the final part of my Afghanistan trip

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 are there to protect what is left from further damage.

The large medieval Citadel dominates the city, although largely now in ruins.  Apparently more than half of the citadel's original towers have been destroyed or badly damaged, whether through rain or wars.  The Russians must have done some damage when they drove a couple of their tanks up there.

This was the end of the tour for most of the group, but four of us had asked for an extension to Mazar-e Sharif and Balkh.  The main sight of Mazar was unfortunately off-limits for three of us - the shrine of Hazrat Ali, closed to female visitors since earlier in the year.  We just got a distant view, mostly obscured by trees.  But I did at least get to take a photograph of two interesting-looking men - apparently from Khost province (per the style of headgear).  Some of the men we'd seen had been too shy to allow women to take their photographs, which was frustrating as there are some really good-looking men in the country: tanned skin, fine features, high cheekbones, luscious black beards and hair, blue/green/hazel eyes - and eyeliner!!  Apparently the Prophet wore it, so it is allowed, and I must say it can have striking effects.

& there was so much to see in Balkh!  Known to the ancient Greeks as Bactria, it has been important to both the Zoroastrians and the Buddhists, was invaded by Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane (amongst others), and holds the remains of Noh Gonbad Mosque, the oldest (eighth century) mosque in Afghanistan.

The Khodja Parsa Mausoleum (to Rabia Balkhi, a legendary female Persian poet) had lost many of its decorative tiles, but I still found it beautiful as I so love this style of Islamic architecture.  This almost made up for missing a proper view of the shrine in Mazar!  & of course we visited the remains of the oldest mosque, as well as the remains of the house of Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi, better known as Rumi.

We also went out to Bala Hisar, the remains (basically just the walls) of the ancient Bactrian city.  This has also been subject to recent battles (in the 1990s civil war), and then to a period of uncontrolled digging for sellable archeaological treasures.  Our guide told us that pretty recently, kids had played with human skulls ... so I started looking more attentively at the ground and realised there were quite a few bits of bone around.  I pocketed what appears to be a human vertebrae (but could as easily come from some kind of animal, I suppose), and put back what I think was a shinbone.

Then we flew back to Kabul (sadly, as the road which would have taken us past the Buddhist stupa at Samangan was closed for repairs.

What an amazing trip this was.  I'd dreamed of it for so many years, and it didn't let me down in any way.