Kaliakra and beyond

May 15, 2005 • Blog

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World » Bulgaria » Kaliakra nature reserve » Inside St. Nicholas’ chapel

Having the car for a second day allowed us to drive around aimlessly and do things and visit places we otherwise only could have visited on expensive tours or with an expensive taxi. Although, it has to be said, taxis are reasonably affordable if you get them against the advertised rates.

First following the coast north, up to Cape Kaliakra, we entered the Kaliakra nature reserve, in the hope of seeing some rare dolphins and seals. No such luck as we encountered school bus after school bus of young kids on what appeared to be a school trip, on a Sunday afternoon.

After Kaliakra, we visited the remains of a nearby monastery, cut out in the face of a steep rock face. Although quite impressive for the work that must have gone into it, it has also has deteriorated quite a bit, the relatively soft stone simply having eroded away over the years.

I wanted to finish off in Varna, visiting two statues there and then go for dinner. The first statue, clearly some war memorial, turned out to have been left in complete disarray, service and upkeep having stopped years and years ago. Later, I learned that the war which the statue remembered was actually the Russo-Turkish war which ended in the liberation of the Bulgarians from the Ottoman rules in 1878.
We never made it to the second statue, a huge statue in Varna’s main park, because Betsy simply fell asleep walking.

On the tourist trail

May 14, 2005 • Blog

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World » Bulgaria » Nessebar » In front of the Basilica

I wanted to rent a car yesterday, for a long weekend, allowing us to escape the expensive confines of the tourist colony that is Albena. No such luck, as we ended up on the beach, getting a sunburned without noticing due to the still chilly wind that's sweeping Albena, while it's not rushing through Varna, only 25 kilometres away.

So we ended up at 'The Old House', where the average age of the guests appeared to be in the 70s and where the food was below par but the service friendly.

Today, after tracing down our neighbours at the hotel, who had expressed interest to join us on our trip to Nessebar, yet another tourist trap on the Bulgarian coast, however this one with quite a bit more authenticity, having ruins of many, many churches, on a peninsula the size of four soccer fields.
Of course, there are now more currency exchange booths on the island than churches and every second building appears to be a restaurant, but the oldest ruins, still on the island, are at least 2000 years old, and it was already inhabited 3000 years before that.
And even so, prices of drinks and food here are still only about half of what they are in Albena.

The trip was nice, the weather good and the food, which we had at a nice restaurant on our return journey, in Varna, was fantastic. However, entertainment could have been better, with the mom only ending up dancing on the floor, not on one on the tables, after developing a mother-like fancy for the 19 year old boy serving us.

Let the sun shine

May 13, 2005 • Blog

World » Bulgaria » Albena » On the beach

With Det Norske Kjokken finally opening up, the season seems to have started in Albena. Hordes of British were crowding our breakfast room this morning and Scandinavians also seem to have come out of the woodwork.

I had wanted to rent a car for the weekend, starting today, and drive down to Varna to enjoy the rest of the day and have dinner and maybe a concert there.
Unfortunately, no cars were available, but we did manage to make reservations for a car for tomorrow.
Also, because there isn’t really an alternative with public transport only leaving town maybe once an hour, yes they really want you to spend your money on the expensive bars and restaurants here, we staid at the resort, went to the beach, and enjoyed the sun which finally has decided to leave his coveted space behind the clouds.
Nevertheless, the wind and water are still quite fresh.

Palaces and botanical gardens

May 12, 2005 • Blog

World » Bulgaria » Balchik » In front of the Summer Palace

Betsy still struggling with her flu, we went down to the bus station to catch a ride to Balchik, only a little bit up north from Albena. According to the Planet a very nice little town with only few tourist traps and a beautiful palace with botanical gardens.
Entrance fee to the gardens was supposed to be four Leva, but turned out to be a whopping ten. We ended up enjoying the palace and the gardens from the outside, which wasn’t that much different from going in, and strolled along the waterfront, enjoying schnapps and salads whenever we felt like it.

