high strong cheek bones and an expression that told us nothing more than i cant wait to get in a small dark room alone with you and a pair of pliers. He was holding a hand-held metal detector with his left hand, while slamming it repeatedly into his bandaged up right hand that I was sure he had broken on the face of
 the last guy that came through here.

He instructed Steve to stand and to rip his shirt of. Steve was confused and didnt understand which just angered Rambo more, and he ripped it open for him. He began searching him, and meanwhile I was ordered to enter the tent. 

This was the start of the long and tiring repetitive process of interrogation. It always began with "Why are you here?" which to me seemed like the most hilarious thing they could ask, as it was the main question I wanted to know the answer to! Oh so many questions, so many papers to sign, so much fingerprinting, DNA testing, photographing, again searching through every thread of our belongings, and then, more questioning!

Still through all of this they told us nothing. 

The sun began to set behind the dusty brown mountain valley, and instead of heading for
the gate, we were taken into a separate walled sector within the compound and showed to our accommodation. A ten by six foot concrete box, with 2 foot thick steal enforced walls, triple barred windows and a couple of sheets on the floor to sleep on. The walls had recently been repainted but were covered with the carved out scrapings depicting anything from how long the last guy had been in here to somethings in Arabic about Alah. Obviously we asked, "How long we must stay here?" to which one short man, dressed in afghan robes replied "tomorrow, no problem". I actually felt re-leaved. It was the first positive and informative remark we had heard all day! All 4 of us talked a little about the day, I tried to calm Azim who was panicked and crying, and then curled up
on the floor to go to sleep. 

After a few days, sleep became my escape from this place. They could imprison my body,
 but when i slept my mind would soar! I could be anywhere, laughing, running, loving, smiling. I could re-live memories and be with anyone! There were no bars, no walls,
 and no armed guards pacing the roof! 

Everyday started the same...The prayer from the mosques would echo out across the city
 at about 5 o'clock in the morning. First prayer is always before sunrise I learned. Then about half an hour later, keys would jingle in the lock and the door would creak open. "Latrine go!" Were our perfect English instructions to go and systematically use the hole in the floor they called the the toilet. There was a jug you could fill with water and in what ever order you liked wash your hands and your arse with. Then we would go back to the cell and the next cell would open. 15 minutes later again the door would open and each person would be handed a piece of bread and plastic cup of chai. Afghan people couldn't live without chai so its even given as a staple part of every meal in prison! 

Then after breakfast we would have about 4 hours to stare at the walls of the cell before
 being let out for exercise time in the yard, where I soon managed to find some stones
and tought Steve to juggle. Much to the amusement of the guards!

We actually became quiet the entertainment  for the guards and military there.
 Each day they would all come to our cell to see what was the new trick of the day. We would do handstands, and spinning kicks and they would always push us to see how many press-ups we could do. Me and Steve swore to each other, each to keep the other happy and positive. We would joke a lot. sometimes the guards would come to collect our food bowls and we would be sat on the floor with the plates on our heads, yelling out car noises at the top of our lungs as we went for an imaginary drive around town. We would pile the sheets into a couch and sit and watch the pillow television we proped up against the wall in front of us. Discussing in depth which ever program happened to be playing in our minds at the time. It was something between going insane, and becoming a child again! But what was the most amazing thing was how the guards reacted. They loved it! They thought we were hilarious. As far as we knew we could be there for years. So we were gonna make
 the most out it, and make some friends. 

The fun times however were broken each day with a summoning to leave the cell and
 follow someone to some room somewhere. Each time it was a heart pumping experience. Not knowing where you were going and for what this time. More interrogation. More tests.
 and always, no more answers.

We were always ignored if we asked for a phone call, although on about day 4 I was ushered away, handed a phone and ordered to speak. They told me it was the British embassy, but it was the least British sounding guy in Afghanistan on the other end. The only time I saw a translator while we were here was to write down every word I said on the phone to who ever it I was speaking to. The so called "man from the embassy" also failed to provide me with any reason we were here and funnily enough seemed to ask me all the same questions I had been getting asked for the previous 4 days.

He said nothing of when we would be getting out and just left with a casual "We'll be in touch".

