Journey through forbidden land

Books editor MARGIE THOMSON reviews New Zealander Richard Loseby's enthralling account of his travels in wartorn Afghanistan.

There is a marvellous scene - one among many - that comes near the middle of New Zealander Richard Loseby's account of his journey to Afghanistan, Blue is the Colour of Heaven (Penguin, $27.95).

He is on his way out of Iran in the company of the rebel fighters of Hizbollah and on his way, finally, to Afghanistan. He has already survived an arduous odyssey from Turkey into Iraq (which seems as unsavoury a place as you could wish to find anywhere), and from there into Iran, where he has threaded back and forth, eventually making his way to the city of Mashad, not far from the Afghanistan border.

Having made contact with Hizbollah (he sat for hours across the wide road running past their building, staring at the high wall and iron gate, plucking up courage and rehearsing what he would say), he has been generously welcomed in what we come to see is a typical Afghan way, and included in the next truck across the border.

He rushes for the truck, scrambles aboard as it moves fast across the courtyard, and then hangs on as it makes its way through the cool, early-morning city, heading for open road.

"Jang! Jang! To war! To war!" one young soldier shouts heartily, jabbing Loseby in the shoulder. "Now there was no turning back," Loseby remarks as the countryside flashes by.

It is easy to share, from the comfort of one's armchair of course, the lifting of spirits and surge of adrenalin as a lifelong dream is about to be realised.

It is all a far cry from Auckland's leafy Greys Ave where Loseby now works as senior writer at DDB advertising agency and is preoccupied with such things as last year's controversial Football Kingz television ads (remember the pooch falling out the window?).

Yet Loseby had dreamed of Afghanistan since, as a child, he was captivated by his father's story of working at the Bank of New South Wales in Sydney when an Afghan man, a recent immigrant to Australia, came in to open an account, throwing down a ragged leather pouch in which were uncut precious stones.

Loseby's imagination was fired. "The Afghan as I pictured him, had blue eyes set like jewels in a smiling brown face, and hair as black as pitch. The trailing end of his hat, which I soon learned to call a turban, fell down the entire length of his back and he walked with a jaunty step. He was always cheerful; nothing troubled him too much ... "

Loseby headed to the wide world as soon as he could. It was in London, where he worked in advertising, that he set his dream in motion. By this stage there was an added dimension to the trip: his father had died young, several years before, and Loseby felt, somehow, that going to this place that they had imaginatively shared might help him to come to terms with the death.

But at that time, 1989, the Soviets had recently withdrawn from the country, a civil war was continuing and no foreigners were allowed in. In fact, an enormous bounty was offered to anyone turning in an illegal visitor. "You're mad," was the most common response when Loseby told people his plan. "You'll never get out alive."

But he went anyway, carrying with him a winning combination of sheer determination, an appealing personality that allowed him to make the easy, sometimes close, friendships that gave extra meaning to his journey, and helped to ensure progress through the dangerous landscape, and the intelligence to handle tricky encounters and emerge intact.

He also carried a useful fake letter, introducing him as an emissary from the Geographical Institute, written in Farsi and signed by the important-sounding Sir Winston Scott, the creation of Loseby's girlfriend (now wife) Elisabeth.

It seems bizarre that a Westerner could just saunter in off the street and ask to be aided into an out-of-bounds country in time of war.

Loseby blended in as best he could: he wore the shalwar camise and turban of an Afghan, and carried only an old khaki bag in which were stored his journal, a knife, map, camera and lightweight poncho, toothbrush, soap, passport and enough money for several months in Afghanistan - 6000 Afghan rupees, or less than $45.

He had, in his months of travel in Turkey and Iran, learnt enough Farsi to get by, and by journey's end he was fairly fluent.

Nevertheless, a huge part of his success was because of the welcoming nature of the Afghan people, of whom Loseby cannot speak highly enough. One of them, Nebi, with whom Loseby develops a strong bond, even gives him his Afghani name, Massoud Mohandaaspoor, after Nebi's dead brother.

"In every place we were welcomed and made to sit down while tea was brewed," he writes. "Curious faces, both young and old, watched my every move and I became conscious of how I sat, spoke and drank my tea. In every case, however, I was always made to feel at home. The cleanest glass was allocated to me, the best sugar lumps were put within my reach. I was a guest. But more than that, my presence was like a boost of morale for them. I was the living embodiment of the outside world listening to their story."

His initial weeks with the Hizbollah read like an action-movie script: their jeep, which is packed with missiles, is fired on repeatedly and they only escape by wildly zig-zagging across the pitted desert ground until they are out of range; he narrowly avoids mortar fire, although the shock of the explosion "plays havoc upon my nerves for several days afterwards"; he sees the terrible consequences of bullets, shrapnel and the ubiquitous mines.

In one extraordinary scene, he joins a crowd gathered on a rooftop around an ancient television to watch a BBC documentary on Afghanistan, A Nation's Agony, as missiles arc overhead to a target some kilometres away.

The book's appeal is that Loseby never laments his choice to be where he is. He calmly observes people and events (and honestly addresses the tricky question of the line between neutral observer and participant).

With his increasingly bushy beard and outgoing manner, he fits in. He comes to love these people, and his book is not only a fascinating piece of reportage (he was also in Iran at the time of Ayatollah Khomeini's death) but a lovely, evocative account of his personal odyssey to make a childhood dream come true, and to recapture something of his father's presence in the enormity of the Afghan landscape.

During his 800km walk from Herat to the Pakistan border (his boots last the distance, his feet are fine), as he gets fitter and his rhythm settles, he muses on this ancient way of travelling before "modern modes of transport taught us that distance is subject to speed. Here speed was a constant, something beyond our power to control given the various physical constraints, and rather than being measured, any journey was simply undertaken."

He always planned to write a book about his experiences, and on his return to England that is what he did. It sat in his drawer for 10 years, during which Loseby and Elisabeth came back to New Zealand, had two children and settled into a life very different from these Afghan adventures, but then when the planes slammed into New York's Twin Towers and the world's eyes turned to the terrorists of Afghanistan, Loseby decided this was a good time to try to get published.

He feels he's giving something back to a country and a people he loves.

In many ways, despite the subject matter, this is an apolitical book. Loseby is simply a terrific travel writer, brave enough to be honest about his own emotional investment in his project, and to make such an unlikely journey; humble enough to accept what he found pretty much on its own terms.

Our understanding of the landscape and people behind the news - of repressive regimes, bombing, mountain battles - will be greatly enhanced by this book. It's also an energetic, captivating and inspiring read which could well have you turning to your nearest and saying, "Honey, I've got a great idea ... "