Did I have better ideas in my life than traveling to Afghanistan's Taliban regime in July? Most probably yes, it has not been an easy or comfortable trip. But I learned so much during my time in the country, that everyone in the world seems to know something about.
Afghanistan has been all over the news in the most negative way since the 1970s, they had endless chapters of brutal wars with different military attendees coming and leaving (as long as they can profit out of that). The first time I got really in touch with Afghanistan was in Khaled Hosseini's books around 10 years ago which are quite beautifully written but obviously don't have so much to do with the country's reality. I did not really plan to visit Afghanistan on this trip at all until I met a Japanese traveler in Almaty, who told me that the Taliban issued visa on arrival at the Tajik/Afghan border now.
A week later I met an Afghan guy who invited me to his hometown Kunduz and then I knew, yeah it might be a rare chance to visit this tossed country.
This is not a political blog, in fact, the topic of politics is insanely boring and tiring for me. I would never visit or not visit a country for political reasons. I would travel to Russia, Ukraine, Israel (never again tho :D) or Palestine without a doubt and I don't care about the many idiots that unfortunately rule a large percentage of our beautiful planet and are responsible for most stereotypes, wars and conflicts we have between each other. And that's the same attitude I tackled Afghanistan and its Taliban regime with.
Afghanistan suffered and suffers from wars, terrorism, warlordism, poverty, religious fanatics, Taliban, drought and one of the worst educational systems in the world for centuries. It's a multi-ethnical country with a lively mix of languages & cultures: Pashtuns, Hazaras, Uzbeks and Tajiks are the biggest groups. While it has been extremely unsafe in recent years, it has a lot to offer from a traveler's perspective and since the Taliban took over and formed a new government the country has become the safest since pretty much 1970. Terroristic attacks become very rare, war activities are pretty much finished and people finally have something like a stable everyday life in which they can rebuild their entire country.
Instead of kidnapping people or carrying out terroristic attacks, the main task of the Taliban is now to build a safe, peaceful and legitimate government. Not a single country in the world has recognized the Taliban Afghanistan as a country yet and most countries closed their embassies in Kabul.
I started my trip in the very North, at Shir Khan border. That's also the only entrance point, where you can obtain a visa on arrival for 80 USD, valid for 30 days. I crossed the bridge from Tajikistan by walking and met the first Taliban officials at the border. They pointed me to a small building to organize my visa and pass immigration. It took me around 5 hours to manage all of that and there I was in the small town of Shir Khan by myself. July is an awful time to travel the country, it has been 46 degrees on the day I arrived. Especially the North around Kunduz has been very hot.
I had my first small meal at a street stall, had some chai with locals and absorbed my first impressions of the country. I guess it's needless to say that I got a lot of attention during my entire time there. I had a big group of guys around me pretty much all the time. 99 percent of them had nothing else but good, kind and curious intentions. They wanted to know where I was from, invited me for tea & snacks or wanted to take photos of me. Most of them had the same 6 questions for me all the time:
1) "Which country, sir?" - the classic all around the world
2) "Are you Muslim?" -That was a tricky one, I tried 3 kinds of answers to that over time: Yes I am Muslim, I am Christian and I don't believe in god. The first one worked the best and when they asked me how a blonde German with blue eyes could be Muslim, I told them that my family is from Bosnia :D. When I told them I am Christian, I had to explain myself a couple of times why I think it's better than Islam and the non-believing option blew the mind of people.)
3) "Do you work for Unicef?" - If those people ever saw foreigners, they were mostly working for those kind of organizations
4) "How many children do you have?" - Again, 0 would be mind-blowing. If I told them 1 or 2 they said "You need more".
5) "Afghanistan good?" - Most people really wanted to make sure that I felt safe and comfortable, which was really nice.
6) "Give me your Instagram, Whatsapp and Facebook" - That was actually not a question but just an order. I deleted all my social media 5 years ago and whenever I told that to people they just did not believe me and some of them even got mad if I did not give them any of it.
