The Amu Darya River forms a natural barrier between the lands of Central Asia to the north and the Afghan and Indian worlds to the south.
Ancient writers called it the Oxus.
It was the nucleus of Bactrian civilizations, the target of conquerors like Alexander the Great, and the destination of intrepid 19th and 20th century travelers.
The exact location of the river’s source became a topic of dispute when the Great Game between Imperial Britain and Tsarist Russia turned this territory into the distant border of empires.
Part of that buffer zone included a mysterious valley that runs between the Pamir, Hindu Kush and Karakoram mountains.
Though the Wakhan Corridor was used as a trading route by early travelers including Marco Polo, its extreme ruggedness and remoteness couldn’t have made it a popular option.
Today it’s a bizarre geographical dead end, closed to traffic for more than a century. And it remains one of the world’s least-visited corners.
I first got interested in the Wakhan when I read The Great Game by Peter Hopkirk. I’ve wanted to go there ever since, and today I’m speaking with someone who did.
Bill Colegrave is the author of Halfway House to Heaven, an account of his journey to find the source of the Oxus River, and the compiler of Scraps of Wool, an anthology of some of the world’s greatest travel writing. He was also owner and publisher of Cadogan Guides.
You can follow him on Linkedin and Twitter.
We spoke about the Great Game, the Wakhan Corridor, and the challenges of traveling to such a remote place.
These are the books we mentioned in the podcast:
- Halfway House to Heaven: Unveiling the Mystery of the Majestic River Oxus
- Scraps of Wool: A Journey Through the Golden Age of Travel Writing
We also mentioned:
- The Great Game by Peter Hopkirk
- Alexander Burns
- George Nathaniel Curzon
- Francis Younghusband
- Kim by Rudyard Kipling
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I have just listened to this (I came via The Oldie piece by Bill Colegrave). My Afghanistan was 1972, and the country of Bruce Chatwin, (does no one read him anymore?), Peter Levi, Lesley Blanche, Freya Stark and especially Robert Byron’s Road to Oxiana. The Wakhan was closed to anyone except Americans with the cash to hunt Marco Polo sheep, but the rest of the country was such a sublime experience. We met camel trains on the road between Bamyan and Band-i-Amir (now totally polluted I think) and could go north to Mazar-i -Sharif, where icecream was a mistake!. Happy days, but I was young!
Thank you Barbara, that’s a great story. It must have been such an interesting region to travel. It saddens me to see places close or become too dangerous to travel, but others also open up after decades of inaccessibility. A reminder to go when the going is good. I’m grateful I got to see Syria, and Jebel Uweinat, and the Tibesti Mountains in Chad.
I recorded a podcast conversation about Bruce Chatwin a couple years ago. You’ll find it in the Personal Landscapes archives. I tried to arrange one on Robert Byron, too; I spent two months reading and re-reading and preparing questions — and then the biographer, a very nice man, spent a year and a bit rescheduling the recording date over and over again, kicking it down the road, until I finally gave up.