Everyday seem to get stranger, with more pointless tests and routines. On day five we
 got suddenly woke up and split up from The driver and Azim. We had no idea of the reason for this but anyway Azim had already pretty much stopped speaking to us by then. We would ask him something simple in English like "How did you sleep?" and he would answer in Farsi as if he was pretending he couldn't speak English. He just seemed to get more paranoid as the days went on! For some reason his actual, true, normal, and completely plausible story that he was a tour guide helping us translate in return for a ride to Faisobad, became this elaborate overly complex lie, as he tried to cut all ties to us! Obviously scared that he would go down for what ever we were in trouble for.
 He even kept telling the guards to check our passports, which was the last thing I
wanted them to check thoroughly as we had illegally left Tajikistan!

Each day we would ask at some point " when are we getting out of here?" and each day we
 would get the same hope inspiring answer as the first day,"tomorrow, no problem". After day 4 I was done with this false hope. I began to calculate my own possibilities. The muslin weekend, Thursday/Friday would start tomorrow and I know there would be no chance of us being freed on those days. So we just accepted the fact, we are in prison and it could be for a very long time. No-one knew we were here. We had both recently posted a new Facebook post telling everyone we were fine and would just have no internet for a few weeks. We then both told absolutely no-one we were going to Afghanistan and so the chances of us being found anytime in the next few months was pretty slim. 

By the middle of day five I figured I better start making the most out of my time and at least start learning something while I'm here. So I began learning Farsi words and how to read the script starting with the numbers, that are even different here! To kill some hours I started to meditate. Yes, you heard me , sitting still and doing nothing for long periods of time! I sure anyone that knows me wouldn't have imagined me doing that! But , actually, I liked it! It was good for calming me in such a stressful environment. Like escaping into my dreams but when I was awake. I could think about all the things that were really important to me in my life. No better place to put things into perspective than a concrete box with triple barred windows!

This day was also the day I found out why we were here. I was taken away on my own and
 sat down in front of a man we named Shifty. He was a tall, slim, well dressed man. who always wore an embroidered, white typical Afghan robe. Sometimes he would act as if he was being nice, but would quickly change, and revert to some sly comment. He spoke the best English of anyone in our sector we had met and would come out with all sorts of perfect one-liners like " You are interesting,...I like interesting!"

This time started like every other...

"Whats your name?".....

"Father name?"....

"grandfathers name?"....

"Uncles name?"....

and so on,...funnily enough they never asked about female members of the family.
Almost as if they weren't important!

Again I licked my thumb, squished it into the dark blue ink and my fingerprint was pressed down on another bunch of papers written in squiggles I couldn't understand even the date of.

Then, He looked up at me and said blankly " It says in your report you are Taliban..."

my face froze! "What? It says that I am Taliban?" I said while circling my face with my finger in disbelief. "yes" he said plainly

I didn't know what to say?
I almost burst out laughing!
We had apparently disguised ourselves so well in our Afghan clothes and over-grown beards,
that we had been captured as Taliban! I couldn't believe the idea! We had somehow ended up in a High security Taliban prison! He then followed up with a comment that he had seen me earlier in the day listening to the mosque!! Yes, He SAW me LISTENING!!! I flicked back through my mind to an image of me meditating in the cell earlier in the day. It was like anything we did in here just made it worst!

Another prisoner arrived on day six and immediately stole Steve's slippers from outside of our cell. We took not too much notice of him and continued playing a game of throw the pebbles into the cup. We were so caught up in the game that we didn't even leave our cell when the door was open for exercise hours. When two of the guards came to our cell slightly panicked and began waving there arms around and yelling something along the lines of  "Get Ready! Rais". We had learnt the Farsi word "Rais" on one of the first days when we began asking to speak to the general. It basically translates to "Boss".

We jumped up, threw on our now not so clean Afghan rags and for the first time in 6 days left the compound! it was almost overwhelming. We walked about 200 hundred meters and entered a large fancy reception looking room and were told to sit. After five minutes we were waved through the door to his office with such panic it was as if everything had to happen exactly when the general said so and not a second later. 