So this was the catalog of questions I had to work myself through pretty much every hour walking around the streets. I also got endless invitations for tea, meals and fruits to the point I was so full and could not eat or drink anymore. So yes Afghan people are incredibly friendly but obviously, all the attention will get extremely tiring after a few days and the system of a tiny bit of private space does not exist here :D At least everyone at least asked for a photo/selfie unlike in India or Bangladesh where some rude uncles just grab you and take photos of you without your consense :D
From Shir Khan I started to hitchhike to Kunduz, which was the first and last time in the country I did it. The first car already picked me and took me half of the way until a Taliban checkpoint (they are pretty much at every 10 or 20 km) spotted me there and took me out of the car. They managed an official bus for me and put me there.
In Kunduz, I met a group of guys who invited me to their hometown for lunch. One of the guys used to live in England and spoke English and thanks to him I already learned a lot about the country on my first day there. We decided that I could stay there my first night and continue to Kabul the next day. In the middle of the night at knocked at the door and 3 armed Talibans stood in front of the house. Someone apparently told them that I was sleeping there and they wanted to take me out and bring me to a hotel. According to the Taliban, it's not safe and legal for tourists to stay outside of a registered hotel during the night. They drove me to a Hotel but I proposed that they could drive me to the bus terminal instead so that I could take a night bus to Kabul - which they agreed on.
The bus ride from Kunduz to Kabul is just horrible. It took me 13 hours for 330 km. You can read details of the road conditions, the 3,300 m pass and the tunnels in the report below, which was the exact way back.
The next day I reached the capital and by far the biggest city where I stayed for 4 days. The city is going through a period of reconstruction & development and the infrastructure in the very center is not too bad. It's a very different story in the outskirts tho. I stayed in a wonderful guest house with a green garden for 10 USD a night which was like an oasis in the middle of the busy city for me. It was just next to the remaining embassies (Iran is one of them) in the city and was guarded by guys with machine guns for 24 hours. I met two other foreigners and Afghan guys living in Europe who came to Kabul for business there.
I did not really enjoy Kabul so much, there were only a few sights of interest and it was the only place in Afghanistan where people tried to scam me with prices all the time (i.e. charging 500 Afghani for a meal that costs 100 or dubious guides who want to be your best friend on the street).
But in general, I was surprised that Kabul was more pleasant than some other cities I visited, such as Dhaka, New Delhi or even Jakarta. The old city is a really interesting part with a lot of labyrinthic streets, bazaars, tea houses and street food to explore.
Some more information about the Taliban: How were my interactions with them? Honestly, I can not say anything bad about my encounters with them (besides on my last day, read the report below). Of course, they annoy you as hell with their checkpoints and controls all the time but mostly they were very respectful, friendly and even kind towards me. The lower-ranked Taliban on the streets often need a little more time to process things but I also had interesting conversations in English with some of the higher ones in offices or bigger checkpoints. The fact that you see their machine guns & knives and that you know most of them killed plenty of people in the last years is kind of scary but as long as you behave respectfully and calmly they would not cause trouble in my experience. I would have liked to take many more photos than I did at the end but honestly, I was a little afraid of taking photos of the Taliban, their checkpoints and buildings. I just tried to be as calm and unremarkable as possible with them. I have 0.00 sympathies with the Taliban and their horrible goals & fundamentalist mindset but if you want to travel around the country by yourself without a guide you need to play that game with them. There are a LOT of Afghans who do not agree with the agenda either but just accept the Taliban because of the safety and stability the country finally has. I can't blame them for that.
