Asia > Pakistan > North West Frontier > Peshawar > Articles > Wild at Heart

People seem to get away with murder around Peshawar, capital of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. This is a town on the frontier of law and disorder. Wild Afghanistan begins just 60km west and in between lie the 'Tribal Areas' whose volatile people are armed to the teeth. It's a gritty man's world; feudal, dubiously romantic and by no stretch of the imagination about to change or soften. This, reputedly, is the world's largest autonomous tribal society. Members - collectively called Pathans - guard a fierce independence where guns, drugs and contraband are a way of life.

40km south of Peshawar, Darra Adam Khel (often just called Darra) distils the sharpest taste of the Frontier spirit. This ramshackle village lies in a tribal 'Region' - not the Tribal Areas - but the ground rules are similar. Like the police checkposts en route, most farmsteads are fortified with high walls and loopholes, a sort of architectural baring of teeth. Rattling gunfire announced our arrival but it was nothing personal; Darra boasts gun shops like corner shops. They make them, too, with an industry suggesting full order books. In dozens of dark and dingy workshops, men and boys fashion weapons with rudimentary equipment and considerable skill.

"Come, sir, for firing" said a voice at my side. We strolled into a shop, its frontage painted luridly with arms and ammo. The proprietor ordered tea while I studied his range of weaponry - pistols, breechloaders and automatic rifles, machine-guns and, err, sub-machine-guns. Call me old-fashioned but I rather fancied firing a musket. "Show me one" he said, "I make in three days". They say any Darra gunsmith worth his salt can replicate any gun quickly and accurately.

I settled for an automatic pistol plus ten rounds and we moved to the roof. Another man joined us, a kind of carbine slung over his shoulder. Shaking hands, I asked if he used it. "Shooting four or five men" he said matter-of-factly as if it happened this week or last. More shots echoed off the stark hills and, aiming high, I squeezed the John Wayne out of me.

Back downstairs there was mild disappointment when I declined trying out the replica Kalashnikov. Rocket launchers? Well, they were off today but so-and-so had a friend who.... Darra's wackiest souvenir is the pen gun. It sits in your top pocket like a fat, weighty pen and, once reassembled, shoots like the crude little gun it is. There are stories of the things blowing up in users' hands and, since my name's definitely not Bond, I kept mine deep in my pockets.

Since my companion needed the loo and Darra's no place to be caught with your pants down, we were led to a comfortable house. Its living room had cushions and divans, and the kind owner offered us a room for the night. But even he admitted this was no place to be after dark; things got "rowdy" and festering disputes could turn into seeping wounds. The Pathans' ethical code, Pashtunwali, demands revenge and honour as well as hospitality. Women and property - especially land - are the root of much tension.

Darra's other speciality is narcotics. With minimal discretion, sly-looking men lounge amidst bricks of hash and balls of opium. They talk in kilos, use calculators and credit cards aren't accepted. Yet the curious, camera-less Westerner is and no-one assumed I'd come to blow my mind. Just one glassy-eyed chap sidled up with a sales pitch: in his palms lay coils of resin so cheap some foreigners lit them like incense. Inspired or insane? Well, at this frontier it's easy to stray from Cheech & Chong into Midnight Express, and it might be better simply to Carry on up the Khyber.

For years the world's most famous pass - the Khyber - was off-limits to all but journalists and aid workers. Now, with a permit and armed escort, any visitor can drive up through the Suleiman Hills and gaze into Afghanistan. Nasir, a guide and fixer, arranged our car. At the 'Office of the Political Agent, Khyber' we obtained a permit, paid the fee and acquired an escort. A spry veteran in grey uniform emerged from the shadows, grabbed his rifle and we squeezed in together. As the car lurched forward, I found myself staring down his barrel. He caught my eye, grinned and adjusted the weapon so it pointed up the back of Nasir's head.