The weather, which was promised to our Dutch neighbour at the hotel to be much better today, didn’t really deliver. Although we started off with a bit of sunshine, by noon, temperature had dropped, the sun had disappeared behind the clouds and it was starting to feel really fresh. What kind of country is this?
Oh, and Balchik IS slowly turning into something of a tourist trap. Not as bad, nearly, as Albena, but the whole four kilometre beach front is now lined with restaurants or hotels, or is crowded with new urban developments, hotels in the making for the coming seasons.

Did I mention that all the stray dogs in Varna, but also in Balchik, where there are only a few, have yellow or orange tags in one of their ears? You’d think that if they take the time to catch ‘m all and tag them, and, I suppose, sterilise them, they could also ‘put them out of their misery’, no?

The joy of Varna

May 11, 2005 • Blog

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World » Bulgaria » Varna » pl. Mitropolitska Simeon

Unfortunately, the weather deteriorated quite a bit. In the morning, we could have gone out without a shirt, if we would have pushed it a bit. But in the afternoon, I felt sorry for not bringing a sweater with me.
Betsy, meanwhile, is recovering from the acute flu she suddenly came down with last night.

We went down to Varna, a 30 minute bus ride from our resort. Here, I was struck by the memories the city triggered of Budapest in 1997, where I studied for close to one year. In many locations around the city, renovations are on the way, while almost every street corner has a beer/wine/coffee/pastry/hamburger stand while every second street appears to have a statue of some sort where locals are trying to change money with you. "Where you from? Holland? I'll change 1 guilder for 1 Lev."

After some churches, the archaeological museum and some art galleries, we went for a damn cheap burger, featuring an extra belly stuffed with fries and mayonnaise, after which we had coffee and pastries at some immensely popular joint, right across from one of the art galleries.
At Albena, they push one pastry and one coffee for 4 Leva, 3.99 if you're lucky, which is just over 2 euros, a decent price you might think. Here in Varna, an espresso and a pastry go for between 0.55 and 1 Lev. What's more, the pastry is so good, it's definitely the best since my pastry days in Budapest and the 'Pasta Moskva' is possibly the best pastry I've tasted, ever.

Varna also reminds me of towns in Greece, mostly Thessaloniki. Then again, many claim that Thessaloniki is a Balkan sea port.

The archaeological museum is good, although a little bit expensive at four Leva, also considering that half the museum is currently being renovated and not accessible.
The price exhibit is the golden artwork over 6000 years old. The oldest golden artwork every discovered. Interestingly, this art is Thracian in origin, tribes that occupied the central Asian plains as well as the coasts of the Black Sea. Again, as on several earlier occasions on wildly different spots around the globe, I was surprised about the similarities between these works of art and Keltic artwork from Northern Europe.
Also, a most impressive display was the grave of a Thracian, as it was uncovered in the 1970s, when most of the artwork on display was recovered from a nearby Necropolis. Looking at the amount of gold in the coffin and the way it was distributed around the vault, it wasn't hard to imagine the person, with staff, being dressed up as an ancient Indian (the north American variety) or Mongolian Shaman.
The staff he had resembled an Egyptian staff with solar disc. Then, remembering that this Thracian civilization pre-dates the Egyptian heydays by at least a thousand years and was wiped out from the Black Sea area after what most probably was the great flood (of Noah fame), it might just be possible these Thracians fanned out and started having a good time down south.

Varna is a nice place. I think I could live here. If only the babes were a bit more attractive. It seems the combination of Turkish and Slavonic tribes doesn't really work well. Not for the women at least.

An early rise for a nice surprise

May 10, 2005 • Blog

World » Bulgaria » Albena » Hotel Druzba

We had to get up early to get an early flight, which turned out to be delayed. That’s what you get when you opt for a cheap charter.
The flight was uneventful, but a bit of fun, with a breakfast of two rather old slices of white bread with one slice of ham and one slice of cheese somehow lost in between the two slices of bread (Muslims beware!). The bread was true to the eastern European origins of the air carrier: slightly stale, very dry, not very pleasing, but therefore wonderfully fantastic.
Not so for all occupants, many of whom didn’t even try the sandwich but only ate the chocolate filled cookie which also came with the snack.