We also have to talk about the position of women in Afghanistan. Not the unbearable heat, the poverty or the constant often unwanted attention was, what was the hardest aspect for me of traveling the country. The life of most women in Afghanistan is nothing else than a nightmare and a gigantic disgrace & crime in our world. Women are not only banned from a lot of public spaces, they are not allowed to obtain higher education and I have heard about many cases where husbands lock their wives at home when they are out. It's a life in a cage, the only purpose is to give birth to a new generation. I did not have a single conversation with a woman in Afghanistan obviously, but sometimes I encountered small interactions. For example in busses: Women always sit in the first rows of the bus and whenever the bus had a 5-minute break for praying all the guys left the bus and I was alone in there with the women. The first thing they did was remove the facial parts of the Niqab or Chador, showing some hair and looking at me. They never talked but smiled many times and let me play with their kids. As soon as the guys came back they fully covered again and took the kids back to their lap.
In restaurants, they have separate closed rooms for women and families so women will be able to eat.
After a week I actually had the idea to visit some other parts of the country (Mazar I Sharif & Bamyan) but honestly, I was just done with Afghanistan. I felt extremely tired and burned out and just wanted to return to Tajikistan. I am grateful for all the nice people I met in the country, the lessons I learned you can't read in books or learn in universities and for the opportunity to just leave the country again. The birth of a baby is like a lottery ticket sometimes and I met a lot of smart & kind Afghanis who wanted to leave the country so much but will probably never be able to. A few guys told me that the Taliban set the price for a passport now to 2,000 USD since they don't want more people leaving the country. On top of that, Afghanistan has the second weakest passport worldwide (after Syria) already.
I decided to leave the country and my last 30 hours started:
To give you a feeling of how insane traveling in Afghanistan actually is, I will let you be part of my last 30 hours in the country and copy-paste a section of my travel diary:
I took a taxi to the bus terminal (bargained it down from 800 to 200 Afghani). When I arrived at the terminal I immediately had 20 to 30 guys around me, all talking at the same time, touching me, taking selfies with me and giving me water, sweets and fruits.It was 4 pm then and the bus company told me the next bus to Kunduz would leave between 5 & 6 pm. 5 guys brought me to their office then, where we had tea & watermelon and some conversations via Google translate. Pretty nice & older guys above 50.Then I sat on a carpet outside to wait for my bus. A few younger guys came, one of them a psycho (I spotted that the first second). He became way too touchy, spit himself a couple of times (Afghan people LOVE to spit, they even do that on the floors of restaurants) made unfunny jokes and annoyed me as hell. Eventually, I became rid of him.The bus driver told me the departure would be an hour later, maybe 7 pm. I met my Japanese friend Taiki, who I met 6 weeks earlier in Almaty, Kazakhstan. At least shared attention from now on and a little more piece for me.The psycho came back. He stood next to us, trying to call us with a small whistle like we were 2 dogs. We ignored him as much as we could. When he realized he couldn't get our attention, he took a knife from the table, threatened us with it and ran after us with the knife pointing at us. I tried to find some Taliban and couldn't find any (normally they annoy you 24 hours but when you once need them, they aren't around, obviously). I told some other people about the psycho & his knife and he ran away for now and hid in a house.The bus driver came again and told us the bus would be an hour later. Now 8 pm.Taiki and I went to the bus to secure our seats and check the windows for the knife psycho who saw us entering the bus. Other passengers on the bus asked us the typical questions as always: "what country?, "are you Muslim?" and "what's the name of your father?".8:40 pm, finally the bus seems to leave slowly while collecting the last passengers.First break at a gas station 10 minutes later, all the people leave the bus to use the toilet and buy snacks (after waiting at the terminal for several hours). It took around 20 minutes to collect everyone again. Most of them don't react when the bus driver is shouting at them, so they only come when the driver slowly leaves.The bus ride from hell starts. From Kunduz to Kabul it took me around 11 hours for 320 km. This time it's 17 hours for 320 km!! The roads themselves are terrible, the old ancient bus had to go up from 1,400 to 3,350 m of altitude on unpaved roads while overtaking hundreds of trucks and oil tanks.Before entering a long tunnel around 