BootsnAll Travel Network



We’re in Kabul!

Wow, I’ve made it through Afghanistan and some of the toughest travelling anywhere! On our ride into the country there was almost a shoot-out, but not with Taliban. The Police and the Afghan army almost got into it with each other, in the end though cool heads prevailed, even after a police man pointed his rifle at the head of an Afghan army member!!

We left Peshawar (Pakistan) early in the morning, took a local bus (tourists aren’t supposed to but…) and crossed the Khyber Pass. Throughout history this area and has proved to be hell for anyone stupid enough to try to invade. The Khyber Pass is the entrance to an unforgiving land with old forts dotting the horizon, with dust and sand in everything (including your mouth). Oh… and the border of the U.S. led (supported by NATO and other coalition forces) war on terror. So, it should come as no surprise when i say it felt like an adventure just driving through, even on a bus. There was a feeling in the air there that I can’t really describe (more so in Kabul), maybe it’s the history and wildness of the country, or maybe just the reputation and fear that the names Kabul, or The Khyber Pass conjure up??? Probably a little of both mixed with the excitement of uncertainty about the future. Some people have started to climb out of their shell’s and have dared to hope for safety, stability and peace, others just get on with the life they’ve learned to live with and hope it doesn’t get any worse. I can’t explain it, but it was a feeling unlike any other country I’ve been to.

Anyway, somewhere after Jalalabad (on our way to Kabul) traffic came to a complete halt. I think there was road work being done (Allah knows they need it). So, we all got out of the bus and drank some tea under the shelter of a huge tent. Five or ten minutes later there was a bunch of yelling and a big crowd forming. A kid on our bus spoke some English and told us that “the police were stealing money from the truck drivers and now they’re (the truck drivers) all angry!” A minute later a nice, new military pickup went flying by in the direction of the crowd, two soldiers jumped out and grabbed a police officer and drove him back to (about 15 feet from us) us. The soldiers were yelling at him and tried to put him in the back of their truck, but he fought. The soldiers ended up slapping him and he jumped back and pointed his machine gun at a soldiers face. Somehow they said the right thing and they ended up throwing the police man in the back! The crowd cheered as they drove away and I was shocked to think that justice had been done in the middle of an Afghan desert. The soldiers came across as well trained and restrained, very professional, they actually defused the situation! That was a surprise. anyway, day one was already crazy and i didn’t want it to get any crazier.

Luckily there was no more drama in store for us that day. Besides the roads, if you can call them that, the ride to Kabul was straight forward. Afghanistan has, by far, the worst roads I’ve been on. From Kandahar in the south, up to Kabul in the middle and further on to Mazar-e Sharif in the north, the roads are pretty new and smooth. Beyond that the roads are either terrible or non-existent! So, by the time we got into Kabul, just after sunset, our backs were sore and we were pretty dirty. Entering Kabul for the first time, in the night time, was was amazing!! The city actually had a buzz to it, people were running around all over the place and traffic was crazy. Anyway, arriving in the dark probably wasn’t the best time, since we didn’t know where the hell we were, we (Jacques and Steffan) didn’t even have a guide book! We managed to copy some pages out of an old 1990’s Lonely Planet guide book, but half of the buildings had been destroyed and we weren’t even sure where the bus had dropped us. luckily the guy that spoke English on our bus walked us through a bazaar and showed us the area that has hotels (thank you Allah). To say it would have been hard to find in the dark with out him, would have been the king of all understatements.

We found three hotels pretty close by, but as our friend explained, none of them would let us stay since tourists weren’t allowed. Finally one hotel said we could stay, but changed the price as we were about to check in, then said they were full. We all got mad and wanted to hold them to the first price we were given, but the guy was rude and wouldn’t listen. We had all been travelling for a while at that point (well over a year) and had contracted the travelers disease, in other words we were cheap and used to proving a point for the principle of it. So, we all just sat on the front steps of the hotel and I spread out a sheet and laid down. The receptionist ended up calling the police and we explained that (now) this hotel is full (since that’s what the receptionist changed his story to) and none of the other hotels will let us stay without some kind of permit. The cop walked us over to the nearest hotel and made a deal with that receptionist allowing us to stay, as long as we left by 8 in the morning. So, that was the end of a long first day, we never even stopped to think that what we did might have been dangerous, we just wanted a place to wash the dirt off of us and sleep. The next day we found a few places to stay, but stayed at the Park Hotel (since it was the cheapest we could find) for $10 each, the most the three of us had paid for a hotel in a long, long time!

Kabul was already a great experience though. Just walking around and checking out different markets and watching their different way of life was fun and new. I thought that I had witnessed optimism amongst some of the people as well. It seemed that they were eager to get on with their lives after so much war and misery for so long. Over 1,000,000 people were killed during the Russian invasion! And after the Russians left, things actually got worse with the Taliban! Afghan’s are amazing people though and keep moving forward. The rest of us should check our heads the next time we start complaining about our standard of living!

After just a couple of days in Kabul, we thought we’d spent enough time in city’s (Peshawar before Kabul), so we planned on heading west to Bamian. We heard is was beautiful and peaceful there and wanted to check out the Buddha niche’s (where the largest Buddha statue in the world was until the Taliban destroyed them).


I really wanted to hang out with some Hazara’s as well, so unwinding in Bamian sounded great! The road there wasn’t bad either, now it was time to see how Afghanistan really was…

“Here in Araya, one of the lonely places of the earth with all the winds of Asia droning over it, where the mountains seemed like the bones of the world breaking through. I had the sensation of emerging from a country that would continue to exist more of less unchanged whatever disasters overtook the rest of mankind.”
– A short walk in the Hindu Kush



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