Travelling West: Ghazni, Herat, Ghor, Chaghcharan, Jam Minaret, Badghis, Qala-i-Naw

The security situation in the western provinces of Afghanistan has deteriorated significantly over the last year. The first five years after the Allied invasion were a time of peace and hope for the people in the West. The Western city of Herat has 24/7 electricity from nearby Iran, functioning modern infrastructure, and has shown much promise early on. But bad news started filtering out in late 2006. Stories about businessmen unable to operate or turn a profit due to the graft, corruption, and incompetence of the Afghan government appeared in the press. Now, Taliban fighters are active in Herat, Ghor, and Badghis provinces, and the brief flame of hope that Herat once represented is dying slowly but surely.

We had a mission out west back in December of 2006 to conduct a food assessment survey. It was rumored that famine was afoot in the remote mountain villages out there so someone needed to assess how much food was available and at what price. Readers familiar with the military effort here probably think, “Wait, that is what the PRTs are supposed to be doing”, which is true. But that would require extended missions outside the wire, which is something PRT’s do not seem to do, so we were contracted to do it for them. Long-haul remote trips like that are our specialty, so the Afghan American specialist assigned to this task contracted us to take him. I was gone two weeks, yet at times felt I had traveled back 200 years. Along the way, we came across one of the most unbelievable sites in Afghanistan: the minaret of Jam.

We had serious time and budget constraints, which forced us to drive around the ring road to Herat, where the assessment was to begin. That could not be safely done today, and it was dangerous two years ago, too, but not so much during the winter months. The picture below illustrates one of the reasons why being molested by the Taliban while traveling in the winter is rare.

There are no snow plows in Afghanistan (except a few the Soviets left behind in the Salang Pass), so a traffic jam like this can last several days. Working with my usual team of Tajiks we weaved through this mess in about 90 minutes by cajoling people to move a little here and a little there, and sometimes driving through the snow on the shoulder. Afghans will always cooperate and help an international who smiles at them, is polite, and knows a few words of Dari or Pashto. Being a good Marine, I first learned the swear words. Swearing about the weather, the road, and the lack of snow plows allowed me to fit right in.

We arrived in Herat the next day and hit one of the better restaurants in town for an early afternoon meal. The weather was cold that day so of course we ate outside because my team knew I would be cold and wanted to see if I bitched or moaned about it. I know how to play this game, and acted like eating out in windy, 40-degree cold was precisely what I wanted to do. This made Little Daud (pronounced Dow good, Dari for David and a familiar name) glum. He had bet Big Daud and Medium Daud (there are three in my crew) that I would make them move inside, and now owed a little coin to his cousins.

The Marco Polo Inn in Herat has a wing for foreigners with heaters in the halls and rooms, sit-down toilets, and TVs playing live CNN and the BBC news casts. I would have to wait for a trip to Peshawar of all places to watch Fox News, but man, did I like the sit-down toilet and heat. Afghan buildings are not heated and this was the last I was to see of a warm room and biased crappy western news for the next 10 days.

We headed into Ghor Province the next day, planning to take two days to reach Chaghcharan, the provincial capital. Like most countries, the roads into Ghor are unpaved and often rugged to follow. Sometimes, they peter into dry stream beds or divide into three directions. A map and compass are critical if you stay on track. In the countryside, you have two choices for overnight accommodation: camp out in the mud or remain on the floor of a local tea house. We chose the tea house route

Life in the villages of this rural area has remained unchanged for many years. There are a few modern conveniences; the people have access to motor transport, some have generators, and most have radios. The irrigation systems are primitive but work, plus this is one area where the US AID contractors have had great success with their field veterinary units. These outposts, run by Afghans, provide vaccinations and medicine for local livestock, the primary source of food and income. But for all intents and purposes, life in these villages has not changed for generations.