Arriving at Varna airport, I was reminded of our trip to Cyprus some years ago, and a while later, arriving at our resort, in the hotel ‘Friendship’, sort of overlooking the Black Sea, I even had flashes of my first real holiday out of the Netherlands sans parents, to Crete. This could just end up being tourist hell/heaven, depending on your personal preferences.
Meanwhile, at the airport, the border guard, slowly flipping through my passport to find an empty page, stamped the very last empty one. Every single page in my passport now has something to show for. Even the two pages that should have remained empty: Mongolians stuck a visa on the page reserved for my offspring and Ghanaian border control stamped a page reserved for additional remarks by the Dutch government.

However, the weather is nice and I’m writing this from the balcony of our room, sipping a glass of champagne we were offered on our arrival by our travel organization, overlooking the Black Sea. There are worse things in life.

Memories

May 05, 2005 • Blog

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World » Netherlands » Westerbork » Kamp Westerbork

Apparently, I’m slowing down: only posting on Saturday what I’ve been doing on Sunday, but so be it.

It being both ‘bevrijdingsdag’, liberation day, and ‘hemelvaart’, Ascension Day, Betsy decided she wanted to do something which referred to today’s specialness. We went to kamp Westerbork, a transitional camp from before and during the second world war. No less then some 100.000 people, mainly jews, were sent from here to destruction camps further east.

In the evening, I had dinner in Utrecht with Arnold and Robert-Jan, both fellow mathematicians, and Jan van Friesland and his girlfriend. Jan van Friesland, author, former editor of the well known Dutch television programme ‘Buitenhof‘ and, like Arnold, crazy about Francesco Carotta, who wrote a most interesting book called ‘Jesus was Caesar‘.
That very book, to which I was alerted last year when working in Zimbabwe, I in turn alerted Arnold to it, who has gone on to become something of a friend of the Carotta family himself.

Not the end

Back in the 80s, still at school, I watched a documentary on TV where it was claimed the world would end on the fifth of May 2005. Clearly, it didn’t.
The reason why it would end was that all planets were going to be aligned on this very day and this event would be heralded by natural disasters all over the planet.
I remember writing that date in one of my schoolbooks, to make sure I would never forget. I didn’t, but, although quite a couple of disasters have occurred over the last couple of months, I don’t think the world ended on this Thursday.

Warm weather

May 01, 2005 • Blog

World » Netherlands » Delft » Delftse Hout

Celebrating the queen’s birthday on Saturday, we tried to catch a glimpse of her at Scheveningen, were she was supposed to show up.
It appears she did, but we didn’t notice.

We DID enjoy several good games of Dancing Stage Fusion, which finally has made it to the game hall inside the Palace Promenade. Well, only, what, five years after its introduction.
Betsy and I kicked a little bit of ass, but this one slim pre-teen kicked a lot.

Today, we did some chillin’ at the Delftse Hout, where Data had a lot of trouble finding Benno, Betsy and myself, lounging on the grass, taking sneak peeks at the boobs around us.
Afterwards, Vahid and Karen showed up for dinner, where Betsy tried another of her interpretations of Afghani pilau. She did very well, indeed.

First week

April 24, 2005 • Blog

World » Netherlands » Den Haag » Escher in het paleis

Cycled today to The Hague to visit the very nice exhibition of Escher in het paleis. Escher, a Dutch artist who studied in Delft for one week (in the 20s, if my mind serves me well) created some amazing drawings during his lifetime, something of a combination between surrealism and a hyperrealism.

Yesterday was quite an active day too, with a visit to a Shona sculpture exhibition almost in our backyard. Prices were in the same range as what I sell them for and after talking with some of their people, it’s clear that there definitely is something of a future in these things, if only you have access to the right people, the right market.
Afterwards, we went down to Hoek van Holland to watch the ships chugging down the Nieuwe Waterweg. The weather was fantastic and we could see the Keringhuis in the distance.

