Kabul Caravan

October 5, 2007 PM

06-01

Kabul, Afghanistan

We are staying at the Mustafa Hotel at $40 per night. Actually the rate is $20 per person so we should get two rooms for this price. We are not staying here because it is such a great place, in fact it isn't, but because it is the cheapest place that accepts foreigners and has a legendary reputation as a place where journalists and international adventurers used to stay. There aren't many journalists or adventurers here now, but we met a couple. Most of those people probably have a bigger expense account these days and can afford to pay $80 to $100 a nite at the safer places. We met Will Everett here in the dining room. Will is from Connecticut; a competent and clean cut young man he works as a free lance broadcast journalist. Over a couple Heinekens ($3 per can) he told us of a story he's working on about Afghan amputees who have set up a courier service for NGOs in Kabul. Apparently they are able to scoot around the city traffic jams with great efficiency to deliver documents and parcels. His vita includes a 4 hour series on NPR in which he interviewed WWI survivors. He was quite surprised to find two American tourists here and especially a couple Pollyannas who would carelessly take a taxi from Torkham to Kabul. An older adventure journalist type we met at the bar came from Quebec, where he had left a wife and three kids which seemed to worry him. We think he said his name was Michener or something like that. He more closely fit our image of a war correspondent down on his luck and losing his nerve. He ticked off the war zones he'd covered over the years and let on his fear that he had taken too many chances and his number might be up. This was his fourth trip to 'ghan'. He was darkly exciting to be around because he was so suspicious and paranoid always looking over his shoulder and lowering his voice so no one in the empty dining room would over hear our conversation. He didn't think we should be here; in fact he didn't think he should be here either. In the night Arvid went out in the dark Kabul streets to find some bottled water so we could make coffee in the morning (we are more fearful of bacteria then the Taliban) the Kabul night seemed even more menacing after listening to Michener. Arvid was returning with the water, like Ichabod Crane, with long fast strides when a movement and a "psst!" from the shadow of a doorway near the Mustafa sent a numbing shot of adrenalin through his body ending in a tingling in his nasal passages. Michener, wearing a trench coat, stepped slightly forward into the dim light; a mug of hot tea in one hand and a cigarette in the other. With a conspirator's gesture of his head he motioned Arvid closer. "Did you see those guys in brown up there?" "No, we've been in our room." "I wonder who they are?" Arvid could not resist offering fuel to his paranoia, "Maybe they're spooks." Michener nodded, "That's what I was thinking."

06-02

October 6, 2007

At our free breakfast of bread, jam and tea, it looked like whatever Michener had been on the night before had worn off and he was all chipper and fearless. This morning we need to change some of the dollars we had bought in Pakistan into Afghanis. This means we have to venture out into Kabul, although daylight now we are a little fearful and we have to screw up our nerve. A young modern Afghani girl at the hotel who had recently return from a high school student exchange program in the US told us how to get to the gold market where the money changers are and that we would pass a bookstore with English language books. It turned out the bookstore was just down the street and across an intersection. But it seemed like a long way in our state of high tension. The bookstore, Shah M. Book Co., was a good experience and we highly recommend that you stop there if you go to Kabul. The owner Shah Muhammad Rais and his son speak excellent English and were helpful with suggestions on how we could get to the money changers and how to use the local buses to get to Mazar-e Sharif. They had a calming effect on our fear of Kabul; if the rest of the Kabulis are as nice we'll have no problem here. We picked out some books and asked the owner for a recommendation; he offered a slim book that he himself had written. It wasn't until we had read it that we realized that we had been with the world famous "Bookseller In Kabul." We went off to the gold market where Irina restrained herself and there we found the money changers. No problem here and we got a bit above the official rate, which is around 62 Afghanis to the dollar. From the gold market it is a short distance to the bazaar. We had read in our travel guide that we should avoid crowds, but that is impossible at the bazaar. In some countries people avoid physical contact, but not here. After a while we got used to being bumped and jostled. On this our first day, we only made a short jaunt into the market before returning to the hotel. In the afternoon we went around the corner to Chicken Street. Two or three blocks up Chicken St., and half a block to the left, is a bank with an ATM machine which worked for our card. It's always nice to get money from home.

06-03

October 7, 2007

Today we take leisurely walks around the old central city of Kabul, back up Chicken St., and deep into the Mandi Market. There is internet service at the hotel so we are able to catch up with our e-mail. Okay we did not see those must-see attractions like the museum and the Gardens of Babur. But we'd rather rub shoulders with the common people and see the real Kabul. That may sound like a rationalization but when we considered the extent of destruction in the city from nearly 30 years of war, and the poverty of the country, our looking at recently and pathetically recreated gardens and museums seemed irrelevant. From the condition of the monuments we did see we figured we did not miss much, except being able to say we saw them. What we did find were generally friendly people, not as openly hospitable as Pakistanis but no outright hostility either. Compared with places like India we found few beggars. The public space is not a woman's realm in Afghanistan, it's a man's world. At least 90% of the people out in public are men. 90% of the women are covered in burqas . . . blue burqas. Irina bought a dozen doll sized burqas so our impious friends can cover up their grandchildren's Barbie dolls. Few people speak English here, but this is understandable they have enough to do to keep up with their own half dozen languages and dialects. Most of the educated class and artisans fled the country when the Taliban came to power. It is probably easier to find the jewelry and handicrafts Afghanistan is famous for in Pakistan where millions of refuges still live. Those items certainly are cheaper there, but that is partly because NATO soldiers and NGOs have driven up prices here. There is not a wide variety of produce in the traditional markets, although what they have is interesting and we enjoyed the nuts and dried fruits.

06-04

October 8, 2007

Today we got our bus tickets to Mazar-e Sharif. Some weeks back a very trustworthy and reliable Afghan tour company had offered to drive us with an armed escort in a 4-wheel drive vehicle to the Uzbek border for $500. We gave that careful consideration even though that meant we would miss Mazar-e Sharif. But here at the Mustafa Hotel and at Shah M. Book Co. we were told that it was safer to go to Mazar-e Sharif by bus and take a taxi to the Uzbek border. This has always made since to us: it seemed that a couple of American tourists in the backseat of a shiny new 4WD with a logo on the side would be more of a target than if in a regularly scheduled bus with 50 or 60 natives. But beyond this eminently sensible logic is the cost factor. Our tickets to Mazar-e Sharif cost only 800 Afghanis; that's less than $13 for the both of us.

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