postcards from the other side of the world: Sick Days, Sufi Nights, Drugs, Guns, and Transvestites

Lahore - Peshawar - Khyber Pass
August 1, 2006

The bug is back, bigtime. In deference to the delicate sensibilities of certain readers of this newslettter, I'll spare you the unpleasant details of my ongoing gastrointestinal affliction. Suffice to say that I've enjoyed much more quality time with General Musharaf ("The General", for short), the aggressive little gecko who lives behind my toilet, than I would have preferred.

The room smells of mold, stale cigarette smoke, and an unhealthy whiff of vomit. And all these odors are poorly concealed behind industrial strength air freshioner. Every morning a leathery, bearded old goat bangs vigorously on the door to collect the day’s room rent, as if he’s worried I may expire before settling my bill.

I've travelled around the subcontinent a few times now, and not only has my spelling not improved, my resistance to local bugs hasn't either. I've never had this many stomache complaints before. It wouldn't bother me so much if I wasn't wasting so much of my time puking in cheap hotel toilets. It all started in Amritsar, and the little bastards have never really left my system.

Maybe it's a Punjabi thing. I'd been trying out much more street food of late, just because it smelled so good. I think my stomache troubles may have stemmed from the ever-present dust, which finds its way into everything at this time of year, just before the monsoon.

I've spent the last week lurching from my bed to the salad bar at Pizza Hut across the street. Oh, the shame of it.

Yes, they have Pizza Hut here. Pizza is trendy all across Asia at the moment. It’s right up there with dog food – both are big status symbols. I have also seen KFC, McDeath, and Dunkin’ Donuts. KFC is particularly popular, as Punjabis are big chicken lovers.

All of these American fast food chains are very expensive by Pakistani standards. Families dress up for a big night out at McDonald’s. As loathe as I am to support the forces of American gastronomic imperialism, salad, bread and water seem to be the only things I can hold down – even temporarily – and Pizza Hut has the 100 rupee all-you-can-eat salad deal. I stagger across the street to eat there every day for a week until the stomach bugs abate.

These days and nights are punctuated by regular power cuts. Every couple of hours the city turns black. Most businesses have their own generators, but in my ignorance, I have chosen an establishment without back-up power. So my nights' work are regularly interrrupted by forced breaks. All I can do is smoke, listen to the streetlife outside, and wait for the power to come back on.

Surprisingly, I've found the blackouts useful and productive. I had to go out and track down a few candles so I could still see my keyboard. Now when the power dies, I light a candle, lounge in the semidarkness and allow my mind to wander. The dissonant voices of the muezzin crackle above the low rumble of auto rickshaws and the shouting of men unloading the night delivery trucks.

Words and melodies seep from the sweat-stained walls in flickering light into my semi-consciousness. Ideas which wouldn't ordinarily show their faces in the piercing light of day, or under the sickly green flourescent glare, materialize in the shuddering semi-darkness. A sort of honesty emanates from this place.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Sufi Night: Small village. Carnival atmosphere. A village fair, with Pakistani-style wrestling in the afternoon; greased men in loincloths attacking each other in the dirt, surrounded by a ring of local fans. Excruciatingly bad PA. Play-by-play announcements seem to emanate from a 20 foot tall distortion box.

Later, the competition is between Sufi music groups. The reek of hashish pervades the graveyard in which this weekly rite is held. Transvestite dancers writhe suggestively among the graves of saints.

One man/woman, in an orange dress, makes a very convincing lady. As the lightest skinned guy in the crowd, I was immediately the object of his/her attentions, much to the chagrin of the other men present. For them, this was as close as most of them would come to touching something resembling female flesh - flesh that did not belong to a wife or sister. I'm still not completely convinced that the transvestite in orange was a man. But in this country, he must have been. I was told he/she was mine for the night, if I wanted to pay. I declined.

The other transvestites are easily identifiable by their five-o-clock shadows, and, yes, moustaches. The musicians are extrememly loud, and I've been playing punk clubs for 20 years. Multiple drummers with two-headed drums attack them with sticks. Percusssionists back them up with metal bars clanged together like deafening castanets from hell. It is part religious celebration, part village festival, part rock concert, and part go-go bar.

Back at the hotel, a bit stoned on hash, I edit some of the earlier music sessions, and later managed to fit in a quick recording session with a local flute virtuoso. Good stuff. He didn’t stop playing, and I didn’t stop recording; I just pointed at a new instrument when I’d got enough on tape.