Early this week, when Betsy had taken two days off from work, we also visited the Dali exposition in the Boijmans van Beuningen museum.

Not a bad first week, eh?

The problem with me

April 18, 2005 • Blog

World » Netherlands » Delft » Home

Being back in Holland, I figured it out. Although this might not be the first time I did, I did figure it out. My problem is that I want to live 10 lives. Well, maybe not 10, but 100. Ehm, maybe not 100, but many more.
I think I’ve accepted life as temporary. I know I’ve had to accept youth is temporary. Yes, 31 is not old, at least to most ‘modern’ people in the world, but it’s not 26, let alone 21, or even younger. But if life is temporary, our opportunities aren’t limitless and our possibilities not endless.
I won’t be able to do at 60 what I’m able to do now, and even now, I can’t do what I could 10 years ago. Hell, last week’s party and alcohol proved that yet again. I can only do as much as possible in the time I am given (nice and poetic, innit?).

So I go to Mongolia, I go to Zimbabwe, I go to Afghanistan, I hope to go to Iran. Because I can, but because I want to. Because if I wouldn’t, I’d miss out, and going would mean I am able to get a glimpse of more lives, not just my own, the only one I would be enjoying if I would stay at home.
I NEED to see, because I need to KNOW. What are these other lives I’m not living. What am I NOT experiencing?
I can not live 10 lives, let alone 100. Some people try to live two, and don’t even manage. At least I try to SEE all these lives. It is like getting a small glimpse of what is out there, the problems people face, the joys people have, the lives that are lived. Glimpses, fractions are almost nothing, but slightly more than nothing.

Being back home in Delft, I’m happy to see my family again, to chill with my girlfriend. But at the same time I’m also already missing Kabul: The weather, the people, the streets and the mountains.

Bastards, luggage and an early return

April 17, 2005 • Blog

World » Netherlands » Amsterdam » Schiphol airport

Well, that’s what you get for trying to bring DVDs and CDs out of the country. Customs insisted that I should have stopped by the ministry of culture to get all the DVDs stamped and pay an export fee. It is the same when exporting books. That’s also why you can’t, just like that, send books out of the country too.
Of course, it’s not like the DVDs already were expensive. On the contrary. The standard price for a DVD is 2 bucks, and it can be even less if you know where to get them. New PS2 games are 3 bucks and audio CDs range from less than 1 to a bit over 2 buck, if you also want a case to go with that.

I had to pay customs off with 40 bucks. The good thing was that it also meant getting rid of all my Afghanis. Still, I did feel a bit annoyed.

Getting there

Dubai only has the impression of being a real airport. To quite an extent, these people don’t know what they’re doing, like in any official Middle Eastern establishment.
I tried to get my ticket changed from flying Monday morning to somewhere on Sunday. It was only at the fifth desk to which I was forwarded, where they told me it couldn’t be done (because I had an electronic ticket). I would have to wait until the morning and then call some service. However, them only opening at nine meant that getting on the eight o’clock flight was going to be impossible.
So I went out of the airport and decided to try my luck at the BA office in the airport, on the other side of customs. An office I wouldn’t have been able to get to if I wouldn’t have left the airport in the first place.
Taking some time finding the office, my ticket was changed within minutes. I wasn’t on the 8 o’clock flight, I was on the 1:45 flight. However, the BA guy told me the Ariana luggage ticket I was holding wasn’t any good for getting my luggage to Amsterdam and he suggested to fetch the luggage myself, from Terminal 2, where I arrived, me now being in Terminal 1, the only option being to take a cab around the airport and come back.

