louiseinlimbo

The final leg of our trip took us on to Kandahar - the founding city and spiritual centre of the Taliban. Despite the capital of the country being Kabul, where the government administration is based, Kandahar is the seat of power, as the supreme leader and his spiritual advisers are based there. There we visited a couple of mosques and a mausoleum, and climbed the very steep Forty Steps up to a shrine on a small mountain outcrop. From Kandahar it was on to Ghazni, the capital of the great Ghaznafid empire that ruled the region 1000 years ago.  As with much of the country, it was visited by people such as Alexander the Great and Ibn Battuta, and has been inhabited over the centuries by Zoroastrians, Buddhists, Hindus and Moslems.  The history of this country is really so rich!  The main sight is the two elaborately decorated Ghazni Minarets, built during the period 963–1187 and sadly reduced to half their original 44m height by an earthquake in 1902 - the metal rooves...

From Bamiyan we set off on an 18-hour drive along unmade roads through the centre of the country, mostly dry and rocky terrain, passing the occasional sheep, goats or donkeys with their accompanying herders but very few other vehicles.  We finally got to the small town of Chagcharan where we spent the night, before continuing the drive along similar roads the next day.  Roads that were not safe to travel on until the Taliban took over and imposd their strong rule over the country.  We went through numerous checkpoints, in some cases just waved through, in others they insisted on seeing our passports and temporary local ID cards, as well as the permission documents carried by our guide.  But eventually we made it to one of the highlights of the trip - the Minaret of Jam. Built around 1190, probably to commemorate the victory of Mu'izz ad-Din (of the Ghorid Empire) over Prithviraj Chauhan, it is believed to be all that is left of the lost city of Turquoise Mountain, wh...

So … I was finally in Afghanistan!!  Covered from head-to-toe in my abaya - thankfully not having to cover my face, but still the abaya was a bit of a pain. Nice not to have to worry about what I wore underneath, or what my hair looked like, but a long garment (down to the ankles) made getting in and out of the back of the vehicle – and even going up and down steps – more difficult, and I couldn’t wear my camera attached to my belt as I usually do, nor access anything in my pockets, and I did miss the feel of the sun on my skin and the wind in my hair…  There weren’t many women on the street (they’re not really supposed to go out without a male guardian), and those we saw were mostly wearing burkas, so there wasn’t really any chance to interact with them.  The men, however, seemed friendly.  Nowhere on the whole trip did I encounter anyone who seemed to be hostile towards us. Kabul is in many respects a modern city – so I chose this picture taken from one of the rock...

 I’ve wanted to go to Afghanistan ever since I saw some photos of the country in 2003, and having read reports over the past year from a few travellers who’ve enjoyed great visits there since the Taliban took over, I decided it was time to go.  Who knows what will happen going forward, whether access will be closed off once again?  So I signed up for a tour with Untamed Borders, the travel company with the most experience of taking people to the country.  After I signed up and paid my money, the Taliban shut off access for women to the two places in the photos I’d seen back in 2003 (the shrine of Hazrat Ali in Mazar-e Sharif and the lakes of Band-e Amir), but I still wanted to go ahead with it as there are so many other places in the country to see, not to mention the possibility of getting to understand more about the Taliban and the situation in the country. So as instructed by the tour company, I booked my flight to Pakistan and applied for my Pakistan visa – as t...