Just posted on Lonely Planet's sadly fallen Thorn Tree site, where I used the handle "TrevorGudsell" for reasons deep and irrelevant:
"Welcome back" - and goodbye. After 11 years, this is Trevor's last
post to TT. I joined in 2002 and for several years TT was my companion
as I planned my annual walkabouts. When I lost hundreds of posts during
a previous transformation, I shrugged and moved on. I was never into
building up a big post count. But in this latest transformation, TT
ditched 1200 posts, most of which were travel related questions or
answers, including one massive sequence of posts - my "Notes From ..."
series - containing first hand observations and information posted "from
the front" during over a year on the road across Asia 2010-11. They
contained much information that corrected the LP or could not be found
in the LP. I risked my life walking across Kabul to post updates to my
Afghanistan thread. I spent money on those posts that I could have used
to travel longer or do more sightseeing. I chose to post them on TT
rather than my personal blog because I thought the information would be
seen by more travellers here, I thought they would be safe here, and I
wanted to repay some of the advice I had harvested from TT over the
years. Well, you fooled me BBC. My blog is still there, dusty and
unfinished, but my "Notes From ..." threads are gone from here. BBC, I
grudge you the loss of those posts more than the loss of all the rest.
I met my wife through this forum - we were on converging paths and
eventually ran into each other in Nha Trang. Since the forum was at
that time our only point of contact we used PMs to arrange a meeting
without inviting the world. Despite that, most of my PMs received and
sent were travel related and they served a privacy purpose that Twitter
and Skype never can. Whoever decided PMs have no part on a site such as
TT needs to have their head examined.
The absurd notion of imposing a secret bad words nanny list - use one of
these words and we won't just delete the word, we'll block your post;
but we won't tell you what those words are. You'll know you used one
when your post fails to appear. Good luck salvaging it if you forgot to
copy and paste the content into a text file before attempting to post
it to TT. Sorry guys, but when I'm posting or answering a question
using a flaky connection from a public PC in some nasty hole, I don't
have time for that. It's exactly those moments when I possess the most
valuable information - current! first hand! - that I don't have time to
fool around making sure Aunt Ethel won't raise a blush if she reads it.
For those I've interacted with over the years - so long and thanks for the fun! For the faceless BBC suits - goodbye.
I waited to get my PMs. I hoped sanity might prevail by then. It hasn't. So goodbye.
Posted here just in case it gets Moderated out of existence on TT.
12 March, 2013
Day 304: Quibbles in Kabul 11/9 - 14/9
Accommodation in Kabul
I stayed at the Mustafa, which likes to charge $30 per room (shared bathroom with fan and dead TV). If you book online or if there's an issue with the room (such as the water in the bathrooms being cold) they will usually drop the price to $20, so be prepared to renegotiate your room rate if things aren't right. There was no internet. There was electricity 24 hours, although whenever the mains failed there was always a brief outage until the genrator kicked in. A journalist I ran into moved from the Mustafa to the nearby Baharistan, which for $20 had wi-fi and may be better value (if less secure).
For the security-minded, the Mustafa is a fortress. The windows have bars on them. The street outside is patrolled and traffic-limited. Sleep easy.
Internet
There is good internet in a courtyard whose entrance is across the road from the new Haji Abdur Rahman Mosque (big brown mosque with two tall brown minarets) south of Zarnegar Park. AFN 60 per hour, but watch them - make your own note of when you start and finish as they are inclined to inflate the bill.
Eating
Pick your price range; Kabul has it. I paid from AFN 40 for a wrap from a street stall near the park, to AFN 450 of a splash-out meal at Haji Baba's on my last night. A typical meal was AFN 100 to 120. Hope you like kebabs as pulau isn't as common as you'd expect.
From Kabul to Dushanbe
1. Kabul to the border
This road runs through Kunduz and was therefore the most dangerous part of my trip. I turned over several methods for getting to the border. I ruled out flying to Dushanbe, which notion I disliked intensely. The cheapest - and most dangerous - would be to take a bus to Kunduz and change to a shared taxi there. More expensive but safer would be to take a bus to Maza-i Sharif or Taloqan and charter a taxi there. Most expensive but fastest and no more dangerous than the Mazar option was to charter a taxi from Kabul, which is the option I finally picked.