Back in Terminal 2, I stumbled on a Kenyan who had also come from Kabul but was flying on to Nairobi. His had the same problem, as he was being told to pick up his luggage himself. He, however, had to buy a visa to get out of the airport and pick up his luggage. Suffice to say, our luggage wasn’t there as we were told it had already been shipped Terminal 1. We headed back.
I now preferred to obtain my luggage myself and carry it on the flight, so that at least I would have the right luggage ticket for getting to Amsterdam. Not so, the luggage was untraceable, but when I finally arrived at the gate and asked for confirmation, it was claimed my luggage was on board.

But ofcourse, at Heathrow, BA staff looked at my baggage claim ticket as if it was something from another world. And indeed, arriving in Amsterdam, my luggage didn’t come down the luggage belt.

A run around

April 15, 2005 • Blog

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World » Afghanistan » Kabul » DACAAR expat house

Leaving tomorrow, it was time to set a hash myself. Running up two hills close to my house with some perfect weather and decent vodka cokes afterards, it was a very enjoyable run.
Interestingly, I discovered a small girl collecting the washing powder we had used to mark the trail.

Corolla spells t-r-o-u-b-l-e

April 13, 2005 • Blog

World » Afghanistan » Kabul » Close to Massoud circle

As I was driving out of the DACAAR compound, shortly after it had started to rain, I realized that the BBC weather report had actually been right. A while later, as I was coming down Jalalabad road, ready to do some shopping at one of the three supermarkets-for-foreigners, I noticed my car slanting slightly too the right. Realizing I had a flat, I figured the best would be to turn around and get to the office before I would have to change the tire on the spot. No luck, as only minutes later, not only was the car slanting to the right, it was also notably overhanging to the right. I got out and saw the right-back tire was completely empty.

Getting out the spare, I noticed there being no thingamajig for lifting the car from the ground. Three kids had already gathered around me to continuously comment on the situation. I asked a taxi driver, who couldn’t or wouldn’t help me, but a second taxi driver almost immediately jumped out and started to help me change the tire, using the thingamajig he had with him.
As we were changing the tire, the three kids noticed that the right-front tire now also was flat. The most easy thing to do in a situation like this would be to call DACAAR and let logistics solve this. Not so now, considering my phone disappeared last week and I found it rather pointless to replace it for this last week in the country (even though, indeed, some American was kidnapped only three days ago (he managed to break free)).
Then, while looking at the second flat, we noticed oil leaking from the car. Meanwhile, the rain had changed from a mild drizzle to a steady downpour. This was starting to look bad.

However, with the taxi driver, I also had a bit of luck. Of course, nothing was for free but almost immediately, the driver suggested changing my spare for his spare, giving me an extra good tire. Still, that one turned out to be too small, even though almost all cars in Afghanistan are Toyota Corollas and we were both even driving the same model.
Changing his mind, he drove off with my spare flat, coming back only minutes later, with the same tire, fixed.

Then I had to get back to the office. Oil was still leaking from the car and I didn’t want to get caught out in the middle of nowhere. The under 15 minute drive took me close to an hour, traffic was bad. The many military convoys, probably out on the streets because of Donald Rumsfeld’s visit, didn’t really help either.

No plans

Last week, I hoped I would be in Herat, this week. Not so. I wanted to fly on Sunday, but no tickets were available for that day. Then, thinking it over, I decided that flying on Monday would also be an option, even though some dodgy foreign delegation had chosen that same day to fly to Herat.
One of the reasons why Herat is supposedly interesting is because of some architecture but also, supposedly, it’s considered the most Iranian part of Afghanistan. Then, driving to the Iranian border from Herat only takes some 30 minutes. I figured it would be nice to actually see my country from the ground.

So I went back to the Ariana office, only to find out that now all seats for the Monday and Tuesday flights were also booked. What to do, Herat didn’t seem to be an option anymore.

As an alternative, I jumped on the possibility to join Masi in going to Kandahar and Gazni, on IT business. We would be away for three days and although Kandahar nor Gazni are supposedly to be that spectacular, it would be more interesting, compared to Kabul, where I now have already spent two months.
But no. Wind of my trip got to Eddi, who talked it over with Gorm, the director, who said that my going to Kandahar by road was not an option. Too big a security risk.

