The Places In Between

Rory Stewart decided to walk across Afghanistan. Shootings still going on here and there. Nine feet of snow in places along the way. Walking.



He made it, but heaven only knows how. What makes us set goals like this? And then actually do them?



But how else would I ever have visited a place like this? I don't think I've ever visited so many people that are so isolated from the world. Lots of wonderful hospitality. Lots of scary moments.



It was Stewart's pictures I liked the best. Drawings of people and places along the way. Not gallery quality pictures, but pictures like the best artists of sixth grade make. Nevertheless, something special about the little drawings, something that makes you think about the people posing for the pictures in the cold of central Afghanistan, the willingness of people to do for others, I think.

This book covers a walk through Afghanistan, which if completed in sequence, would have been Rory Stewart's epic single journey through Iran, Afghanistan,Pakistan, India and Nepal. 16 months spent walking twenty to twenty fine miles a day, commencing in 2001. In Iran however, his Afghanistan visa was cancelled, and he had to go around Afghanistan. In 2002, after the fall of the Taliban, Stewart is permitted entry to Herat, from which he walks to Kabul.

Regularly asked why he wanted to walk, and why he wanted to walk in Afghanistan, Stewart doesn't really have a good answer. He is clearly a stubborn, or driven individual. He refused rides of all kind - vehicles, horses, etc. Walking provides him with the engagement he seeks with the local people - we all know how little you see and learn from a bus window as you pass by a village.

He realises that the route he follows (which is not the common route, as that bypasses the mountains, often impassable due to snow) was followed by the Mogul Emperor Babur the Great, in 1506. Not only was this route shorter, it limited the Taliban controlled areas he needed to pass though on the longer, flatter route. When asked by officials, and most people, he simply said he was a historian and was following the route of Babur.

P29...Afghanistan was the missing section of my walk, the place in between the deserts and the Himalayas, between Persian, Hellenic and Hindu culture,between Islam and Buddhism, between mystical and militant Islam. I wanted to see where these cultures merged into one another...
This wasn't a long book, at 324 pages, but for me it was well balanced. It is about the walk - and there is no doubt it was a tough walk - deep snow, mud, frozen rivers; - and in tough conditions - poor food, dysentery, lack of sufficient medical supplies, but Stewart would have known that going in. The people of Afghanistan are poor, and out of the cities living in feudal villages or provinces, with little or no knowledge of the outside world, and typically no formal education.

Many times he was treated with the traditional respect of guests, provided with food and accommodation by the village leader, or headman. Many other times he was seen as suspicious (quite rightly) and not made welcome. Often even when welcomed he was given accommodation in the mosque and not a house, and fed only bread and water - likely what the villagers themselves were eating. Because he had adopted a dog (a war-dog - bred for the protection of flocks from wolves, and only semi-domesticated) he had more trouble finding suitable accommodation for him - dogs considered unclean by Muslims.

The dog, who he named Barbur (obviously) was an old dog who a headman of a village begged him to take - they couldn't afford to feed him. These dogs were bred to move around the flock, not to walk 25 miles a day, and he was not in the best health. He had probably never eaten meat, and a diet of bread was not the basis of a fit dog, so he struggled with the walk. He was though, a good companion for Stewart, who was otherwise alone much of the time.

Initially he was provided with government guides - the first couple of weeks. They made his situation much more difficult. They demanded things of the villagers, they invented lies and stories about what Stewart was doing, and threatened the locals. Eventually they tired of the walking and Stewart was able to convince them to go back, and he was able to engage with the locals on his own merit. Many times he was provided with guides, but as often he was alone and Barbur provided comfort and motivation to keep them both going.

So inevitably Stewart compared his journey to Barbur (the emperor) and shares excerpts from Barbur's diary, and compares them to his experiences. He also outlines fairly briefly the history of the region. Where he gets a bit more in depth is the machinations of the current political situation, foreign interventions and NCO setups - this of course is a bit of a foreshadowing of his role and subsequent book about Iraq (also excellent, but very different to this one). What can be seen here are Stewarts willingness to engage and to astutely manoeuvre a conversation in a direction to seemingly achieve an outcome the person was not fully endorsing! Politics!

While others picked some holes in this book, I enjoyed it a lot, and was entertained the whole way through. I can see however, than not everyone will be so enthralled.

For me 4.5 stars, rounded up.