THE AFGHAN BORDER

I decided to see if I could walk up the the Afghan border anyway. It was aparently quite close but I had no idea how close. I couldn't sleep the previous night. Garum Cheshma's (extreme left of map) local nutter (alchoholic?) was banging on my door. I didn't open it. I had arrived the previous day on a jeep travelling through some Cecil B DeMille scale cliffscapes.

The town was typical North West frontier province. Beautiful landscape with not a woman to be seen. I was severely questioning the health of a society where the fairer sex are completely removed from view, and had totally forgotten why I was in Pakistan. I missed the easy, India hippie-hypocrisy to which I had almost grown familiar.

I had just finnished a breakfast of boiled goat with rice with an audience of schoolboys staring at me. I was breaking my vegetarian vow for the first time since I had done Vipassna in Jaipur 3 months earlier. I walked maybe 10 minutes up "the road to Afghanistan" before I encountered a farm, where two young girls stood staring at me over a gate laughing at me.

I carefully ignored them, looking round for their dad who I expected to be running at me with an AK-47. He turned up, obviously a bit startled seeing a facially-pierced hippie with bones sticking out of his ears on his way to Afghanistan, but not disturbed at all about the vicinity of his un-burkahed daughters. I was to encounter female Muslims only with the farming folk of the North west frontier province, outside the towns.

"Afghanistan?" I asked him, pointing. He nodded.

"Far?" I asked, spreading my arms.

He almost gave me the Indian head wobble.

"Don't fucking start that." I said to him. "I'm not in India now."

he laughed, having not understood a word.

I carried on walking with less certainty through heart achingly beautiful landscape. What the hell was I doing? What did I want to do? I vaguely thought that I would walk up to the border, shake hands with the "border guards" and then walk back down. I had no intention of actually crossing as I heard that the Taliban incarcerated beardless ones until their beard was a fist length.

What if I missed the border crossing totally and found myself in Afghanistan with no visa? What if there was no marked border and these "border guards" were part of my imagination? What the hell was I doing in Pakistan?

Suddenly through my drug hazzed memories of the last six months in India I remembered. Before I had left the UK, while I was still agonising about where to go I had read in the Pakistan Lonely plonker about a tribe called the Kallash. I had decided to try and get to them, using Pakistan to renew my India visa, as I knew in the UK that the Nepali set up was no longer fail safe. I had forgotten all of this in six months of drug taking frenzy but heading up onto the Hindu Kush it came back to me in the nick of time.

I knew these guys were around here somewhere. I turned round and headed back to Garam Cheshma. There I borded the next jeep back to Chitral, everyone staring at me. When in this situation in India I would find the local groccer and swap my bones for chillies to make people laugh. I did this. No one laughed. They looked even more disturbed by my ear-wizardry. I was so lonely passing back through the golden rocks. In Chitral I walked through the centre of town up to the mini-bus terminus I had arrived at two days before.

"Infidel! Herretic!" I heard in shouts and whispers as I passed. The day before I had only heard whispers. I wanted to get out before it turned into action.

"The Kallash tribe, are they far?" I asked the guys with the jeeps.

"No. In the next valley. maybe 4 or 5 hours? You can hire a jeep, 400 ruppes..."

I had grown used to this in India and knew the next question to ask.

"Is there local bus or jeep?"

"Yes. It is 25 rupees. We leave when there are enough passengers." the guy answered.

It took about another 3 hours until enough passengers had gathered and we left. I sat next to a smarmy buisnessman in shalwar-kamieeze and sunglasses. He had a greasy forehead and looked like he had money.

About 30 minutes into the journey he revealed his intentions on visiting the Kalash.

"I go to find young girls for sex."

"Oh yes...?" I answered, encouraging him with more rope.

For more than an hour he spoke of his business trips through every major Islamic country in the middle east, how much he had to pay for sex in each and how young the girls were. I nodded occasionally. I hoped the Kallash had not lowered themselves to this. He seemed uncertain.

We crossed the river and after a really hairy jeep ride half way up a river valley we eventually alighted. I was a bit disturbed as I didn't see anyone who looked Kallash. All the other passengers were Muslim and were content to stay at the Muslim guesthouse we had come to. I wandered off a bit.

The sleaze merchant followed.

"I come with you!" he said.

"No!" I shouted, bringing my hand down to emphasise the parting of our friendship, my face going red. "I go alone. Do NOT follow."

I did not want to have my first encounter with the Kallash standing next to this filth.

All the way up the valley I saw Muslim guest houses with Muslim patrons. Where were the Kallash? I thought this was their valley. I asked someone who pointed up the hillside. I walked up the hillside until I found houses which looked markedly different right at the top, where village ended and mountain began.

A woman came round the corner in a long black dress with a bright cowrie shell head-dress. She was smiling.

"You are Kallash?" I asked.

"Yes. You stay with us?" she asked.

"Yes please!!!" I wailed.