I calculated that based on the times in the LP, it should take about 7 hours to get to the border by taxi. Add an hour for delays, breaks, etc. Parts of the road are subject to Taliban and bandit roadblocks before about 8:00 or 9:00 and after 14:30 to 16:00. Therefore I wanted to be at the border by about 14:00. Counting back 8 hours from that gave me a start time of 6:00.
The assistant manager of the Mustafa offered to get a reliable friend to drive me to the border for US$120. I accepted this offer, but in the event, when I came down at 6 in the morning the manager's friend was nowhere to be seen. After hanging around for 20 minutes making the security police nervous I took a cab, for an extortionate price but the driver spoke a little English and promised to drop me "where the small cars depart". This he did, also helping with fare negotiations.
It cost me AFN 4000 (about US$90) to charter a cab to the border. Even including the extortionate Kabul taxi fare, I saved a bundle over the Mustafa deal! (Which wasn't a rip-off; after all, the Mustafa deal would have saved me all this hassle.)
I finally set out from Kabul at about 7:00. It took an hour to get up into the mountains. The Salang Tunnel is merely the longest in a series of covered roadways. The whole complex takes about 45 minutes to negotiate and the road surface is as rotten as the scenery is marvellous.
On the other side we stopped at a chaikhana for breakfast - AFN 120. My driver chatted to some other drivers, friends of his.
We entered Pol-e Khomri about 11:10 and here I had to change cabs - to one driven by one of my breakfast companions. All part of the deal, no extra cost. We left Pol-e Khomri around 11:50. The place was one long unsealed main street, choked with crawling traffic.
We passed through central Kunduz about 13:15. No hassles. I was starting to get worried about my timetable but in fact it took us only 45 minutes from Kunduz to the border and I was dropped off at Customs at almost precisely 14:00.
Don't change money on the Afghan side of the border if you can avoid it. The normal rate for USD to TJS (Tajik Somoni) is running around 4.45 to 4.46 but these people refused to pay more than 4 to the dollar, a clear profit to them of 10%. You'll need either 100 Afghanis or 10 Somoni to get across the bridge, and possibly the same again to get to the taxis; but the taxis to Dushanbe accept payment in USD, so you shouldn't need a lot of Somoni at this point.
2. The border crossing
My first stop was a medical check, including a couple of drops on the tongue as protection against Polio. Afghan customs initially didn't open my pack; instead they asked me for dollars. When I refused - then they searched my pack. Finding nothing.
Afghan Passport Control were doing a roaring trade in backhanders from the Afghani and Tajik businessmen. Not sure why, unless the businessmen were using dodgy papers. No attempt was made to extort money from me.
Unlike the Friendship Bridge from Uzbekistan, you are not allowed to walk across the new bridge here. There is a shuttle that runs you the kilometre to the Tajik side, charging AFN 100 or TJS 10 for this absurd but mandatory "service". I had to sit in the baking machine for 15 minutes waiting for more passengers.
On the Tajik side, a mob was waiting while a guard copied out their visa details onto a form. He was getting backhanders from them for this. I filled out my own form for free. More backhanders were being paid inside for processing of Passports - but again I was not asked to pay. An officer helped fill out my currency declaration then took me into a room and satisfied himself that I had at least the amount of money that I declared I had. They opened my pack but their heart wasn't in the search.
Outside I had a hot 15-minute wait for another shuttle, this time to get to the taxis. Another 10 Somoni for another unwanted "service" as the taxis were only about 700 metres away, around a bend; an easy walk.
3. Border to Dushanbe
By now it was 16:45 Afghan time, 17:15 Tajik time, and the LP said it was a 6 hour drive to Dushanbe. In the car park, a mob of taxi drivers were getting desperate for a fare. When the shuttle van pulled up and they saw a Dushanbe-bound Westerner aboard, the door was almost wrenched off its hinges. My pack levitated through the doorway with three taxi drivers grappling for possession. I had to fight to keep hold of my daypack.
