79) WEDNESDAY, 14 SEPTEMBER 1977 : 499KMS. - KABUL
A very exciting day.... !
We left KANDAHAR almost noon, heading along the Asian Highway to KABUL. It was getting late in the evening, close to dusk when we were on deserted road and surroundings. It would take us quite long time and get dark before we could reach KABUL. So we stopped in the middle of the desert intending to overnight on the roadside, shortly before reaching GHAZNI.
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| On the way to GHAZNI - Photo : Flickr / Bing images search |
We prepared to park
on the roadside, where there was no
house around. After having closed
and locked both doors in the front, we closed the wooden self-installed front
inner door (actually it is a door of compartment for our clothes and personal belongings), securely bolted separating the sleeping section at the back from the
driver compartment. We also did not forget to lock the back doors of the
campervan that gave us fully security locked in. Inside the campervan, we opened the vent that we extra fixed on the floor for the
wind and fresh air to flow up to the top vents in the top middle of the campervan for good ventilation.
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| Armed Afghan men - Photo : afghannetwork.net / Google images search |
While preparing for the night rest (we used very little
quantity of limited fresh water we had in the plastic washbasin-formed
container to clean our faces and body with wet towels whenever we camped
outside camping areas), we heard people talking and coming nearer and nearer
toward our campervan. Without saying a word, we looked at each other, a bit
worrisome, and we looked through the door-spies which we put intentionally on
the middle of each side of the van body (no window on each side) and at the front and the back doors
and we saw a small group of
armed Afghan men. It was rather normal for Afghan men carrying gun in public in Afghanistan !
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| Armed men - Photo : washingtontimes.com / Bing images search |
They walked around our van and pushed it to shake slightly for
a few minutes, they talked and laughing
together. We kept our mouths shut and didn’t make any noise believing that if we remained silent there would be no harm. We believed that they were just curious to
see the parking campervan without anyone. They should not come for robbery and would
not brake in into the campervan but they might be walking back home (but where
then….. I did not see any houses !)
The men finally stopped laughing, still talking and moved away. For security sake, we could not imagine what
would have happened if we parked overnight on that area, we didn’t see any
shelters around and wondered where those men came from and if they wanted to
break in, what we should do… was it dangerous or not?
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| Broad smiling with arm - Photo - armybase.us / Bing images search |
Like the divine
protection ...... that helped inspire
those armed men talking and laughing softly before moving forward in the
direction we were driving past. I looked through the peephole on the back door, seeing some men
had looked back from a distance. We had to wait until they were almost out of
sight. We then came to our conclusion and
agreed that when we were driving alone, we would not again stop in the middle of the deserted area during
night time. We waited so long till we thought they were far enough to run back on time that Tilo started the
engine and immediately drove away to Kabul.
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| GHAZNI - Photo : Patrick Byers / tripmondo.com ( Google images search) |
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| KABUL by night - Photo : happygolucky.no / Bing images search |