My guts are feeling well enough again to leave for Peshawar. Seven and a half hours on the bus. This vehicle features a variety of tortures: flatulent businessmen, but no smoking and no toilet;. Jean Claude Van Damme movies dubbed in Urdu and played at top volume: the height of luxury.

Thank god for the cheap and easily obtainable Pakistani Valium, or I may have gone postal. You even get a free sandwich made of wonderbread and processed yellow cheese. Somehow you get the feeling that the finest culture and cuisine America has to offer is just not making it over here.

Then on toward the Khyber Pass. Men, everywhere. Too many men. Who needs them? Men are dull. Give me a woman any day. Where do they hide? Wherever they are, I hope they’re having more fun than the men, who always look cranky and miserable, holding their guns; probably undersexed.

* * * * * * * * * *

I finally arrive in Peshawar , the last stop before Afghanistan . I immediately hook up with a local guide of dubious repute who claims he can get me “anything”. I give him my list. It’s a short one: Musicians and beer. Within minutes we are in a motorcycle-rickshaw and headed for the Smuggler’s Bazaar.

Anything is available there: mostly guns, drugs and liquor. Predictably the beer negotiation takes 2 hours and several cups of tea to complete. In the processes the owner of the establishment tries to sell me almost every form of contraband you can imagine, including a suitcase full of large, flat pancakes of heroin sealed in Saran Wrap. The value of this case I can only guess at, but it would probably worth a couple of million on the streets of LA.

When I show no interest in the H out come the weapons: Kalishnikovs, Uzis, pistols of all stripes (both real and copied), walking sticks with concealed daggers, James Bond-style pens that shoot single bullets. I am tempted to buy one of these, but after the harassment I received over the camel bone, I am a bit wary about attempting to smuggle small firearms on an international flight.

At one point a grenade launcher was furtively produced from beneath a bed, then quickly hidden away again. They hand me an automatic weapon and take my picture: a souvenir. This is what most tourists come here for: to handle the guns, and ogle the drugs. Finally the deal is settled: a case of beer for 2 bucks a can (highway robbery here, but what can you do?) To sweeten the deal, he throws in a token but hefty lump of opium (purely for “research purposes”, of course).

* * * * * * * * * *

Later, I record some brilliant local folk music at someone’s house: down-home and countrified. The main instrument is a 3 string banjo-like contraption. Percussion provided by giant metal bars whacked together like industrial castanets. It sounds like dirty delta blues if you added harmonium and eastern vocal trills. All very strange. They rock like nobody’s business. Unfortunately, every song is basically the same tempo, same groove; so their lack of versatility is not so useful for my purposes. But these are not session cats, they use music to get closer to God. I pay them handsomely, but these guys are not interested in any illicit tips.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Now I have to make my big decision: to Afghanistan or not to Afghanistan . It's not an easy decision, but it’s not looking good.

Both of my Kabul-based advisors say no, do not come. Tourist touts and guides, usually eager for the American dollar, are even wary. Of course they offer to do it for triple the usual rate, but this is not unusual. In the third world, money is valued above life. The road from the Khyber to Kabul is no longer safe, even for local traders. Vehicles traveling the road have been attacked.

The violence, previously contained in the south, is reportedly moving swiftly north toward Kabul . The southern warlords (read druglords), best described as the local mafiosi, don’t want any pesky foreigners spoiling their business. They are heavily armed and anxious to profit from this year’s bumper opium crop. And these goons don’t fuck around. You could wake up one morning with your torso in one village, and your head in another.

Public opinion has rapidly turned against Karzai. They used to call him the “Mayor of Kabul,” due to the limited reach of his influence, the area immediately surrounding Kabul . Now he’s just a local joke: an American puppet, increasingly forced to resort to the time-honored Afghan practices of corruption and cronyism, in an attempt to keep the lid on the roiling vat of chaos that the country has become.

The Taliban have gained strength again because people trust them more than the druglords. Now NATO is moving in and the skirmishes between the international forces and the Taliban are transpiring closer and closer to the capital. Following a truck accident in May in which several innocent bystanders were killed and injured by an American driven vehicle, riots enveloped the city. Foreign businesses were looted and torched. Tourist hotel windows were sprayed with machine-gun fire. Bodies have begun to be found on the streets of Kabul .