My pack ended up in the boot of the victorious driver, but he was coy about the price of the fare when I asked. Another driver sidled up and told me "$50 all the way to Dushanbe, just you." So I said "yes" and thus touched off a catastrophe. My new driver grabbed my pack; my original driver grabbed my pack. They wrestled for it, shouting at each other. Afraid they'd damage the pack, I eventually stepped in and broke the deadlock in favour of the new driver. The original driver wasn't happy.
However, it wasn't over. Just as we were driving to the gate of the yard, a policeman came over and gave my new driver the length of his tongue before demanding his licence. I was left sitting in the abandoned vehicle while the argument ran on. Eventually my original driver claimed me and my pack was borne in triumph from the vanquished driver's car back to the original car. But it still wasn't over. The policeman came over and demanded his licence, too, once again leaving me stranded in a driverless car.
While the argument raged, other drivers took the opportunity to sneak up and propose I go with them. But by now I was wary, and I stayed put until a compromise was reached. A third driver - "brother" to the second driver - was finally nominated to drive me to Dushanbe. As we pulled out of the car park at about 17:30, I could see the original driver disconsolately turning his car to leave too.
LP to the contrary, we made it to Dushanbe in about three hours. I was dropped at a large taxi park around 20:30, and a local taxi to my chosen hotel cost me 20 Somoni.
I stayed at the Mustafa, which likes to charge $30 per room (shared bathroom with fan and dead TV). If you book online or if there's an issue with the room (such as the water in the bathrooms being cold) they will usually drop the price to $20, so be prepared to renegotiate your room rate if things aren't right. There was no internet. There was electricity 24 hours, although whenever the mains failed there was always a brief outage until the genrator kicked in. A journalist I ran into moved from the Mustafa to the nearby Baharistan, which for $20 had wi-fi and may be better value (if less secure).
For the security-minded, the Mustafa is a fortress. The windows have bars on them. The street outside is patrolled and traffic-limited. Sleep easy.
Internet
There is good internet in a courtyard whose entrance is across the road from the new Haji Abdur Rahman Mosque (big brown mosque with two tall brown minarets) south of Zarnegar Park. AFN 60 per hour, but watch them - make your own note of when you start and finish as they are inclined to inflate the bill.
Eating
Pick your price range; Kabul has it. I paid from AFN 40 for a wrap from a street stall near the park, to AFN 450 of a splash-out meal at Haji Baba's on my last night. A typical meal was AFN 100 to 120. Hope you like kebabs as pulau isn't as common as you'd expect.
From Kabul to Dushanbe
1. Kabul to the border
This road runs through Kunduz and was therefore the most dangerous part of my trip. I turned over several methods for getting to the border. I ruled out flying to Dushanbe, which notion I disliked intensely. The cheapest - and most dangerous - would be to take a bus to Kunduz and change to a shared taxi there. More expensive but safer would be to take a bus to Maza-i Sharif or Taloqan and charter a taxi there. Most expensive but fastest and no more dangerous than the Mazar option was to charter a taxi from Kabul, which is the option I finally picked.
I calculated that based on the times in the LP, it should take about 7 hours to get to the border by taxi. Add an hour for delays, breaks, etc. Parts of the road are subject to Taliban and bandit roadblocks before about 8:00 or 9:00 and after 14:30 to 16:00. Therefore I wanted to be at the border by about 14:00. Counting back 8 hours from that gave me a start time of 6:00.
The assistant manager of the Mustafa offered to get a reliable friend to drive me to the border for US$120. I accepted this offer, but in the event, when I came down at 6 in the morning the manager's friend was nowhere to be seen. After hanging around for 20 minutes making the security police nervous I took a cab, for an extortionate price but the driver spoke a little English and promised to drop me "where the small cars depart". This he did, also helping with fare negotiations.
It cost me AFN 4000 (about US$90) to charter a cab to the border. Even including the extortionate Kabul taxi fare, I saved a bundle over the Mustafa deal! (Which wasn't a rip-off; after all, the Mustafa deal would have saved me all this hassle.)
I finally set out from Kabul at about 7:00. It took an hour to get up into the mountains. The Salang Tunnel is merely the longest in a series of covered roadways. The whole complex takes about 45 minutes to negotiate and the road surface is as rotten as the scenery is marvellous.
