The beginning of Central Asia

Five miles beyond the police post the road forked left for the Afghan Frontier. It crossed a dry river bed with banks of gravel and went up past a large fortified building set on a low hill. After my pointless immersion I had become cold and my teeth were chattering. It seemed a good enough reason to stop the vehicle and have a look. Only some excuse such as this could halt our mad career, for whoever was driving seemed possessed of a demon who made it possible ever to stop. Locked in the cab we were prisoners. We could see the country we passed through but not feel it and the only smells, unless we put our heads out of the window (a hazardous business if we both did it at the same time), were the fumes of the exhaust and our foul pipes; vistas we would gladly have lingered over had we been alone were gone in an instant and for ever. If there is any way seeing less of a country than from a motor-car I have yet to experience it.
The building as a caravanserai, ruined and deserted, built of thin flat bricks. The walls were more than twenty feet high, decorated on the side were the gate was with blind, pointed arches. Each corner was defended by a smooth round tower with a crumbling lip.
Standing alone in the wilderness of scrub, it was an eerie place. The wind was strong and under the high gateway, flanked by embrasures, it whistled in the machicolations. Inside it was a warren of dark, echoing tunnels and galleries round a central court, open to the sky, with the same pointed arches as on the outer wall but here leading into small cells for the accommodation of more important travellers. In time of need this was a place that might shelter a thousand men and their animals.
The roof was grown thik with grass and wild peas, masking open chimney holes as dangerous as oubliettes. The view from the ramparts was desolate.
The air was full of dust and, as the sun set, everything was bathed in a blinding saffron light. There was not a house or a village anywhere, only a whitewashed tomb set on a hill and far up the river bed, picking their way across the grey shingle, a file of men and donkeys. Here for me, rightly or wrongly, was the beginning of Central Asia.

Chapter six : Airing in a closed carriage [fragment]
uit: A short walk in the Hindu Kush - Eric Newby