Heading Home Through the Khyber Pass (1974)

November 20, 1974

We stayed a few more days in New Delhi, shopping in the tourist shops around Connaught Circle while we waited for our departure. I bought six meters of silk fabric, thick and dark blue with gold thread woven in, and several meters of white silk. This was for my Mom who eventually used the blue silk for curtains and made a shawl of white silk fabric.

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I don't remember the actual departure, even though it must have been a big event for us after six weeks traveling from Srinagar in Kashmir to Trivandrum in Kerala. I do remember us driving through a dusty city among people, cyclists, rickshaws, horse-drawn carts, and taxis. The sun seemingly set where the street ended. But was that a real memory, or constructed based on a black and white photo I took from the bus? 

Sunset somewhere in Pakistan. 
Photo: Hans Sandberg, 1974.

The next thing I remember is that we stopped in a small town to buy freshly baked bread. It was cold and frosty in the morning. The flat bread was long and big, and very tasty. They baked the bread on the inside walls of a small wood fired ovens that were sometimes built into the ground. 

Probably near Peshawar, on the way to the Khyber Pass.
Photo: Hans Sandberg, 1974.

Now began the journey north through the Khyber Pass where the mountain walls rose straight up into the sky with us at the bottom and in between.

The bus Bull heading north to the Khyber Pass. 

Photo: Hans Sandberg, 1974.

(Transl. from my November 20, 2014 post on Sandbergs hörna)