Dave Tapsell
Overland Buses (v)
Afghanistan: October 1971
The 37-seater AEC Reliance bus I was driving from Delhi back to London. In Afghanistan, I'd turned off the road from Kabul to Kandahar, to stop in a small town; I cannot remember the name of the place. The bus is shown parked outside a chaikhana (tea house) in the main street.
To fund the journey back to England I had needed to find as many passengers as possible to provide 'running money' for the bus; I was also behind schedule – and the next eastbound trip was scheduled to leave London for India on Sunday, 14 November 1971 – that was cutting it a bit fine. Finding passengers for the return journey to London was made easier by the daily deteriorating political situation between India and Pakistan; a state of war was expected to be declared at any moment, so there was no shortage of foreigners looking for a cheap means of transport to avoid being trapped in India. Some bought tickets only as far as Kabul but many paid to go as far as Europe. We put up notices in the New Delhi YMCA on Jai Singh Road, Connaught Place; and in a couple of other cheap hotels used by overland travellers, advertising the bus departure date and fares: Delhi to London was US$100 or £40 – payable in cash only – travellers cheques or any other currencies were not accepted. The fare to other destinations on that route was proportionately less. Every seat was filled – we could have filled the bus twice over.
On the Grand Trunk Road the main border crossing point into Pakistan had already been closed when we got there; however, an Indian Army officer told me that if I could drive down to Ferozepore that night, then that border would be open, only for a couple of hours, early the following morning, to allow foreign nationals to leave India. That turned out to be the quickest crossing between India and Pakistan.
Some people had got off in Kabul, but several more westbound passengers were booked at the Mustapha Hotel in Kabul – this was a popular and inexpensive establishment, not only to stay in, but to meet other travellers. Another attraction of the hotel was that the manager kept a discrete stock of bottled beer that had been brewed in Pakistan and smuggled into Afghanistan.
The weather was still comfortably warm in the part of Afghanistan where the photo was taken, but within a week I was driving through snow on dirt roads across northern Iran – I didn't know it then but this was a taste of what was to come on the following eastbound journey – the most extreme winter I've ever known.
Overland Buses (v)
Afghanistan: October 1971
The 37-seater AEC Reliance bus I was driving from Delhi back to London. In Afghanistan, I'd turned off the road from Kabul to Kandahar, to stop in a small town; I cannot remember the name of the place. The bus is shown parked outside a chaikhana (tea house) in the main street.
To fund the journey back to England I had needed to find as many passengers as possible to provide 'running money' for the bus; I was also behind schedule – and the next eastbound trip was scheduled to leave London for India on Sunday, 14 November 1971 – that was cutting it a bit fine. Finding passengers for the return journey to London was made easier by the daily deteriorating political situation between India and Pakistan; a state of war was expected to be declared at any moment, so there was no shortage of foreigners looking for a cheap means of transport to avoid being trapped in India. Some bought tickets only as far as Kabul but many paid to go as far as Europe. We put up notices in the New Delhi YMCA on Jai Singh Road, Connaught Place; and in a couple of other cheap hotels used by overland travellers, advertising the bus departure date and fares: Delhi to London was US$100 or £40 – payable in cash only – travellers cheques or any other currencies were not accepted. The fare to other destinations on that route was proportionately less. Every seat was filled – we could have filled the bus twice over.
On the Grand Trunk Road the main border crossing point into Pakistan had already been closed when we got there; however, an Indian Army officer told me that if I could drive down to Ferozepore that night, then that border would be open, only for a couple of hours, early the following morning, to allow foreign nationals to leave India. That turned out to be the quickest crossing between India and Pakistan.
Some people had got off in Kabul, but several more westbound passengers were booked at the Mustapha Hotel in Kabul – this was a popular and inexpensive establishment, not only to stay in, but to meet other travellers. Another attraction of the hotel was that the manager kept a discrete stock of bottled beer that had been brewed in Pakistan and smuggled into Afghanistan.
The weather was still comfortably warm in the part of Afghanistan where the photo was taken, but within a week I was driving through snow on dirt roads across northern Iran – I didn't know it then but this was a taste of what was to come on the following eastbound journey – the most extreme winter I've ever known.