Listening to: Johnny Cash, Best of
Reading: Still Life in Woodpecker, Tom Robbins
Although Afghanistan was firmly on the old hippy trail from Europe to India in the 60s and 70s, not many travelers put it on their itinerary these days. Given my interest in Central Asia and the fact that I had a friend working with the UN in Kabul, I decided to take the plunge and visit the last '-stan.' I've been on a mission to visit all 7 and collect the visas. I wonder what my free gift for that will be, better ask G.W.!
I was interested in doing a number of things in Afghanistan. First, I've read much about the years of war and chaos between the 1979 Soviet invasion and the 2001 ouster of the Taliban. Second, I wanted to see how the experiment of putting a country back together again was working and, specifically, the impact of the UN's efforts. Lastly, I wanted to spend some quality time with my old friend and backgammon competitor Matt Beckwith.
There are many books written about what happened to Afghanistan and what Afghanistan did to itself. Wars, poverty and extremism have taken their toll on a land which was not endowed with much monetary wealth from the beginning. What sticks out, whether you are talking about the 1870s or the 1970s, is a deeply ingrained sense of independence and self-reliance.
I could write about many events during my trip but, let me stick to two:
The Afghan e-ticket
Getting to Afghanistan was a bit of a chore. Really, how the hell do you get there from here? I must say the visa office in London dealt with my application for a tourist visa expeditiously. It was a cash and carry situation.
Obtaining my air ticket was another matter. The Ariana Afghan Airlines rep in London said they could only sell me a one-way ticket from Dubai to Kabul for the whopping price of £500 (US$1,000). To make matters worse, I would have to wire them the money blindly and wait for the ticket to be mailed to me. At that point, I enlisted the support of Matt. After a series perplexing of trips to the Ariana office in Kabul, he bought me a round-trip ticket for only US$345. Excellent, just FedEx that baby to me in London and we're ready to roll.
But, there is always a catch. Apparently, at their own main ticket office, they could not issue a physical ticket. Its Afghanistan after all, so cut them some slack. Matt was given a reference number which I needed to produce at the airport in Dubai at 4am before the flight. After pressuring them, he obtained a 'receipt' and sent me the scanned copy. I put it down to the fact that they must focus their finite resources on aircraft safety.
Not. The Boeing 727 was older than my by more than a decade. I swore I saw the ghost of DB Cooper, the legendary skyjacker who got away with $200,000 in 1971 by parachuting from the plane at 10,000 feet above Washington State. Let's just say it was an unnerving 2 and a half hours.
The flight was full and I sat next to an Uzbek who was visiting Afghanistan for the first time since his family escaped to the UAE when he was a baby. With what Uzbek and Arabic I could muster, we managed to have a conversation. Thankfully, the large western family which first sat next to me moved to seats farther back. They were so obviously Christian missionaries that I did not want to be within 10 meters of them. I'm not sure if its guts or stupidity to try and convert Afghans but I did not want to find out. On the flip side, it made me feel much more secure as they would be higher on anyone's hit list than little inconspicuous me.
Into the Panshir
Because of the security situation (read the next blog), we were not able to go down to Bamiyan- the site of the 5th century Buddha sculptures carved into mountainsides and subsequently demolished by the Taliban. Instead, we traveled north to my preferred destination- the Panshir valley.
In this valley, a determined resistance by essentially stone-aged tribesmen headed off the comparably space-age Soviet juggernought in the 1980s. Because of their geographic isolation and ethnic tensions with the southern Pashtuns, the people of the Panshir fought largely unaided and with their backs to the wall. Following as many as 10 attempts to take the valley with mechanized troops, tanks, bombers and helicopters, the Soviets desisted, soon abandoning their folly in Afghanistan all together.
In the subsequent years, the valley maintained itself as the unassailable base of operations for the legendary Mujahaddin leader Ahmed Shah Masood, a skilled tactician and Islamic moderate. In the days before the September 11th attacks, he was assassinated by those in league with Al-Qaida and the Taliban. While the Northen Alliance, which he would no doubt would have led, swept into Kabul months later with the help of US troops, Masoods loss is still felt.
The carnage of those decades of struggle- burnt tanks, destroyed villages and an unhealthy sprinkling of landmines- remains to this day. The contrast of the valley's majesty with modern destruction is kind of surreal. Listening to Johnny Cash, the only tape available but not a bad choice, made it more so. Pictures are worth a thousand words; I'm not sure what the effect of Johnny will be on you though.
After visiting the tomb and headquarters of Masood, we retired to the river bank for a picnic and game of backgammon with one of my toughest competitors, Matt. I was lucky to win the set. Lastly, I bought a Pacoal, a traditional Afghan hat, which I've aspired to purchase for years. It was especially nice to buy it in Pashir but, sadly, it was made in Peshawar (Pakistan).
Was this the first example of a tourist hat-hawk in that village?
Kabul Hotels
11 votes 
