India Overland with Swagman Tours, London to Kathmandu.

Bamiyan to Bandi-Amir
We spend the rest of the day exploring the caves and passages around the Buddhas. Fred and I took a drive around the farmland around Bamiyan and met some of the locals. The people here are mainly Hazars, friendly with an easy laugh. Everywhere we stop we soon have a crowd of curios onlookers who treat us as if "Doctor Who" had just landed. I have a little trick I play on the kids which brings howls of laughter. I get a brown paper bag and pretend to throw something into the air, then run around as if I'm trying to catch it in the bag, by snapping my fingers the bag makes a sound as if something has landed in it. When the kids look in the bag there is nothing there. Each time I throw it up they look up then run over to check the bag. It takes about 3 goes before they realise what's going on, then its laughs and back slapping all round. The people are very poor, their clothes are rags and shoes have been mended many times, but they are not unhappy. They don't know any different, this is their life. We arrive back at the tea house in late afternoon to find a small drama.	Bamiyan's Buddha
We have a brother and sister travelling with us they are Dutch, a nice couple but I have always thought him a bit unusual, I just couldn't put my finger on the problem. Dirk has had diarrohea for a couple of days and this afternoon he collapsed, his sister is very worried and confides that he has a problem. When he was young there was an accident in which he lost both of his testicles and that effects his health, she wants him to see a doctor. We are about 6 hours drive from Kabul, but in the dark it would be very dangerous to attempt that. Fred goes off and comes back with a Doctor, well he says he is a Doctor. He checks Dirk and says he is very dehydrated and is suffering from potassium deficiency, which is a symptom of the lack of testes. He wants us to take him to the hospital and find a fluid drip and potassium salts at the market. The hospital turns out to be a small room inside a mud compound with one bed, no electric light and signs of rats. Fred and I head for the market and soon find a shop selling drugs which does have an intravenous drip, but the use by date was 2 years ago.	Bamiyan's Market
They say beggars can't be choosers so we buy the 2 drips he has and a small bottle of potassium salts and head back to the hospital. The Doctor is not concerned about the expired drip, he says the potassium is not medical grade and he can't be sure its pure or how strong it is. While we were away Dirk has got worse, he is not really conscious and with his sisters OK, the Doctor starts the drip which has been laced with potassium. We try to get him to drink water and administer "Flagal" a drug to stop his body losing any more water. After what seems like hours he comes round and does appear to be a bit better. The second drip is set up and the Doctor leaves telling us to stay with him and to call if he gets any worse. His sister and two others take the first watch while Fred and I go back to the tea house for a meal. This has made me realise just how remote we are and that all the services we take for granted are just not available to many of the world's people.	Hospital Compound
The tea house was warm and after an omelette and flat bread we sat around talking over tomorrow's trip to Bandi-Amir. If the Afghans were put out by our presence they didn't show it, musicians played in the corner and the locals were enjoying the atmosphere as much as we were. We were not the only tourists in town, a couple of VW combivans were parked in the main street and the western strangers in the corner must have been the occupants. I notice a young guy who seemed to be staring at me and after awhile he came over and said " I think I know you, didn't you used to drive the 310 bus past Broxbourne Grammar?" I managed a "yes" and he said "you used to pick me up from school". Well I was bowled over, here I am in one the worlds most remote locations and the only other persons in town remembers seeing me in the cab of a London Transport double decker bus about 5 years ago!. Nothing has surprised me since that day, life is just one big coincidence.	Tea House Bamiyan
The night passed uneventful apart from being eaten alive by fleas from the tea house carpets. Dirk was better but not fit to go anywhere yet, he could rest in Bamiyan for the day while we tried to get to Bandi-Amir. Not everyone wanted to go as there was no guarantee that we could make it all the way, so about 15 of us set off on the 3 hour drive over some difficult road. It had been dry so the road was not too bad, but in places it was obvious that just a little rain would make it impassable to us. It was slow as we had to keep checking that the bus wasn't bottoming out in the very deep gullies in the road. The day was great, a deep blue sky with not a cloud in sight , perfect weather to get the very best view of the lakes. They are such a surprise that water can be so blue, the naturally formed dam walls make it hard to believe that some ancient force didn't have a hand in their construction.	Road to Bandi-Amir
Lakes of Bandi-Amir	We spent two hours walking around and taking in the view before heading to a small restaurant that seemed to have no other customers for a lunch of flat bread, with what tasted like yogurt and a strange looking jam. The trip back was uneventful but that was not a road I would try again. There were just too many things that could go wrong and when you are this remote, taking risks is asking for trouble. Arrived back late afternoon to find Dirk looking better, but I suspect he was putting on a brave face as he looked drawn and weary. We talked about getting him back to Kabul on the local bus, but he was adamant he wanted to come up to Mazar. I hoped we didn't live to regret it. The men at the tea house thought we could get to Mazar, they said the road was rough but a small bus did go that way once or twice a week and trucks can get through in good weather. They did say that rain had caused damage to the road recently but it should be fixed by now.
Afghan landscape	This next part of the trip was not sounding easy, the fear was that we would drive for hours only to find we couldn't get through and have to turn back. We discussed this at length and were on the brink of calling it off when the passengers got wind of it. They were adamant that they wanted to go, we explained that the road was very narrow and followed a river valley for miles. Landslides were the most likely thing to stop us as this road was not a real road and hence not maintained. They still wanted to go and we gave in. We wanted to go, but if anything happened to the bus who was going to tell Norm?
The trip continued