Global Wanderer

15/4/25

We considered the price of taking a cab to Karkhano Market, on the western edge of Peshawar, and then finding a shared taxi onwards to Torkham, but instead chose to take the not-much-more-expensive but certainly more convenient route of ordering an InDrive for the 60km journey. 

The Torkham Border, as it is known, is one of two crossing points between Afghanistan and Pakistan open to foreign nationals, and is the largest transit point between the two neighbours. Unfortunately, it has more recently become the place where many Afghans in Pakistan are forcibly deported to Afghanistan – making this border crossing by far and away the most chaotic I have ever experienced. 

About halfway between Peshawar and Torkham, we were stopped at our first of four police checkpoints. We quickly became aware of the process for foreigners – at each checkpoint, you got out of the vehicle, had your passport checked by the head honcho at the checkpoint, had a photo taken with the guards, and had a military escort sit in the passenger seat. The escort changed at every checkpoint, and whilst the process was a bit tedious, the drive through the legendary Khyber Pass was anything but. 

Some locals heading towards Afghanistan, and an old fort located within the Khyber Pass

A key trade passage on the Silk Road, a route fought over by various empires, crossing through the Khyber Pass has been on my wishlist for a long time – imagining the armies marching their way through the mountains, the traders on horseback bringing goods up from the subcontinent towards Europe, the centuries of history that occurred on this route was surreal. 

Finally, after a small age, we reached the entrance to the actual border crossing facility. As foreigners, we were given a Pakistani police escort, who brought us through the facility – making the process significantly easier. Walking through fenced-off corridors, past people crossing between the two countries, refugees coming to Pakistan and deportees returning to Afghanistan, along with traders crossing for business, or people going to visit family or receive medical treatment, you got a sense straight away how chaotic this border can be. When we reached Pakistani immigration, we were taken in through the back to have our passports scanned and stamped, rather than waiting at the front with the Pakistanis and Afghans. Whilst having my passport stamped, I noticed that many people were just sticking their hands through the windows and having their hands marked with the exit stamp. I discovered that these were deportees and document-less Afghans crossing the border back to Afghanistan – with no passports, there was nothing to stamp, so their palms had to do. 

We finally reached the border demarcation line, where we were held in a little fenced-off area between the line for entering Pakistan and the one for entering Afghanistan, and interviewed quickly by someone from Pakistani Intelligence (just wanting to know what we did in the country and where we stayed). Here, we witnessed the unfortunate, horrible reality of life at this border – guards beating civilians with thin sticks to get them to move, kids on the road for truck entries running towards the border line only to be kicked and shoved by border guards, and one incident where the officer assigned to us hit a man open-handed in the face because he had accidentally pushed into us. I know there are competing perspectives about this treatment – but it made me feel deeply uncomfortable and aware of the privilege I have as an Australian, as I sat on the bench in the fenced-off area away from all this. 

Finally, it was time to move – we joined the line of people moving into Afghanistan, and had our passports checked by the Afghan border guard. Dale crossed first, only to be called back over the border by the Pakistani guards to have our photo taken, to prove they had delivered us to Afghanistan safely – we then crossed over the line properly and began the walk to passport control. 

Welcome to Afghanistan!

On the drive to Torkham, sharing our police escort, was an old Turkish man by the name of Ali, who was travelling overland back to Turkey. He spoke zero words of English, only Turkish, which made communication with both us and the border guards a struggle, but we worked out that he was offering us to share his private driver to Kabul – for what cost, we couldn’t quite figure out! When we reached passport control, whilst our passports were being stamped, a few Afghans approached us asking if we were travelling with the Turkish guy – turns out the photos of us at the border had been WhatsApped to them on the other side of the border, so that they’d meet us at passport control. At this point, knowing the correct price to Kabul (700 to 800AFN per seat), I began the long process of negotiation. 

At the same time, our passports were being thrown (yes, literally thrown) from one end of passport control to the other, where a Taliban border guard asked us for two passport photos. The reason for this was rather unclear – he was holding up some kind of registration slip. We explained several times that we only had a single passport photo each, leftover from our visa application – eventually, the guy gave up and waved us on. 

One more stop awaited us before being free to head into Afghanistan proper – the vaccination booth. As Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where wild poliovirus still circulates, there is a concerted push to get people in the area vaccinated. At the entry point to each country is a vaccination booth, where you are given oral polio vaccines, and a yellow international vaccination card. Dale was given his vaccine and a filled out card – I showed the staff my Australian immunisation record, showing my three doses of polio vaccine, which seemed to satisfy them, as they waved me on too. 

Finally, we were out! At this point, we were mobbed by taxi drivers trying to get our business to Kabul – Dale was also mobbed my a few children who tried to grab things from his bag and reach into his pockets, which was quite crazy! I negotiated with the taxi drivers, and eventually ended up getting the Turkish guy, Ali’s, driver, to take us to our guesthouse in Kabul for the same price the other taxi drivers were quoting to the bus terminal in Kabul – a solid win in my books! A few moments later, we were hurtling through the countryside towards Jalalabad, the first major city on this side of the border – to get there though, you must pass through a series of incredible mountain passes (and realise that you’re actually in Afghanistan!). 

The Afghan side of the mountain pass – what an incredible route to take!

A quick break in Jalalabad for some much-needed lunch and drinks, and then we were off again, eventually arriving in Kabul in the late afternoon – ready for a week of adventure in Afghanistan!

Jalalabad pitstop!