Trifter

Living in Dubai, I have a lot more exciting weekend travel options than I did back in Chicago, but while most Dubai expats opt to go skiing in Beirut or head to the Maldives for a snuggle with their other half, this particular weekend I opted for the shorter flight off to Kabul. 

Getting to Kabul turned out to be one of the harder tasks of the trip, as it seems with all the bulging steroid biceps working for Halliburton and the Afghan housewives of Jersey desperate to see their relatives, there were only two seats left on Pamir Airways to Kabul the Friday morning I was leaving.  (There were five flights that morning – Safi Airways/Ariana/and Kam Air all have regularly scheduled flights from Dubai to Kabul)  But two seats were all my roommate Jess and I needed, and so started our two and half hour flight to Karzai’s hood. Jess and I had hoped for bloody marys on our 7am flight, but our diluted version of the Muslim world living in Dubai was quickly reversed to a full strength shot by a reminder from our Filipino flight attendant that alcohol was not permitted in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan – whoops!

Touchdown brought a bit of relief with many American faces at the airport, and in fact, while they were stamping our passports a US military guy took over for one of the Afghans to do the processing — colonization at its finest? (Another aside – getting a visa for Afghanistan is very simple – go to the nearest consulate and they process a tourist visa on the same day – USD30 gets you 30 days – don’t believe anyone that tells you you need special permission, you don’t).

Our Hazara guide picked us up from the airport and we quickly drove downtown to meet our friend for lunch and cruise around town. To be sure, a friend isn’t necessary to visit Kabul, a good tour guide will do just as well, and a night at the Serena Kabul – a four star luxury resort in the middle of town goes for about USD170 per night. We, however, stayed with our American buddy at his simple and pleasant villa on an unpaved street near the US Embassy.

Lunch was at an Italian pizzeria behind two checkpoints and a 12 foot concrete wall that obviously catered to the contractor crowd making $300k/yr because 8 inch pizzas with some scattered mushrooms were 17 bucks a piece, and lobster could be had there as well, if you wanted to shell out 80 bucks…but our host was treating.

Next was the city tour – we captured all the major sites within four-five hours. First stop, Babur Gardens, a four hundred year old park built by the Mogul rulers that climbs up a mountain and offers beautiful vistas of the city. It was great to see all types of people, but especially young Afghans, just relaxing and enjoying the crisp weather. Next stop, Bird Market – very narrow streets lined with wrinkled faces hosting wooden cages full of exotic birds – very cool, I wanted to buy a vulture as a gift to our host, but Jess convinced me it would die in the heat of the car while we were going about our day….I think she was just afraid it might bite off our fingers. Third – Darul Aman Palace.  A beautiful neoclassical structure built in the 1920s and then bombed thrice (Russians/Taliban/Americans) and now completely dilapidated, which is unfortunate as it’s beauty rivals castles in Europe. It is now guarded by Americans in humvees with big guns – I wanted to wave and say hello as we passed by, but it just didn’t seem like the right thing to do. Maybe some opium drug lord will eventually start a charity to restore the palace to its former glory – for now though, its strategic hilltop location makes it a potential Talib hangout and therefore gets extra protection!

Darul Aman Palace

Next stop – the famed Chicken Street.  This two block shopping street was famous in the 70s with the hippies, and you can still get carpets, jewelry, and hash to reminisce on your Afghan journey.  I bought a carpet and told the shop owner that Jess and I were tourists visiting from Dubai – he laughed and asked us which embassy we worked for – and when we insisted, he told us we were the first tourist he had seen in four months. We finished off our tour with a cup of joe at Kabul City Center – a seven story mall/hotel in the middle of the city that was supposedly financed by a drug lord.  It was quite nice to end the day with a little modernity in the dusty city.  Then back to our friends for an early night after a little tipple of his moonshine, for some rest for our trip to the mountains the next day.

Kabul City Center

5AM. I hate getting up early, but when you have 48 hours to visit a country, sleep can be sacrificed.  Jess and I decided to take a day trip to the Panjshir Valley, the stronghold of the Northern Alliance, America’s allies in the fight against the Taliban in 2001. In Afghanistan, we are told, everything is regional, and we could have gone twenty miles in the wrong direction in Kabul and been in Talib land, where after we may not have been seen again until the 9 o’clock news in Iowa a few days later.  But if you know where to go, and who to be (a local guide is essential), then you are good to go. 

