BEATS BENIDORM (Kabul)

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Product:	Kabul
Date:	01/08/02 (36 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: buy a rug

Disadvantages: might get killed

I was looking for some action, as the song goes. In fact I was seeking inspiration for my next effort on dooyoo. My car? Nah, I haven't opened the bonnet. Er...so I gave up for a while until BANG! it hit me between the eyes.

Browsing the Sunday Times I came across an astonishing article. Two UK travel agents are offering sightseeing tours to wartorn Afghanistan. They plan future jaunts to Axis of Evil countries - Iran, Iraq, North Korea.

Can you imagine the tour bus. "And on your right there's the bombed-out anthrax factory and straight ahead is a land mine..."BOOM.

I work for a local newspaper and was lucky enough to get a trip to Kabul to see how Our Boys are faring in the former playground of Osama and his Taliban and Al Qaida chums. Not up at Bagram airfield or in the mountains with the Marine hardnuts, just in the capital with ISAF (International Security and Assistance Force) troops, including the Royal Anglians.

Let me tell you Kabul is not a place to lie on a towel and soak up the rays. The Afghans are friendly but guns, mainly the ubiquitous AK47, are everywhere. And this week a suspected Al Qaida man was arrested as he allegedly tried to blow up the US embassy with a car packed with bombs. He was caught by chance during a routine police investigation into a robbery.

Presumably these "adrenalin" tourists would have to get a visa, which costs £30 and lots of hassle and requires a sponsor inside the country (at least it did a few weeks ago, mine was the army).

They would also need a host of jabs and potions (tetanus, polio, typhoid, possibly anti-malarials). Afghanistan is the third poorest country on the planet and there are enough diseases to keep a doctors' convention happy for a hundred years. Drinking water is unsafe.

Getting there in the first place would be a challenge. I'm not sure if there are civilian flights into Kabul but I doubt it. The border with

Pakistan is open but it is a dangerous road.

We flew into Kabul's smashed-up airport in a military cargo plane which carried out a tactical landing i.e dived suddenly before landing to make itself a hard target in case anyone lobbed a missile our way. It was like the Big Dipper.

Kabul is split in two by a mountain and resembles Mos Eisley out of Star Wars, Luke Skywalker's desert hometown. It is blazing hot in the day but bearable at night. It is an utter shambles after 23 years of non-stop fighting, first against the Russians and then a bitter civil war.

Everywhere you look there are shattered buildings riddled with shell and bullet holes. There are also lots of dusty graveyards with green flags fluttering in the breeze, the colour of a martyr killed fighting the Russians.

The elegant Royal Palace - which had been taken over by the Taliban - took a direct hit from a cruise missile and is a blackened shell. It is an awesome site - but you can't go in because of booby traps. And stay on the road because the ground is littered with antipersonnel mines which will take your foot off. The nearby Russian embassy is a grim concrete affair packed with refugees.

Despite the devastation ordinary Afghans are carrying on with everyday life. I guess they can't do anything else. Everywhere I went they seemed happy foreign peacemaking troops were in their city. Admittedly I was accompanied by a gang of tooled up squaddies (although I did briefly give them the slip a couple of times)

The markets are open and busy (the open -air butcher shops are the best recruiting sergeant for vegetarianism I have seen) and there is chaotic traffic on the roads. One urban legend is women who wear the burkha - a full length cloak with a woven grille for the face - are regularly knocked down as they cross the road because they have no peripheral vision. It is still rare to see a woman on the streets not wearing a burkha. U
nder
the Taliban, it was illegal for women to show their faces in public.

Finding somewhere to stay shouldn't be a problem because there are several guests houses still in business (although I only saw the signs and didn't go in).

Chicken Street, Kabul's main shopping drag, is also open for business and its shopkeepers are eager for your dollars (the only reliable currency). Walk into any shop and you'll find an Aladdin's cave of curios and treasures. One shopkeeper offered a Lee Enfield rifle taken from a British soldier in a 19th century military campaign. It would probably be worth a fortune in the UK but can you imagine trying to get it back through customs! I did buy a handwoven rug for $40, after some hard bargaining.

You could also visit the city zoo, although it will break your heart to see the few mad-eyed animals being abused and stoned by hordes of children. The night life in Kabul isn't up to much either due to a 10pm to 4am curfew.

If you drive outside the capital don't step off the road because of mines and unexploded ordnance. You will also come across Northern Alliance soldiers - they swept into Kabul after the Taliban fled expecting the spoils of war and are disgruntled at having to share power with foreign soldiers. They are none too careful about where they point their AK47s.

My advice for the "adenalin" tourists? Stick to Spain.

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