Wrap ups and challenges

April 06, 2005 • Blog

World » Afghanistan » Kabul » DACAAR office

DACAAR is facing some difficult times at the moment. Not only are several expats leaving at around the same time, what’s much worse is that DACAAR is getting the blame for a water dam which collapsed earlier this week.
One of the state-run newspapers ran a headline which simply stated that DACAAR was responsible for the collapse, resulting in 15 deaths, two thousand shops being wiped away and the complete loss of the water reservoir.
Although DACAAR has done some work on the dam several years ago, it doesn’t appear DACAAR is responsible for the collapse of this 1000 year old dam. But how to reverse these allegations showing up in the national press?

Today was my last official day at the office. I will be ‘in’ tomorrow, but only because I feel like being a good guy.
Not something that can be said of everyone. It seems my mobile phone has disappeared today, from the office. It was on my desk when I left for a meeting at three. At five, when I came back, it was gone. Calling my phone immediately resulted in a ‘this phone is currently not reachable’. Clearly, someone switched it off.

It seems it will be the plan to return to Afghanistan around the first of June, for another two months. It does require the DACAAR IT unit to stick to the project plan we’ve been working on over the past couple of weeks. Not too hard, but it also requires quite a bit of actual work. It will be rewarding to see them sticking to the plan.
It does make another planned trip of mine a bit more shaky. This year’s Veto reunion is set to take place close to Durban, South Africa, around the end of June, beginning of July. If I want to attend, I will have to break the project in Kabul in two, sneaking away for a couple of weeks to South Africa.

Party and countryside

April 02, 2005 • Blog

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World » Afghanistan » Bagram » Main street, between the two kebab stores

The weekend's been tough, with three parties on Thursday and a going away party for Jesper on Saturday. Meanwhile, I still hadn't fully recovered from the rather active evenings of the week before. Then, we'd decided to visit the Salang pass, leaving at 8 in the morning and returning by 4 so that we would still be in time to start preparing the party at our place.
As it happened, Parvaiz only showed up at around 9 and by that time, Giovanni had left with the chowkidar to drop him off somewhere, supposedly taking only 10 minutes but staying away for close to an hour. We decided it made more sense to go to Salang some other time and now visit Bagram, the site of an ancient Graeco-Roman settlement and the current location of the main American airbase in this country.

With the weather wonderful and Parvaiz driving in such a way Schumacher would feel ashamed, we enjoyed the scenery, racing through the countryside. On several occasions, we drove past mine-clearing teams, slowly but surely trying to move the boundary outward from the road, marked in red and white painted stones.
Bagram itself wasn't very interesting. Nothing remains from the ancient settlement and it's nearly impossible to get close to the base, unless you're American AND introduced by one of the soldiers.

Party

In the evening, time to say goodbye to Jesper. Although he's only leaving on Wednesday. He's been working hard to finalize a book and a CD ROM on what DACAAR's been doing over the last 21 years, but he's finding it a challenge to finish in time, staying in the office over the weekends and in the evenings, occasionally, till 10.
It wasn't all that bad a party, even though it was on Saturday, the next day being a working day. But I was so tired, I simply passed out on the couch at some point, I couldn't stay awake.

Braai

March 26, 2005 • Blog

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World » Afghanistan » Kabul » Dutch embassy

Holland will soon increase its military presence in Afghanistan to over 1000 soldiers. The current Dutch ISAF force is about to leave, the new group has just arrived.
In honor of the departees, the Dutch embassy held a braai today. Although I’m still not on the Dutch mailing list, Martine was so kind as to inform me last Thursday at Ole’s going away party.

At the embassy, I bumped into Julia, who gives yoga classes on Monday’s. She’s something of a cute babelet and married to a Dutch guy, working at the embassy. Today, I also ‘met’ her husband. Quite a boring looking, older, run-of-the-mill Dutchman, complete with gray mustache and a bit of a belly. What a couple.