On the way to the Panjshir Valley, a two hour drive north of Kabul- where being American is ‘awesome’ – we were instructed by our Hazara driver that we were to be French today.  OK! No matter that I only know how to say ‘bon jour’, and even that phrase badly, it was going to be ok because they also only spoke Dari, and not even the Pashto that our guide could speak, so smiles and nods were going to be the communication of the day in any case.

The roads to Panjshir Valley were good (American dollars are doing something there) and we got to pass by Bagram Air Force Base on the way there, where the only Burger King in Afghanistan is…of course unannounced visits aren’t quite protocol and we had our valley to get to, so we zipped by.

Spending months in the dry desert of Dubai, we were elated an hour later when we saw lush green mountains and the Panjshir river rushing along the base.  We stopped along the river and I decided to join and Afghan taking a dip in the river, which I soon found out was very close to freezing.  When in Panjshir, be Panjshiri?  He could take the water a lot longer than I, but I still was sort of dumbfounded when I thought about what I was doing – I was in rural Afghanistan, in a region that was so heavily bombed by the Russians that the roadside is literally littered with rusted tanks and ordnance, and I was out swimming with a stranger, that back home everyone would label as a terrorist without a blink.  It was surreal, and very human.

Panjshir Valley

The road was blocked by the military shortly after a shrine to Massoud – local leader of the resistance in that region who was killed by the Taliban on September 9th, 2001.  We walked around the shrine, where the Panjshiri flock to in reverence to him, especially for his defeat of the Soviets in this valley; they were never able to take this region in all the years of their occupation.

On the way back to Kabul our driver stopped at a local family’s home where we broke bread together and enjoyed a simple lunch all the while nodding and smiling sincerely hoping we didn’t have to discuss Sarkozy or Rousseau. The meal consisted of potatoes, tomatoes, cilantro, radishes, and a simple tomato-based stew that was very tasty, along with lots of warm bread. Jess taught the kids a few French words, (she used to have a Parisian boyfriend, so I was counting on her to flirt with Panjshiris as needed) and I enjoyed the food and the gracious hospitality.

Meal with Afghan Family

Our trusty LandCruiser got us back to Kabul early so we decided to stop at the city zoo.  Unfortunately, the zoo was quite depressing, with about ten animals kept in dire cages, but we did see a German film crew doing a story on a lion that had lived through all of the previous wars and yet had died because an Afghan bombed it after his brother had been mauled by it a few weeks prior. It’s like Taher Soprano had to get revenge, poor lion. All I could think, however, was why this German film crew was not doing stories about the bombings in Kandahar, or the swindling mayor of Herat in the west, or the opium farmers across the country, but news is news.

I tried to get Jess to talk to some women in burkas and ask if I could take a photo, but she was squeamish, and we learned later that if one of their husbands saw me do it, he might have a Talib like response, so it was good in the end.  Women, however, were definitely not all wearing burkas, or even head scarves, and Jess’ makeshift scarf came on and off with the wind.

We got back to our friend’s place and enjoyed Chinese delivery and more booze, which turns out to be not so illegal if you know the right people.  Got to bed early and were off to the airport the next day, which included about seven checks before getting to the waiting area, including a full luggage and body search about a mile from the airport, so it was good we were early.  We flew Kam Air back to Dubai and chatted up a bicep boy on his way home to see the fam in Tennessee, he thought we were crazy, and well, we just wanted his biceps.

So, I have sort of skirted the issue of safety, but that was sort of the point.  When we were in Kabul there was no threat to us because we were Americans or white.  There was most certainly a higher likelihood of a bomb going off than say in Fargo, but we were not going to be targeted. The people were friendly, the scenery beautiful, and the country in dire need of attention from tourists, so we went, we would go again, and we even felt safe. 

If you decide to go, get a good tour guide, talk to people on the ground before you head off to Talib land, and make sure you don’t get bitten by a vulture.