Leaving Uzbekistan

The next morning it was already time to rush back to Afghanistan before my visa expired, lest I find myself like Cinderella at the border, in all wrong clothes and a huge penalty to pay.
Alas, it was already getting late by the time we reached the border, and what with the Uzbeks having perhaps the most paranoid government on earth (up there with N Korea, Saudi A and Turkmenistan), we didn’t have an easy time of it. They moaned about my visa, they sifted through Ed's pockets, accused us of hiding our customs declaration and disappeared with my passport for an hour and a half, leaving us on a concrete curb in the gathering gloom.
We had 40 kg of luggage with us – having collected my voluminous winter wardrobe from storage in Tashkent, and were expected to walk over the 3km of bridge and no man's land, because "it is not safe" to allow cars across at night. Luckily we persuaded a special status UN car to take our heaviest bag across with them.
By the time we reached Afghanistan it was 8pm, and the Afghan on duty had fallen asleep. There was no sign of a car to pick us up. Finally we managed to persuade the roaringly drunk head of the border police to let us use his phone to call Mazar. We were told by a frightened young radio operator that he had been refused permission to send us a car, because the road from Mazar was "dangerous at night". Neither he nor anyone else in the cuckoo organisation that employs Ed had any suggestions as to what we might do in a small Afghan border town until it became safe to send a car for us (the next day), so we are lucky that the drunk commander decided to take us in hand.
We were ushered us into his own room in the barracks, the way flanked by saluting underlings, who scrambled to carry our luggage without dislodging their machine guns from their shoulders. He gestured to the amenities his room offered, and announced we should sleep there ("Clean sheets!" he remarked several times for our benefit), while he ordered his underlings to fetch us rice and meat, fruit, Pepsi and vodka (the latter largely for his own benefit).
One junior soldier with his Kalash on his back was made to peel and chop apples for us, while another was dispatched to find us a suitable room for the night (after a few more vodkas he had concluded that "it is not good for women to sleep near soldiers").
He regaled us with stories of his Buzkashi exploits (the Afghan ancestor of polo in which a headless sheep or calf is substituted for the ball, and rules are few), and showed us the ugly scars on his leg dating from the last match. He proved his great love of horses by showing us his mobile phone, which whinnied on command, and commissioned us to buy him a pair of British Army boots when we next had the opportunity.
So, after dinner and toasts we were driven off to the flat of one of his colleagues, where a meek little wife and seven children smiled shyly at us and made us up a bed for the night. I fell asleep almost as soon as I had been ushered into the ladies’ room, but Ed enjoyed a few more rounds of Afghan courtesy before joining me.
In the morning we were plied with cake and fried meats, quince jelly and fresh cream, while the family apologised profusely for not joining us in any refreshments, as it is Ramadan and they were all fasting. They had had their breakfast at 4am. We were sat down in front of the telly (which was showing "Antz") until the ACTED car finally arrived to take us to Mazar.