On our second day of travel, my crew and Karim awoke with great excitement and anticipation. They would not tell me why, saying I would not believe what we would see in a few hours. They were right. As we moved down a valley towards the Hari Rud River up popped the minaret of Jam. The tallest complete and authentic ancient minaret in the world, it was built by the once great Ghorid Empire, which in the late 12th century ruled over what are now Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.

Rumors about this magnificent tower did not reach the West until 1944. They were not confirmed until a French archaeologist located it in 1957. For 700 years, since Genghis Khan had rampaged through the valley destroying the Ghorids, it had been forgotten by history.

None of my Afghan colleagues had ever seen the Jam, and a few had doubted its existence. There was one ANP policeman guarding the site, and he told us no westerner had ever been here before as far as he knew. I was excited, soon convincing myself I was the first westerner to see the Jam in 40 years. After this trip, I flew home for Christmas and picked up a book by a Brit named Rory Stewart in the Dubai airport. He had walked the exact route I was driving with just a dog, a backpack, and a walking stick. His book had an entire chapter on the Jam Minaret and the surrounding Turquoise Mountain complex. Rory lives in Kabul and is restoring an old bazaar with his Turquoise Mountain foundation, and I hope to meet him someday. Walking from Herat to Kabul with only a dog and a big stick in winter is madness. But the kind of madness I can respect.

Crossing the Hari Rud River in the middle of the day was drama – the river was swollen and the ford point so deep that when we came back, we hit this spot at 0200, knowing the water level would be much lower. In Chaghcharan, we stayed at the house of a local judge related to Karim. We reported to the PRT, which was manned by Lithuanian troops so that Karim could chat with the USAID representative. I don’t know how much the Lithuanians get out and about, but man, they had a gigantic, very cool-looking sauna in their camp. After conducting our census and talking with the Provincial Governor, we headed back out the next night to cross to Hari Rud before dawn.

On the way out of Ghor, one of our vehicles had a front strut weld break. Big Daud spotted a hand-cranked welding machine on the side of the road in one of the villages, so we stopped and asked the owner to help us fix the truck. That took about 10 minutes and cost all of two dollars. The weld has worked to this day. Afghans may not have been educated well, but they are smart people.

The trip’s next leg was into Badghis Province, requiring us to go way above the snow line. As you transit the lowlands, you’ll see that most houses are made of thick mud walls with domed roofs. Domed roofs are standard in the lower elevations of the west and north because there is not enough timber to build flat roofs. The domes are also efficient in areas with a significant variation in daytime and nighttime temperatures. They vent the warm air at night and allow cool air in, making it comfortable for the families below.

As we moved up into the Badghis Pass, we hit a fair-sized snowstorm, which required us to get the tire chains fitted.

Once in the pass, we encountered a typical scene: traffic jammed up due to heavy snow, trucks with bald tires, and no chains. Once again, the crew got out and started moving traffic out of our way.

The capital of Badghis Province is Qala-i-Naw, and Spain has the PRT there. We stayed at the local RRD (rural rehabilitation department) office. Karim and I could get onto the PRTs overnight, but our escorts could not, so leaving them to fend for themselves is uncool. Tajiks from the Panjshir valley are not always welcomed in these parts, although most of the population is Tajik, so we stick together at all times and in all places.

Qala-i-Naw reminded me of an old Western town like Deadwood—mud, mud, and more mud. We took a census of the wheat lot and moved out because heavy weather was coming in, and we didn’t want to be stuck there.

The drive out was easy, as we beat the storm. Here is an excellent shot of medium Daud up on the pass.

We could not make a trip like that today, even in the snows of winter. I saw a news article about a BBC film crew that went to the Jam Minaret last year to film a special. They took 60 ANP policemen with them. That is unquestionably overkill. In the remote west, the chances of running into AOG bands numbering more than a dozen are around zero. It cost the BBC a fortune, too, but who cares?

There is little doubt that the region is much more dangerous than it was just two years ago, ten times more dangerous than four years ago, and twenty times more dangerous than six years ago. See the trend line?