Last Thursday, our boiler stopped working. Jesper informed logistics at DACAAR, which runs all the staff houses. As a result, we now no longer have a boiler; they took it out. Was a hot shower an improbability before, now it’s an impossibility.

5 hours

March 22, 2005 • Blog

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World » Afghanistan » Surkh Kotal

Afghanistan has quite a history and driving back from Mazar, now knowing it should only take us some eight hours, we decided to take in some of this history.
First, we stopped at an old palace of king Najibullah, overlooking the oasis town of Tashkurgan and later we struggled a bit to find the nearly 2000 year old site of the Surkh Kotal kings who followed the Bactrian rulers which were descendants of the people left by Alexander the Great on his conquests of the region.
The site itself has nothing much left to offer, besides a fantastic view of the surrounding countryside. On our way to the top of the hill on which the site is located, we passed some 10 kids, herding goats or playing games. By the time we got to the top, some 20 kids had followed us up, all having to shake our hands and ask us what we were doing there.
Walking around, the group was joined by what looked like a 15 year old, a machine gun carelessly slipped over his shoulder. Azif found pleasure in telling everyone what we were doing before the friendly gun-toting youth invited us for tea, the 20 kids still forming a buzzing cloud around us. I politely declined, struggling to be friendly but resolute at the same time, in Farsi.

Then there was the Salang tunnel again. Before getting in, we were stuck for no less then five hours for reasons that never became clear. Hoping to get back by four, we arrived after eight. Tired, but very, very satisfied.
What struck us was the, clearly foreign, cyclist, just entering the Salang tunnel as we exited. The sad bastard.

Happy new year

March 21, 2005 • Blog

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World » Afghanistan » Mazar-e-Sharif » Rawza mosque

The reason why so many people descend on Mazar for new year is a bit lost on me. The mosque is a shrine to Ali, every Shia’s favorite imam. Some believe he is buried here, although the general consensus is that, although the white camel that carried his dead body around might have fallen down dead at this very spot, the imam’s body was most likely picked up again and moved on to Iraq, where there’s another shrine to the eminent imam.
The mosque, decked out in blue tiles, is very impressive and can be said to have some resemblance to the Taj Mahal, but that’s hardly a reason to celebrate new year in this place. The only slightly logical connection that I can think of is that Ali is a Shia favorite, Shia islam is big in Iran, the origins of the new year on the 21st of March are Persian, so there’s some sense in celebrating the Persian new year at the country’s biggest Shia shrine.

The night before, I had expected huge crowds, but not so. Apparently, Afghans celebrate the new year at home. However, the first day of the new year, the crowds were all-consuming. Last year, several people got killed in a stampede and I could see how this happened when a whole crowd descended on a poor guy who was made out as a thief. Literally hundreds of people turned on the guy, the crowd moving as one all over the square in front of the mosque.

We had gotten to the mosque early, being welcomed by deafening canon shots, making me think at first the mosque was under attack, in the hope of seeing Karzai raising the country’s flag at the mosque, apparently a recurring pastime on new year’s day. The flag raising was scheduled for around ten. We arrived at nine, but already we were too late. The flag raising had been moved ahead, apparently for security reasons.
We strolled around the mosque a couple of times, checking to see if we could find any gray pigeons, who are said to turn white, like the other pigeons, within forty days after their arrival, but we didn’t see any. Afterwards enjoying the mosque, we bought a bunch of Mazari sweets. Some to bring back home, some to bring back to the office. We left with 15 kilos of sweets.

Buzkashi

Said to be introduced by the Mongols, Buzkashi is big in the north, were the country’s central Asian roots are much more apparent. Around the new year, the biggest buzkashi games of the country are staged in Mazar and it only made sense to check it out.
We estimated some 15000 spectators and maybe as much as 100 horses in the game. What was intriguing was the field, which was not marked in any way. This meant that minute by minute, people were edging closer to the players, trying to get a glimpse of what was going on, only to run away on a true stampede when the multitude of half-crazy horses would come their way, being led by a fast racing horseman, holding a 75 kilo dead goat in one hand and pushing his horse onward with the whip in his other hand.
Several times, I had to find shelter next to one of the few 4×4 jeeps which leisurely kept their position, ON the field. Not bandits, terrorist attacks, bad roads or anything else, THIS was the most dangerous aspect of our trip to Mazar.