To add to the fun, two Israeli soldiers have just been kidnapped by the Hezbalah in Lebanon . Now the Israeli army has decided they have a good excuse to start shelling Lebanon to wipe out the Hezballah once and for all, incurring unknown numbers of civilian casualties. To say the least this news is not being covered favorably in the Pakistani press. According to most people I’ve spoken to, Israel is viewed as a US colony in most of the Moslem world: the Jews don’t belong there, the country doesn’t belong there, and officially it doesn’t even exist. Long story short: light skinned, non-Moslem, Americans are not likely to be greeted warmly in Afghanistan .

But at the very least I want to make it to the Khyber Pass. I have come this far; and I feel I owe it to myself to catch at least a glimpse of the place, no matter how fleeting. I hire a driver and an armed guard. The guard is mandatory, as the pass is located in tribal areas, outside the jurisdiction or control of the Pakistani government, army or police. The driver is a clubfooted clown, the type that drives with one foot on each pedal, and feels that overtaking other vehicles on blind corners will compensate for a small penis. I have felt safer driving with my half-blind, delusional grandmother than with this suicidal lunatic.

I am not allowed to stop and take pictures. I’m told the local men will shoot you if they think you are photographing their women. Who would bother? Every inch of flesh is covered, and at this distance you can’t even see their eyes. The local ladies resemble large black potato sacks, lumbering down dirt paths beneath heavy burdens, as their men-folk loiter about, toying with automatic weapons like children with birthday toys. Still, I manage to sneak off a few shots.

I came here to learn more about Islam and its adherents, but I find myself feeling more and more distanced from these people.

Well, here I am, finally: The Khyber Pass. My feelings are mixed. I am excited to be here at last. I had originally planned to travel from Delhi to Istanbul overland - a two and a half month trip which would have taken me from Rajasthan (in northern India) , through northern Pakistan , Afghanistan , across Iran and Turkey .

Crossing the pass into Kabul had long represented in my mind the symbolic peak of my journey. But things haven’t quite worked out as planned. I have made it barely a third of the way. Bad luck, dental delays and intestinal distress managed to turn all my plans into dust.

But I am not disappointed. I did what I could with what little time I had available: I learned a lot about football: locked in an Amritsar hotel room with only the World Cup and the shits to stave off the interminable boredom; I escaped being drugged and robbed in Jaisalmer; I entertained thinly veiled marriage proposals from Punjabi farm girls; I ate opium and jammed with Thar desert gypsies; I slept alone under the stars; I danced with transvestites among the graves of Sufi saints; I took many pictures; I stood in the rain with crowds of ecstatic people as the first rains of the monsoon erupted from the sky; I made a healthy start on a novel; I recorded six music groups, gathering enough rhythm tracks for the next Firewater album; I was robbed only once (a cell phone), but otherwise managed to hang on to my computer and other pricey recording gear. I made some new friends. Weighed with these measures the trip was a success.

But in terms of ground covered, it was a dismal failure. In order to complete the original plan, I’ll need to return next year, starting in Kabul , and continue on west from there. I still want to experience Iran and rural T urkey . I want to do more recording, writing, seeing. And I’ll do it, providing things have cooled down a bit by then, and the Middle East “conflict” hasn’t erupted into world war III, But for now the clock has run out. I’m due for a date with a beautiful girl and a Turkish dentist in Istanbul on August 1^st. It’s time to head west, back to “civilization”.

Suddenly the guard grabs my camera and hands me his gun. Time for the mandatory souvenir photograph. For now my trip ends here: standing on the cusp of the Hindu Kush with a machine gun in my hand.

***************************************************

Apologies for any typos. I'm back in Istanbul and I've had a few too many of those Efes beers I promised myself at the journey's end. The Bosphorus looks amazing tonight: inky black smeared with milky streaks of light; huge ships snaking their way through the narrow passage.

Some old men were singing folksongs up the hill, where I buy my smokes. I stopped and listened for a while, and they didn't mind. I'm still glad to be alive.

Comments

You are the man Tod! I love the music you write, "Dark Days Indeed" being one of my favorites, I'm also a huge fan of Borneo, how was it going there? Your trips are an inspiration for me to go travel, to get out of the U.S. I hope to hear more great music from you!

Posted by: Jordan | December 05, 2011 at 04:18 PM

What an amazing story thanks for sharing!

Posted by: Shanaseth Boston | July 11, 2011 at 02:50 PM

Wonderful postcards, Tod! You have genuine talent with a camera as well as with music. I hope you found at least a little of what you were looking for in your time away, and best wishes for the new year.

Posted by: sobiloff | January 05, 2007 at 08:12 AM