This is Candace – to local Afghans, Candace looks like a Hazara man. This let Candace get away with a lot. I was a little jealous.
One of the reasons I travel are the people I meet along the way. In Afghanistan I met Candace – a 28 year old Australian of Chinese origin – who about a year and a half ago decided to quit work and travel… cross dressing her way across the most volatile region in the world .
“I thought I’d only be gone for about six months but it’s been a year and a half so far,” Candace said. She started in India, made her way through Pakistan, China and into Afghanistan. Along the way, because of her hair and her style of dress, everyone assumed she was a man… which let her get away with a lot more than any woman could have. Candace and I met up at the Afghan Ski Challenge in Bamiyan where she agreed to be videotaped and, after the jump, she tells us what Afghans really think of white people and which tribe members makes the worst husbands:
Related: Avalanches, Death Threats and No Lifts. Welcome to the World’s Most Dangerous Ski Race
Now, some of you may be thinking WHY IN THE HELL WOULD SOMEBODY POSE AS A MAN??? ESPECIALLY IN AFGHANISTAN WHICH IS DANGEROUS ENOUGH ALREADY?
It’s all about the Benjamins. It’s cheap if you’re a man – Candace was surviving on $6-8 dollars a day (which means, the less she spends a day the longer she can travel). She could stay at the ChaiKhanas (tea houses), which are for men, and bathe in the local Hamams (baths). She could use public transportation without fear of harassment and interact with both segments of society. Sometimes I think she forgot she was posing as a dude. At one point, she told my pal James: “I find girls are really standoffish to me here.” To which James rolled his eyes and said, “it’s because they think you’re a boy.”
Related: The Silk Road City Time Forgot: The Side of Afghanistan You Never Knew Existed
Think about it – it would be like Priscilla Queen of the Desert rolling up in small town Kentucky. Wherever Candace went, once people figured out she might be a girl, hilarity ensued. One female concierge at a hotel in Bamiyan actually started crying from laughing so hard.
Here’s Candace talking about Tajiks, whities and looking like a dude:
She is REALLY asking for trouble OR she is just plain stupid!
They don’t like white people bc a lot of the white people they meet are military or with the government. Speaking from the military side we were told to speak with afghan women nor look at them. So of course we will be looking the other way and trying not to speak with afghan women. If we did speak with them it’d make it more likely one of those friendly Tajiks she mentioned would throw acid on the female’s face….. Most Afghanistan is living in the Stone Age…it makes me sick how little rights women have there. During my year there I read countless reports of women being stoned to death for sleeping with a married man. The married man got no punishment and forget about the fact the sex between the two was most likely a rape committed by said married man….
Wow! I really did not know that military men were told not to speak with Afghan women or look at them. It’s interesting to know but it’s also quite pathetic. I don’t know how to feel about this
This is kinda dangerous to have out on the net if she’s still travelling.
shes fine – shes in Austria…. I wouldnt have put it up if she was still in the area!
What amazing guts. I pray she stays safe
Brave girl! I’d love to hear much, much more from her – does she have a website?
I’m no exert on the subject, but I would think that now that Candace has “outed” herself like this, she’d best get out of there and not go back Afghanistan or Pakistan. Maybe Iran is still OK for her, since she’s a foreigner, but I don’t know.
@ Dennis – Thanks for that perspective – it’s interesting to know that military are told not to speak with the women in Afghanistan. I will just point out to you that Afghanistan was not always like this – as recently as the 1970s, it was a pretty relaxed, liberal place, very popular with Western tourists, as was Iran. Nobody today seems to know this, but all this “Islamist extremism and terrorism” was created by the UK & US secret services, together with their buddies in the Saudi and Pakistani secret services – THEY created the Mujahideen, al Qaeda, Taliban, and even the Islamic Republic of Iran (after stabbing the Shah of Iran in the back – our good friend and ally, but no longer willing to be a puppet). So don’t look down on the good people of these countries or consider them backward or savages – they have been suffering these past 35 years under religious fanatics that WE created and imposed upon them!
Yes, they’ve been Muslim for many hundreds of years, but even just 35 years ago, this kind of extreme, inhuman, Saudi-style Islam was unheard of in Iran and Afghanistan. What kind of hell would the US be today if 35 years ago the Soviet Union and China (for example) helped the KKK or some other extremist Christian group take over our government and impose their insanity on everyone? How would you like it if everyone around the world came to think of the KKK as representative of true Christianity?
@Dennis (not sure if Dennis wrote this or whether it’s addressed to Dennis) – Wow, what a load of bullshit you managed to squeeze into those two short paragraphs. I’d be interested to hear any of the evidence you have that the “UK & US secret services” were involved in “creating” Islamist extremism, or that they created the Mujahideen, al Qaeda, Taliban, etc etc. Islamic radicalism is a pan-Islamic phenomenon and, unsurprisingly, its origins lie in the Muslim world. The Mujahideen, Taliban and Al Qaeda are all very different movements, although people who like to make things really simple and just say the West is responsible for everything tend to confuse them all. Afghanistan and Iran were more secular in the 1970s but there has been massive social and political change in Iran since then and in Afghanistan there was the small matter of the Soviet invasion and ten years of occupation, decimation of the population, etc. Most Muslim countries are experiencing a move towards a more conservative religious culture — that includes Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey… so are you saying the West is responsible for all that too? I hear over and over again that the US “created” the Taliban and al Qaeda, repeated ad infinitum by people who have obviously never spent five minutes reading some Afghan history, but prefer to see the world through their own simplistic “we are to blame” ideology because that’s what makes them feel self-righteous and avant-garde. I suggest a little bit of background reading at some point… It helps to understand the world.
Pingback: Travel Writing Round Up [December 2014] - Caroline in the City Travel Blog
Wow! Hahahah! Cool! Until the idiot get kidnapped and becomes an international problem. Worse, if they behead her!. Really asking for trouble.
youll be happy to know she is safe and sound in austria right now
@IanMacWilliam. Of course we all know that Western influence in the region has been totally beneficial to the people there. Sure, we may have bombed their countries into the stone age, tortured, raped and caused the deaths of close to one million people. But, the ones who have survived the onslaught must be so very grateful to the glorious invaders!
As for Candace. Very well done. It’s great to see people who actually grasp life and do something with it as opposed to the overwhelming majority who totally waste their lives away working and watching mindless TV shows.
Thoughtful individual. I used to travel like her during the 80’s in the sense that I got to see and experience so much more of the world by making myself unobtrusive, amiable and clearly respectful. Does she have a website or blog?
Love her! I have thought that the only way I would visit Morocco would be in drag, especially if I was alone. It makes sense, some of those places the only way a woman can safely travel is as a man. It takes courage and an easy going nature that she has in spades. Well done Candace!
I have to laugh (otherwise I would rage) at some of the comments. It’s like some would be happier if we women would just stay in the kitchen while the men go out and do dangerous adventures. Pah to all of you and get out of our way.
morocco is actually fine to travel solo to – my 75 year old mom just went and LOVED it!!! go for it! and you are right re come of the comments – ah well. i do love me some crazies!