The Khyber is an odd attraction. It's not particularly scenic, there're no outstanding monuments or great sights. The Pass is not so much a particular spot as a winding 40km road through Khyber 'Agency', an ancient route of invaders since Alexander the Great. The Agency - one of seven comprising the Tribal Areas - borders Afghanistan and Government control is minimal. Officials talk instead of "influence". The Pass is the only part of Tribal Areas open to foreigners but even just off this road, Pakistani police have nothing to say. Permits list restrictions - you must take the specified route but not before sunrise or after sunset and photography of "Women Folk" is forbidden.

About 15km out of Peshawar, a scruffy barrier marked the Agency's boundary and minutes later we passed Jamrud Gate. Marble signs sketch the region's history and one acknowledges Alexander - many a young local "might stand as a model for Apollo while the elder with his classical beard can display the gravity of Zeus". Local Aphrodites were nowhere to be seen or even sensed.

Clumps of thorny bushes smudged the bleached hills. As our car groaned up through bends and loops, the air cooled slightly. A man shot past on a bicycle, towing two more. "Smuggler" said Nasir as another sped by, singing. They're paid 200 rupees a bike to ride from border to city, sixty hot and gearless kilometres. We paused near the massive Shagai Fort, built by the British in the 1920s and still used today. Its name means "hurling stones", a reference to catapults and cannons deployed to secure the celebrated Khyber Railway.

This was one of the Raj's engineering feats, climbing 600m via 32 tunnels, 94 bridges and several reversing stations. All but the tail end near Landi Kotal is intact and we caught glimpses of the line snaking heroically across ravines and ridges. The days when locals rode free - one condition of its construction - are long gone. Slow and vulnerable to disruption, the line now sees occasional use as the 'Khyber Steam Safari'. This tourist-only service recently resumed after months of uncertainty but the accompanying posse of armed guards isn't mere showpiece.

Nearing Landi Kotal, Nasir indicated a large walled compound similar to others along the way. "There, one of Khyber's richest drug dealers!". Like Al Capone's Chicago, the North West Frontier has its untouchables. "I don't mention his name" he continued "because escort won't like it; both from Afridi tribe". "Isn't he on our side?" I joked, but Nasir's look made clear that out here blood is far, far nobler than water.

And blood had been spilled just days earlier in a tribal shoot out. Though I'd never have known it, the area was tense and our details were noted at Khyber Rifles' HQ. We sped through a flyblown Landi Kotal, once the last word in druggy entrepots, and on to Michni checkpost. For foreigners this is the end of the road. I stood on a hillside dugout looking down the parched valley at Afghanistan. "Crazy place!" said Nasir, shaking his head, "you need a beard just for visa".

Peshawar itself is frenzied rather than edgy. We drove back through the Raj-era cantonment, all leafy boulevards and neat army bungalows. While Saddar district swept by in a blur of businesses and banks, Khyber Bazaar throbbed with death-defying traffic. The nearby Old City is Peshawar's heart and soul, and I set out to explore.

Today Qissa Khwami, 'Street of Storytellers', is an artery of merchants and eateries. Labyrinthine lanes and alleys lead off in all directions; one minute you're in the cloth bazaar, the next it's brass, metalwork or even hi-fi. Awnings shade raucous vegetable sellers while swarthy men with wooden carts hawk pomegranates, dates and mangoes. Women sail by, anonymous and veiled.

Beyond Cunningham Clocktower lies Ghor Khatri, an ancient crumbling caravanserai, from where I looped round to Karim Pura, a dense bazaar with decorative houses and tiny mosques. Men lounged barefoot on teahouse floors guzzling khawa, sweetened green tea. Tucked away beside the jewellers' bazaar is Mahabat Khan Mosque, built in the 1630s when the Moghuls were in power. Two centuries later the Sikhs used its minarets as gallows but local guides dwell instead upon the cool marble floors and arabesque frescoes.

I strolled past the massive walls of Bala Hisar Fort, now headquarters of the Frontier Corps. Grinning guards waved me over - a Rs200 ticket buys a guided tour of its bastions and parapets. I ended up on Cinema Road where garish hoardings of moustached heroes coaxed me into a cinema. The stills depicted a bevy of belly dancers who grow fangs and embark on an orgy of blood-letting. It was all nonsense, of course, but deep in the Frontier, tact is stranger than friction.

Articles

• More from Amar Grover