Dec 25, 2023·edited Dec 25, 2023Liked by Clarice Dankers
It is always nice to read something from people who stayed and got to know a place well rather than just passing through. I myself spent a couple weeks passing through Afghanistan in July 1975. As you have written, memories fade and while certain scenes are clear at hand others have faded completely.
I was lucky to carry a good camera in those days but the cost of film and possessing was a major part of my budget. Therefore I was lucky to average two pictures per day. In many instances my memories correspond to those photos but in other instances I have sharp memories about days when I never captured an image. (I have almost all my photos online at the Flickr website: https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=32267947%40N06&sort=relevance&view_all=1&tags=afghanistan ).
In those two weeks, I travelled by local bus from Pakistan to Kabul to Kandahar to Herat and then on to Iran. I travelled to Bamiyan and Bad-I-Amir and apparently stopped at that same roadside rest stop that you mentioned.
Strangely enough, I have not visited two countries that you know well. I have long wanted to visit Vienna (The Third Man is my fav old movie) and I have yet to see Ireland even though I am about 1/4 Irish ancestry. But I did manage to see and travel across Asia when it was possible and fun to do so.
How wonderful to meet someone who was in Afghanistan about the same time I was! And how wonderful that you took so many lovely pictures. Unfortunately, I did not have a good camera, and I was reluctant to take pictures in any case because I did not want to look like a tourist. (Stupid me. Now I take pictures everywhere I go!) Also unfortunately, most of the pictures I did take are stuck in a photo album in storage in Portland, Oregon, so I can’t share them now in my posts.
I drove overland from Holland back to Kabul in 1977, so you and I likely traversed many of the same roads in that direction, too. (I plan to write about this in about three weeks.) And clearly I recommend both Ireland and Austria highly!
Clarice, there is so much in this post. I kept reading and reading, enthralled by this pocket of the world that I know nothing about. The first picture is stunning, it reminds me a lot of Leh, Ladakh in India - I wonder if you've been there?
Funnily enough, the most memorable thing about this post for me was the poor lady on the bus - sometimes its the minutiae of travel that holds the most significance. That poor lady tells a whole story. I've just subscribed, absolutely stoked to read more of your explorations!
Thank you so much for your comments, Ned, I really appreciate them. I agree with you about the poor woman on the bus. That small incident is seared in my memory. Unfortunately, I have never been to Ladakh. I really wanted to go there when I was in Afghanistan, but life got in the way. (As you will see if you read the following posts.)
Thank you, Mikey. I really appreciate your comments. I am trying to write the memoir in order of time, as things happened. So I do not plan to bring the story up to the present until the end. That is when I will explain that the Taliban completely destroyed the Buddhas in 2001.
Thanks for your wonderful post. Regarding Afghanistan, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Tribalism, intolerant fundamentalist religious schisms, fear of the new, fear of the past, persecution of the different, how sad. The picture of the two Hazara girls, one flirting with the flower, the other gazing steadily at the world with those green eyes...I wonder where they are now....
I love the picture of the girls! I, too, wonder what happened to them. So much pain. So much tragedy. All because of intolerant fundamentalist religion and tribalism that separates people rather than bringing them together. And not just in Afghanistan.
Yes, Afghanistan is just sort of the poster child country for all that. In the winter of 1973/74, some friends and I had decided to drive overland from Morocco to Afghanistan on a lark, but when we got to the border with Algeria, it was closed, and we distracted ourselves, and never got back to it. I always wanted to go there, but now is certainly not the time.
Wow, the bus ride with the potato and the poor woman in front of you. That stuck with me. Also these beautiful buddhas !!! I love the photos you are adding too it’s really helpful.
It is always nice to read something from people who stayed and got to know a place well rather than just passing through. I myself spent a couple weeks passing through Afghanistan in July 1975. As you have written, memories fade and while certain scenes are clear at hand others have faded completely.
I was lucky to carry a good camera in those days but the cost of film and possessing was a major part of my budget. Therefore I was lucky to average two pictures per day. In many instances my memories correspond to those photos but in other instances I have sharp memories about days when I never captured an image. (I have almost all my photos online at the Flickr website: https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=32267947%40N06&sort=relevance&view_all=1&tags=afghanistan ).
In those two weeks, I travelled by local bus from Pakistan to Kabul to Kandahar to Herat and then on to Iran. I travelled to Bamiyan and Bad-I-Amir and apparently stopped at that same roadside rest stop that you mentioned.
Strangely enough, I have not visited two countries that you know well. I have long wanted to visit Vienna (The Third Man is my fav old movie) and I have yet to see Ireland even though I am about 1/4 Irish ancestry. But I did manage to see and travel across Asia when it was possible and fun to do so.
How wonderful to meet someone who was in Afghanistan about the same time I was! And how wonderful that you took so many lovely pictures. Unfortunately, I did not have a good camera, and I was reluctant to take pictures in any case because I did not want to look like a tourist. (Stupid me. Now I take pictures everywhere I go!) Also unfortunately, most of the pictures I did take are stuck in a photo album in storage in Portland, Oregon, so I can’t share them now in my posts.
I drove overland from Holland back to Kabul in 1977, so you and I likely traversed many of the same roads in that direction, too. (I plan to write about this in about three weeks.) And clearly I recommend both Ireland and Austria highly!
Thanks for sharing your photos! The captions are great! 👍🏻 I loved seeing them.
You're welcome! Pictures are really important--I just wish I had more of them to share.
Clarice, there is so much in this post. I kept reading and reading, enthralled by this pocket of the world that I know nothing about. The first picture is stunning, it reminds me a lot of Leh, Ladakh in India - I wonder if you've been there?
Funnily enough, the most memorable thing about this post for me was the poor lady on the bus - sometimes its the minutiae of travel that holds the most significance. That poor lady tells a whole story. I've just subscribed, absolutely stoked to read more of your explorations!
Thank you so much for your comments, Ned, I really appreciate them. I agree with you about the poor woman on the bus. That small incident is seared in my memory. Unfortunately, I have never been to Ladakh. I really wanted to go there when I was in Afghanistan, but life got in the way. (As you will see if you read the following posts.)
Another excellent post, Clarice. Those Buddhas are amazing, but so sad to hear about their faces. Added that book to my list, sounds incredible
Thank you, Mikey. I really appreciate your comments. I am trying to write the memoir in order of time, as things happened. So I do not plan to bring the story up to the present until the end. That is when I will explain that the Taliban completely destroyed the Buddhas in 2001.
Oh no! 😢
I know. It's an absolute tragedy. Not only for the Afghans, but also for the world.
Thanks for your wonderful post. Regarding Afghanistan, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Tribalism, intolerant fundamentalist religious schisms, fear of the new, fear of the past, persecution of the different, how sad. The picture of the two Hazara girls, one flirting with the flower, the other gazing steadily at the world with those green eyes...I wonder where they are now....
I love the picture of the girls! I, too, wonder what happened to them. So much pain. So much tragedy. All because of intolerant fundamentalist religion and tribalism that separates people rather than bringing them together. And not just in Afghanistan.
Yes, Afghanistan is just sort of the poster child country for all that. In the winter of 1973/74, some friends and I had decided to drive overland from Morocco to Afghanistan on a lark, but when we got to the border with Algeria, it was closed, and we distracted ourselves, and never got back to it. I always wanted to go there, but now is certainly not the time.
Wow, the bus ride with the potato and the poor woman in front of you. That stuck with me. Also these beautiful buddhas !!! I love the photos you are adding too it’s really helpful.