The general was a big man. Like a really, Big, man. He really fitted the title of "Big Boss"
 some of the guards in the prison used to refer to him. He was older, about 50 something, with grey hair and a well trimmed beard. He sat slouched back in his reclining chair with the confident look of a man that could get anyone in the vicinity to do whatever he said with the click of his fingers.

We shook his hand and greeted him with the usual Muslim "A salam o alecum" he smiled
and replied in English "How are you? have a seat and my translator will be here in one minute"
He rested back in his chair and rang the bell on his desk. A man appeared almost immediately, looking cowardly, as if this could be his last day at work if he said the wrong thing. The general shouted at  him in Persian, he nodded and left quickly.

Then cardamon tea was brought to the small round glass table in
front of us along with imported European chocolates.

The translator arrived shortly after and the conversation batted back and forth between the four of us.
The general started "I am sorry you had to spend 2 nights in our prison"..
"Two nights?" i repeated, " you mean six?"

"OK six, well, yes, I'm sorry and I would like to apologize by inviting you to stay at my guesthouse tonight. You will have all your things returned to you, my translator will tour you around
 our city and tomorrow you will be free to go" 

"Thank-you" we both replied almost in sync. 

"oh and all the food and nights you were here they're on us! No charge!"
he spoke with no such comical tone.

"Oh thaaankyou" I said in the most sarcastic way i could get away with

We went back to the compound and spent about an hour again going through all of our things under the watchful eyes of every guard and captain we had met over the last week. At one point when I was stuffing my sleeping bag back into its bag the main captain lent over and whispered into my ear
 " you have no complaint!,.... No complaint, No problem!".

A small leaving threat to not mention this situation to anyone.
Then we finally left through the same gates we entered by nearly a week before.

The intensity of this trip didn't end there...we then slept a night in the generals guest house,
but meanwhile the Taliban killed over 2 hundred police and took control over the police station in Warduch. The general was not in the happiest of moods about it and when I mentioned I had never even shot a gun before,he turned and said straightly as he reached for his radio I will bring you one Talib from our jail and you can shoot him!". I quickly and as politely as possible refused.
He persisted and upon my second nervous refusal put away his radio looking something between disappointed and offended.

The next day we left with our driver, back towards Ishkasheem. But to get there we had
to pass the military front line put in place for last nights Tabliban events. For some reason heading past hundreds of giant machine guns, rocket launchers and all kinds of heavy artillery in the direction they are all pointing is slightly un-nerving. The last thing I wanted now was to go up into the mountains and then be captured by the Taliban!

But hey, all went well and about 5 hours later we were back at the border.
We payed our driver and he sped of. A border guard approached us asking where we were going. I said quite obviously "Tajikistan" as i pointed across the river. "Border closed!" He said!

Ahhhhhhh.......haha it never ends does it?!

The border was closed as it was Sunday on the Tajik side so we had to search for somewhere
to camp for the night, but hey I at least got chance to do my Manthong marathon, be it in a rather insignificant place, but better than nothing. oh yeah!

Bright and early we arrived at the border ready to go.
Hearts in our mouths, hoping that the guards keep their word and would let us peacefully
back to Tajikistan without problems.

We felt a relief when the same guy that helped us 10 days earlier appeared with a smile on his face and quickly stamped us out of Afghanistan without a hitch, but we were then taken to another office we hadn't passed on the way in. It was Interpol! We were sure we were gonna flag up on the electronic system as we hadn't passed any of this before, but we kept calm and joked
 with the guard as much as we could.

My passport passed without a problem but when he looked through Steves passport
 he stopped on his Tajik visa, looked up and asked

"where is the new visa?" 

"new visa?"
Steve replied.

My head dropped, I just wanted to dig a hole and crawl inside!

"Yes, new visa, this one expired!" he repeated

"No, this, is the date of expiry" Steve showed him

and he quickly apologized and carried on with the process

somehow he scanned both our passports, took a good long stare at both our Tajik visas and didn't notice the big words SINGLE ENTRY and the big stamp that was already in the middle of it!!!

He gave us our passports and we were gone!!!!

There was no-one there when we crossed the bridge and stepped our feet back onto Tajik soil but anyway we started trudging up the long mountain road in the middle of nowhere, heading 200 km's back towards Khorog, back towards Cindy, with huge smiles on our faces and freedom again cursing through our veins.