10 pm, there is a huge traffic jam. We stand in front of the tunnel for 3.5 hours without moving a single meter.Finally driving again, after 2 hours the engine of the bus started to cause problems and the bus driver said he was feeling dizzy. Next bigger break.I wanted to reach the border to finally go back to Tajikistan around 9 am, now at that point I was happy if I could cross the border at all that day (the border closes at 4 pm).Around 1 pm we realize that we won't make it to the border with Tajikistan using this bus the same day. 1 hour before Kunduz, after another 30-minute mindless break just after a breakfast break, we decided to take a taxi to the Shirkhan border. We agreed on a price and the taxi took us there at 110 km/h.On the way we exchanged some money in Kunduz and around 3 pm we arrived at the border. The taxi driver demanded more money than we agreed on but we just walked away.I was so excited to finally leave Afghanistan, just get my exit stamp and cross the bridge by foot into Tajikistan. Two last Taliban checkpoints, one for luggage (he checked pretty much everything and luckily I hid my Afghanistan souvenir with the old flag they don't like on my body). Checkpoint passed and now finally the last Taliban who's supposed to give me the exit stamp.He didn't give it to me and didn't let me leave Afghanistan. Reason: I don't have one of the necessary stamps on my visa that I was supposed to get when I entered. So what happened was that the Taliban guy who gave me my visa at the border didn't put that stamp and that's why I can't leave now. I asked a couple of times for forgiveness and please let me go but all I got was a no. I have to go back to Kunduz (the next city, 70 km from the border reachable only by private taxis for foreigners) and ask the Taliban there to help me with that stamp the next day. I wish I could have argued but believe you don't get emotional and argue with 4 Taliban and their machine guns around their shoulder.You know it's kind of scary to not be able to leave a country, especially if it's Afghanistan. I tried to calm down, accept the new situation and make the best out of it. I ran to a taxi driver, told him I would give him 20 USD if he drove me to that Taliban office in Kunduz, helped me with the stamp and drove me back as fast as he could. He immediately agreed and took the "as fast as he can" part very seriously. We went 120 kmh, had 3 more Taliban checkpoints on the way where I had to explain my situation every single time and ask them to be fast please since I was in a rush (one guy checked my entire luggage in slow motion again just to annoy me) and arrived at the office. They were just about to close when we arrived and lied to the guy that I had a very important flight from Tajikistan that night and that was the only way he could help me. He was the first nice person I met that day and he reopened his office to give me that missing stamp.Top speed 120 kmh to the border again. One more Taliban checkpoint with 4 of them asking me for a permit I didn't have. They told me about a penalty I have to pay now but then their boss came, greeted me and let me go. Second nicest person of the day.I arrived at the border 6 minutes before closing time. The Taliban gave me the stamp and let me go. 2 of them took a selfie with me at the end and the second I reached the bridge and left Afghani territory I started to run as fast as I could. The last challenge of the day: Getting the Tajik entrance stamp. I arrived, was happy that they were still open, told them about my experience and they were super kind. I had chai with the armed border guards and got my entrance stamp. They were just about to close the border for the day.My only problem now: I was the last person crossing the border that day and there was no taxi, Mashrutka or any other car or truck I could have hitchhiked. The town is in the middle of nowhere. I waited 1 hour , not a single car on the road. A Tajik soldier tried to help me but the only way would be to hire a taxi from the next city that would drive me to Dushanbe. That would be 100 USD for 4 hours.I saw a kid playing with 2 stray dogs in front of a house with a shop and joined him playing while thinking about what do to. I told his mom with Google Translate about my situation (the first woman I've talked to after a long time 😁) and she told me that I could sleep inside her shop that night and leave for Dushanbe the next morning.Happily, I agreed, thanked her a lot, played a round of Ludo with the boy and went to sleep with a smile on my face while still seeing Afghanistan on the other side of the river from the shop window. On the other side, that's the most important detail.
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| "Take my rose you ignorant idiot" - That's why I stopped giving my number to anyone in Afghanistan. Some guys sent me 50 messages in one day and even now 2 weeks after I left the country there are still guys video calling and sending me Koran quotes me all the time :D |
