"No good" says the Tajik customs man shaking his head. When he speaks he is even fiercer than his moustache. He takes my passport and shows me a tiny paragraph on the details page. He points at me and asks if I want to go to Riga. "No I don't want to go to Riga, I have just flown into Tajikistan from there. I am just passing through Tajikistan to get to Afganistan where Anna my Italian friend and I will go ski mountaineering". But no, it seems I am going nowhere. He keeps my passport and waves me through to a teeny room where the luggage will arrive later. He calls me back and shows me my passport photo in a special security machine. My face has melted. I am the mountaineering Michael Jackson. He stares at me and I shrug. I don't think I look like my passport photo either. Shall I try to bribe him or not? I decide not. If he asks for money I'll give it. Meanwhile Anna is missing a bag. The other passengers have all left apart from a disgruntled looking consulate worker. He is missing luggage too. Then comes a miracle. The customs man reappears, he shrugs, gives me my passport, and I make a quick exit before he changes his mind. Brilliant. Anna was completing a meaningless lost luggage form for a bag she will never see again.
Afganistan is so close we can touch it during our 2 day journey through Tajikistan. The track/mud/river bed we drove along bordered the River Oxuf which forms the frontier between the 2 countries. After a dusty bumpy ride we reach the border although it appears to be closed. Eventually the smoking soldiers open up and all is proceeding smoothly as they process our visas. But I turn around and am horrified at the vision before me. Anna is filming with her handicam. It takes the soldier a few seconds to register then the shite hits the fan. The customs police are angry and we cannot contine, our expedition appears to be over before it has started. In an attempt at appeasement Anna desperately takes a tape out and offers it to them, but they are unmoved. I want to snatch it from her, throw it on the floor, stamp on it with my heavy mountain boots and attack it with my ice axe. Our Afgan fixer arrives and can at least communicate with them. Slowly the matter is settled with cash, cigarettes and diplomanacy. We heave our kit across no man's land and are ecstatic to arrive in Afganistan. Not something you hear every day.
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