Wearing a shalwar kameez and a nervous smile, Stephen Bailey visits Peshawar with a tour company that specialises in places most Westerners run away from.
There’s something about the title tribal chief that evokes images of grey beards, charismatic eyes and charming smiles. I’d been expecting Gandalf. But this chief is waddling towards me, eyes drooping in a somnolent haze, a goatee failing to take the attention off plump cheeks.
We’re somewhere near the Afghan border, nine police roadblocks from Peshawar, beside a smugglers’ bazaar and surrounded by a dozen armed guards.
“I am the tribal chief,” he says, holding out a stubby hand.
“You are late.” Three hours late to be precise, but this is Pakistan and keeping to the same day is a triumph in punctuality.
This man is the legally recognised chief of an area that includes almost 200,000 people and the Kyber Pass, the major mountain road that links Pakistan to Afghanistan. He barely looks 30, but he’s number one in the supply chain.
According to my guide, the chief has 118 bodyguards and regularly dines with the US military heads and al-Qaeda. Straining his eyes into focus, the chief confirms the itinerary: “Now we see guns...”
In nearby Peshawar, the outlaying streets resemble a war zone. Guards man innumerable checkpoints and the buildings have a sorry look of dilapidation. Nobody appears in a hurry to decorate when suicide bombings happen at a rate of one a week. Yet the old, pedestrianised town is something from a lost-tourist brochure. Peshawar used to be one of the great Silk Road cities.
In the narrow alleys, the skyline is magnificent. Buildings lean into each other, each one revealing another story in the city’s history.
Moghul architecture, British colonialism, the influences of Hinduism, Sikhism and Islam, and, when the urban jungle rescinds, I find the grand courtyards of traditional tea houses. Tea is still being served, each cup meticulously prepared and then downed in one or two boiling gulps.
From the courtyard, doorways lead into dozens of rooms, which once served as sleeping quarters for the trading caravans. Camels would be herded into the ground-floor rooms, while traders slept together on the floor upstairs.
A bodyguard explains that this is a major trading post for weapons and huge quantities of Afghan heroin
Despite the rush of caffeine and sugar, I’m still apprehensive and constantly imagining the sound of explosions in the distance. My guide Kauser tries to reassure me: “The suicide bombings are against government targets like police stations. They’re not against normal people.”
Despite dreaming of visiting Peshawar for years, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Kauser and Prince. They’ve been guiding foreigners around their hometown for over a decade and the service leaves nothing to chance, including meeting me at the airport and giving me a traditional shalwar kameez to wear. It makes me look like a lost boy in oversized pyjamas. I’m not sure if it makes me look normal.
The highlight of the trip draws on a long-standing friendship with the chief. But first I will tell you about some other aspects of Pashtun culture.
At a dusty factory, men in ragged clothes turn the remnants of British and Japanese scrapyards into custom-made trucks. Two men weld together a chassis and an army of workers elaborately paint the final product. Every centimetre of the truck is decorated; intricate patterns covering wheel nuts, doors and exhaust pipes. Even the interior is painstakingly painted. Why? According to local folklore: “Nobody wants their goods delivered in a boring truck.”
From the truck factory we travel into the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). At one checkpoint a very obvious bribe is paid on my behalf. At another I must quickly walk through a market and meet the vehicle and driver on the other side.
FATA is a semi-autonomous region that straddles the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. It has its own legal system and is governed by a series of elders and chiefs. It’s also officially out of bounds to foreigners, although bringing me here is relatively simple for Kauser and Prince. Their tour company, Untamed Borders, also run expeditions to Somalia and ski trips to Afghanistan.
On a stark wasteland 40,000 refugees live in limbo, somehow surviving by moulding clay bricks. Like most of the refugees, Mohammed Nayim came here in 1978, when US-funded Islamists were at war with the USSR.
“My children and grandchildren were born in Pakistan so this is our home,” says Mohammed.
“In Afghanistan we have no home, no jobs, no peace.”
Rather inexplicably, most of his children have bright ginger hair. Seventy family members live in this damp, three-roomed house, but Mohammed doesn’t hesitate to provide a cup of his finest tea.
All of which makes us late for the chief. He seems to enjoy visits from foreigners. A recent copy of British lads’ magazine FHM sits on the table and souvenirs cover his walls: a rugby ball, a photo of an American college cheerleading team and one of those novelty oversized foam hands.
From the outside, his home is basic, other than the armed guards. We’re on the edge of the smugglers’ bazaar, a market where just about anything in the world is available. Walking through, I’d seen nothing but knock-off electronics and jewellery. But a bodyguard explains that this is a major trading post for weapons and huge quantities of Afghan heroin.
My guide Kauser tries to reassure me: ‘The suicide bombings are against government targets like police stations. They’re not against normal people’
Right on cue, the guns are presented and gleefully intro-duced by the chief. Among them are one of Osama bin Laden’s old rifles and an original Soviet Glock, which he claims cost $500,000.
Feigning excitement, I smile and pose with the weapons, careful to present myself as a gracious guest.
I’d never held a gun before, never appreciated how cold and emphatic it felt, or how the polished, black metal seemed so solemn and absolute. While the chief and his guards are amiable, the sheer size of his entourage continues to jangle nerves, especially when a bodyguard explains the local operation.
The chief has sent out a warning forbidding suicide bombings on the Kyber Pass, the main passage between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Americans can freely use the pass to bring supplies into Afghanistan and in return they turn a blind eye to the mass amounts of heroin and hashish that arrive at the smugglers’ bazaar.
It seems a little far-fetched and egotistical but the chief surprises me with a politician’s diplomacy.
“You must understand that I don’t buy or sell anything illegal. But you must understand that all traders must respect the chief.”
After the customary tea, the chief gradually loses interest in me and turns his attention to the lads’ magazines and MTV music videos.
More words of wisdom don’t seem too forthcoming and I can’t think of any more inquisitive questions. Yet the tea seems to relax me and I sit in peace, silently laughing at the juxtaposition between tea cups and AK47s.
Suddenly, the chief faces me. He stares intently, as if deciding whether I’m some kind of secret agent. Then he points at the TV and blurts out: “Do you also like Beyonce...?”
Visit www.untamedborders.com for more details on how to visit Peshawar and other similar hotspots.