TTze H'LZZ'top, December 10, 1976, Page Seven
7^
collegi^^®
ns
in Gener^^
wn
Presid®^
Educati®^^
tt, Govef
55-1973;
DeveloP^^,
s Barga^*’
Educati^
nr degr®""
LI be h®
L, Chi®
7.
^arcMullinax:Around the World
Inexpensive Hash Lures Young
To Afghanistan
tor’s' Note:
Mara MullinaXt a senior history major
f^om Raleighy is traveling around the
by air and bus September 9—
^oember 13. In addition to keeping his
^ journaly Mara is sending str^ents
Mars Hill a record of his travelsy
^ping that more of them will see the
Waiting possibilities for gaining
’^edit through independent study pro-
^^ts and travel.
If you like uncivilized excitement,
living, and entertainment, Afghanistan
ts
the place for you. This is a poor
^ountry lacking in luxury and hygiene,
full of fun and happy people.Theirs
is
a life unfettered by civilization
ruinous poverty, but a simple and
'Carefree life whose only worry is the
^tops in the fields. Herat was the
itst stop and as it turned out the
®st place to buy Afghan goods. Sheep-
®kin/fleece coats, leather goods made
order, shirts, carpets, carpetbags,
'^amei hair socks and gloves...the list
such seems endless. Changing money
a big hassle. Only one bank in
*®rat serves the whole place and it
°ok me ninety minutes to get $20.00
'^hanged to Afghanis. Herat is a main
JPot for the young travelers for dope
® both cheap and illegal only in writ
es. So there are a lot of young Euro-
^®3ns as well as Americans walking a-
in. a daze—the most pathetic
^ht in all Afghanistan. On the road
f Kandahar are many, many tribes of
'^hi nomads—the proudest people in
® country—who make up a large minor-
7 of the population. Their life con-
^sts of traveling from the Hindu Kush
Hoi
'hntains in the north in sinnmer to the
®sert in the south for winter with
^eir sheep, goats,and camels that pro-
them food.Under their black tents.
th,
^ world'^s best carpets are made, tak-
‘8 two or more years per carpet. They
. them to a buyer and by stages the
ice goes up—from $100 in the begin-
to $1000 should it reach the
^tes. I was able to spend a half-hour
one tribe, sharing some fresh
l^^ked nan Cbread) the woman had just
^'^ed. Kandahar is another drug haven.
Was saving my jeans to trade in
^l for Afghani crafts but they would
^ly give me $2.00 maximum for them as
.*^Posed to $20.00 for bell-bottomed
®^ls in Herat. Though disappointing in
j®Pping, Kabul was not disappointing
^ its food and sights.The world’s best
alettes are made here, along with
bazaar 'is extremely colorful and crowd
ed, where the local people buy anything
they need for garments and house. From
Kabul I went to the heart of the Hindu
Kush to an old Hindu monastery called
Bamyan. Two Buddhas, one 125 feet tall
and the other 175 feet tall, were hewn
out of a cliffside by Buddhist monks in
300 and 800 A.D. When the Moslems in
vaded, their custom of not having grav
en images of anyone was carried through
and orders were given to deface the
Buddhas. So today one can see perfectly
shaped Buddhas with the face, from chin
to forehead, gone. I was able to clifnb
to the top of the head of the 125 foot
one where I got a wonderful view of the
valley ringed with snow capped moun
tains. The poplar trees were a bright
kebobs and rice dishes. The local
tiful sight in Afghanistan. The first
is ten miles away—a deserted Red City/
Fort high on the mountain side, carved
out of rust-colored rock. It used to be
a veritable fortress, until it raised
Genghis Khan’s ire. In 1220, his favor
ite nephew was murdered here while vis
iting. Khan promised to return the fol
lowing spring and kill everything in
the valley—men, women, children, dogs,
trees and flowers.And he did just that.
The drive to Pakistan was also
through Khan territory—the Kabul Gorge
and the Khyber Pass. Peshawar, at the
end of the Pass, has the most extremes
that I’ve ever seen in a city.The worst
pollution, poverty and hygenic condi
tions and their opposites can be found
here. Twenty miles from Peshawar is a
tribal area that the government does
not control and is a haven for smug
glers and other types of shady charac
ters, This place yDorru is where Khyber
rifles are made as well as James Bond
type pen guns, cane guns and umbrella
guns. Also in Darra •was a hashish fac
tory where I saw twenty kilos of the
stuff, stamped and ready for smuggling.
Definitely a different place. Murree,
fifty miles north of Rawalpindi,used to
be the "R&R” place for British officers
in the Paki-Afghani wars in the Khyber
Pass. Now a tourist resort, it is the
only place in Pakistan where one can
buy Kashmiri type goods—shawls, jewel
ry, carpets, and paper mache boxes.
Lahore is another city of extremes.
There are many students here—the first
place where it is a status symbol to be
a student. For the first time on the
trip, I saw people with leisure time
playing tennis, cricket, and having
picnics in the huge,beautiful parks and
gardens with parakeets flying wild. The
intellectual Pakistanis are the only
ones that are nice and helpful—the o-
thers seem to have only one thing on
their minds—SEX. My premature opinion
for the millions of people here is that
all the peasant men run around with
this on their minds.
India-Yox the first time, we had a
hassle at the Indian side of the border.
Six hours we spent there while luggage
and bus were ripped apart. We got lec
tured on the horrors of hashish and car'
rying in Indian money bought outside of
India. In Kabul, I had bought $66.00
worth of Indian Rupees at better than
the official rate on the Black Market.
Running the risk of confiscation, I had
them in my shoe, but I was declared
"clean".
India’s people are the friendliest
yet. Their Hindu religion makes them
more passive than Moslems. Literally
five seconds after I got off the bus in
Amritsar, an Indian rode up on his bi
cycle and shook my hand, saying-welcome
and that I was the guest of all India.
Similar experiences have occurred since.
I am now in the disputed state of
Kashmir in northwest corner of India,
the foothills of the Himalayas. Sixteen
thousand foot mountains surround my
houseboat on the Del Lake, where for
three dollars a day, I live in a luxu
rious houseboat with my own cook-ser
vant and have three meals a day. These
are meals like roast mutton,lamb curry,
and roast duck. Salesmen' in cloth,
shawls, paper mache boxes, jewelry,gro
ceries, and fruit paddle by my front
door selling their wares. This is fan
tastic living.
I've two more weeks in India—the
country of countries. Its exoticness
has really made me fall in love with it
after three days.