Music

In the evening, we strolled past several of the venues of the city-wide concert. Staged by a Dutch guy, the many venues saw performers from Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Azarbaijen and probably others.
At Balkh university, where Azif, our driver, again managed to talk us into the VIP area, we were treated to a rather amusing spectacle.

Realize that during our couple of days in Mazar we saw very few women and, most certainly, in and around the mosque, there were practically none, not even shopping in one of the many shops on the large ring road around the mosque.
The women have to stay at home for these things, although they do get their own day at the mosque, when no men are allowed to visit.
At the university theater, for the concert, I had spotted a couple of ladies, although I figured most to be foreigners, except for one, also sitting in the same VIP area as we were. At some point, I noticed her getting up to leave, when she started to put on a burqa. At the same time, some 10, apparently women, also started to put on burqas around her, and the attention of the whole auditorium switched to these ladies in one corner and what happened on stage, for several minutes, was of no importance.

Also, we found the audience to be very participatory with the show, clapping, yelling, commenting and also dancing. What’s rather different is that it’s only the men who dance, resulting in interesting scenes when, quite often, the men dance as if they’re women and, occasionally, forming couples, dancing with other men, where one clearly takes on the male role, the other taking on the female role.

Touristy things

March 20, 2005 • Blog

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World » Afghanistan » On the Oxus, near the border crossing with Uzbekistan

Several books on Afghanistan mention that this country is the only Asian country without train tracks. Crap. The border crossing with Uzbekistan, a simple bridge across the Oxus, or Amur Dariya as it is now called, some 60 kilometers from Mazar has a train line and is often used to ship goods in from the country’s northern neighbor. True, the train tracks, although they fan out immensely, only reach several hundred meters inland.

In the morning, we drove down to this bridge, spanning the legendary river Alexander the Great crossed on inflated goat skins, just to see and touch the river. Briefly, we tried to get into Uzbekistan, but without much luck. We’re told that obtaining a visa in Mazar takes some six weeks.
The road from Mazar to Termez, in Uzbekistan, first takes you due east, before going straight up north. At first, you travel parallel to the Hindu Kush, but when you go north, the steppes slowly turn into semi arid desert, before turning into real desert, loads of sand everywhere.
As on the last stretch before Mazar, at places we could see kids seemingly filling holes in the road with either dirt or sand. The idea is to toss some money at them for making the road easier to drive on. If they weren’t earning money, they were playing on or around the many tanks still scattered in the countryside.

After marveling at the concrete slabs of Termez in the distance and the Oxus at our feet, we drove back to Mazar to continue to Balkh, ‘mother of cities’, which was trashed by the greatest conqueror of all, Chinggis Khan. Not much remains except some nice and some less nice ruins, one of which are the remains of a nine-domed mosque which was built in honor of a strange Mazari who had managed to walk to Mecca and back. Seven times.

Also, just outside Balkh, we bumped into, literally, the Uzbekistan (or was it Turkmenistan?) pipeline going through Afghanistan. The thing is rather small, and open for everyone to see and dismantle.

After that, it was off to the mosque in Mazar, to get a glimpse of it before the crowds would storm in the next day.
We went back twice, before and after dinner. Expecting a crowd on new year’s eve, we actually found a rather quiet mosque, access being denied to all but a few students. Azif, quite the talker, managed to get us in. First onto the main grounds, and then even into the mosque.
His trick, which he repeated several times, went something like that he was guiding two foreigners, one Iranian and one Belgian and that they really needed to see what was going on and, as two of the very few foreigners in Mazar, should get a special treatment. Every single time, he managed to get us past the guards.
Since it wasn’t always that easy, he would often comment that security was good in Mazar. I somehow figured that, considering he DID get us through, security wasn’t all that good.

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