Full Tilt by Dervla Murphy Page A

Apparently this road is closed to all traffic because it is too infested with bandits to be adequately policed. Even if I had wanted to have fun and games with the authorities, as in Persia, I realised that I couldn’t as they’re quite a different type here – clearly their ‘No’ means ‘No’; so now I’m on the third, southern route, via Khandahar, and am lucky to have my permit to cycle confirmed by the police who took a very dim view of my ambitions and tried to get me aboard a bus. In fact I may have to give in at some stage on this road as it would be silly to risk more than fifty miles unbroken desert with Roz and there may be one eighty-mile stretch. I’ll investigate the situation fully when we get to that point.
    We left Herat at 4.45 a.m. because it will get hotter every day now, going due south. A glorious eight- or nine-mile oasis of green fields and woods surrounds the city and the wheat and barley are within a few weeks of harvesting. Then – about five miles out – the road became perfect! I nearly fell off with astonishment and joy and Roz really let herself go and whizzed along at an average of 15 m.p.h. Our unexpected bliss lasted all day – God bless Russia! There’s an average of one truck and two buses a day on this route so the Russians certainly didn’t build a flawless road here for the convenience of the Afghans; but at the moment I couldn’t care less who built it or why – I only hope it lasts.
    A double row of pines, alternating with a richly pink floweringshrub, lasted well beyond the green belt out into the desert. Then, just as it was getting hot enough to make me fret slightly about having no hat, the road began to climb through mountains that were great barren piles of grey, slaty rock, but, because of the good surface, we covered just over eighty miles today despite much walking. I used my chlorinated pills for the first time in some doubtful-looking water obtained during the afternoon from a nomad camp, where the people were very courteous and kind. They invited me to have a meal with them and served some sort of porridge mixed with cheese and camel’s milk; I suppose I’ll get used to it but at the moment I wouldn’t actually say that camel’s milk is my favourite beverage. Huge herds of camels were being grazed around the encampment; goats or sheep wouldn’t survive this terrain. I asked if I might take photographs but though they didn’t refuse they were obviously against the idea so it would have been an abuse of hospitality to insist.
    We arrived here at 7.20 p.m., just after dark. This is a small town with some rather grim-looking characters around and I’m almost sorry I didn’t stay for the night with my nomads, where I would have felt safer. But one can’t judge yet; the Afghans seem very reserved and distant people and what I feel as ‘grimness’ may be merely aloofness.
    From the map it looks like more lovely mountains tomorrow – if only the road keeps Russian! Early bed now.
KHANDAHAR, 12 AND 13 APRIL
    For reasons that will soon become apparent I’d no opportunity to report on the day’s activities last night, so I’m doing both dates now.
    I was up at 4.30 a.m. yesterday morning, after a good sleep on carpets in a corner of a tea-house. I have decided that Afghans are much more ‘comfortable’ people to travel among than Persians, despite their unbending gravity – or perhaps because of it. A dense, curious throng surrounded us every time we stopped in Persia but though here our arrival must be equally a rarity, no one crowds us out – you’d think they were used to a continual flow of cycling women through their villages! They are very interested to know where one has come from and what route was taken to Afghanistan, butthey ask no questions – just listen and look politely if you choose to explain by mime and a map. I find the contrast very intriguing; Afghanistan never attained the heights of civilisation that Persia did, nor has she