On the other side we stopped at a chaikhana for breakfast - AFN 120. My driver chatted to some other drivers, friends of his.
We entered Pol-e Khomri about 11:10 and here I had to change cabs - to one driven by one of my breakfast companions. All part of the deal, no extra cost. We left Pol-e Khomri around 11:50. The place was one long unsealed main street, choked with crawling traffic.
We passed through central Kunduz about 13:15. No hassles. I was starting to get worried about my timetable but in fact it took us only 45 minutes from Kunduz to the border and I was dropped off at Customs at almost precisely 14:00.
Don't change money on the Afghan side of the border if you can avoid it. The normal rate for USD to TJS (Tajik Somoni) is running around 4.45 to 4.46 but these people refused to pay more than 4 to the dollar, a clear profit to them of 10%. You'll need either 100 Afghanis or 10 Somoni to get across the bridge, and possibly the same again to get to the taxis; but the taxis to Dushanbe accept payment in USD, so you shouldn't need a lot of Somoni at this point.
2. The border crossing
My first stop was a medical check, including a couple of drops on the tongue as protection against Polio. Afghan customs initially didn't open my pack; instead they asked me for dollars. When I refused - then they searched my pack. Finding nothing.
Afghan Passport Control were doing a roaring trade in backhanders from the Afghani and Tajik businessmen. Not sure why, unless the businessmen were using dodgy papers. No attempt was made to extort money from me.
Unlike the Friendship Bridge from Uzbekistan, you are not allowed to walk across the new bridge here. There is a shuttle that runs you the kilometre to the Tajik side, charging AFN 100 or TJS 10 for this absurd but mandatory "service". I had to sit in the baking machine for 15 minutes waiting for more passengers.
On the Tajik side, a mob was waiting while a guard copied out their visa details onto a form. He was getting backhanders from them for this. I filled out my own form for free. More backhanders were being paid inside for processing of Passports - but again I was not asked to pay. An officer helped fill out my currency declaration then took me into a room and satisfied himself that I had at least the amount of money that I declared I had. They opened my pack but their heart wasn't in the search.
Outside I had a hot 15-minute wait for another shuttle, this time to get to the taxis. Another 10 Somoni for another unwanted "service" as the taxis were only about 700 metres away, around a bend; an easy walk.
3. Border to Dushanbe
By now it was 16:45 Afghan time, 17:15 Tajik time, and the LP said it was a 6 hour drive to Dushanbe. In the car park, a mob of taxi drivers were getting desperate for a fare. When the shuttle van pulled up and they saw a Dushanbe-bound Westerner aboard, the door was almost wrenched off its hinges. My pack levitated through the doorway with three taxi drivers grappling for possession. I had to fight to keep hold of my daypack.
My pack ended up in the boot of the victorious driver, but he was coy about the price of the fare when I asked. Another driver sidled up and told me "$50 all the way to Dushanbe, just you." So I said "yes" and thus touched off a catastrophe. My new driver grabbed my pack; my original driver grabbed my pack. They wrestled for it, shouting at each other. Afraid they'd damage the pack, I eventually stepped in and broke the deadlock in favour of the new driver. The original driver wasn't happy.
However, it wasn't over. Just as we were driving to the gate of the yard, a policeman came over and gave my new driver the length of his tongue before demanding his licence. I was left sitting in the abandoned vehicle while the argument ran on. Eventually my original driver claimed me and my pack was borne in triumph from the vanquished driver's car back to the original car. But it still wasn't over. The policeman came over and demanded his licence, too, once again leaving me stranded in a driverless car.
While the argument raged, other drivers took the opportunity to sneak up and propose I go with them. But by now I was wary, and I stayed put until a compromise was reached. A third driver - "brother" to the second driver - was finally nominated to drive me to Dushanbe. As we pulled out of the car park at about 17:30, I could see the original driver disconsolately turning his car to leave too.
LP to the contrary, we made it to Dushanbe in about three hours. I was dropped at a large taxi park around 20:30, and a local taxi to my chosen hotel cost me 20 Somoni.
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