Despite war, Afghanistan’s beauty survives

KABUL: I’m 40 minutes into my flight -- glass of white wine in one hand, book in the other -- when it dawns on me that this is no ordinary vacation: I’m going to Afghanistan.

Like many people, I have an image of Afghanistan shaped by what I read and see in the media. Women in blue burqas, fields of opium poppies, fierce-looking turbaned men, tanks churning through dust.

That may well be true, but what I found on a weeklong trip was a surprisingly green country with incredibly welcoming people. I sometimes saw, peeping from beneath those enveloping burqas, strappy high-heeled sandals and crimson toenails.

I climbed the ruins of 12th-century citadels sacked by Genghis Khan, drank cardamom tea beneath a canopy of fruit trees in the Panjshir Valley, and explored the empty niches of 5th-century Buddhas blown up by the Taliban in Bamiyan.

With suicide attacks in the capital, kidnappings of foreigners and a resurgence of the extremist Taliban in the south, Afghanistan doesn’t get many tourists.

Most Western countries advise against all but necessary travel to Afghanistan; some countries have banned it. The U.S. State Department warns of "an ongoing threat to kidnap and assassinate U.S. citizens." Still, a few travel agencies, many run by former backpackers, will arrange trips.

For me, it had become a tradition to do something unusual on my birthday. After e-mails with security agencies, friends who lived in Afghanistan and, by chance, the son of a former Afghan diplomat, I had a loose itinerary: Kabul, Bamiyan and the Panjshir Valley.

Independent travel is not easy or recommended, especially for a single Western woman. I had two choices: using a foreign-run travel agency in Afghanistan, spending upward of $1,000 a day, or hiring a driver for a third the cost.

A friend recommended her driver, Shahabudin Sultani, a Bamiyan native dressed impeccably in a traditional Afghan tunic and trousers. At 6:30 a.m., we loaded bottles of water and bags of almonds and apricots into a minivan for the journey.

Although it is only 150 miles from Kabul, the drive to Bamiyan takes more than 10 hours along a dirt path that winds high up into the snowcapped Koh-i-Baba mountains before dipping into a verdant valley. The faster route -- from the south -- is not recommended.

Dotted along the red craggy cliffs are dozens of fortresslike mud and brick houses with high walls pockmarked by rocket and bullet holes, ubiquitous reminders of war. Children run along the path switching at donkeys or herding goats past rusting Soviet tanks and abandoned mortar guns, some of them used as makeshift dams or bridges.

War has been a constant in Afghanistan, and the Bamiyan Buddhas were silent witness to much of it. The 174- and 125-foot-tall statues were hewn out of the cliffs when Bamiyan, on the fabled Silk Road that linked Rome to China, was a thriving center of Buddhism and culture. They survived the violent introduction of Islam in the 7th century, though Islamic leaders ordered their gilded faces and hands sliced off. They escaped the rage of Genghis Khan, who razed the entire valley to avenge the loss of his favorite grandson at the battle for Bamiyan’s Red City in 1221.

In the decade of resistance against the Soviets, the honeycomb network of 2,000 caves surrounding the statues housed thousands of refugees. Then came the Taliban, who promised to preserve the Buddhas, then blew them up in 2001.

I stayed at the Roof of Bamiyan hotel in a yurt -- a small round hut made of mud and straw and covered inside with Afghan carpets. The next morning, as I watched the sun cast a honey hue across the valley of green and beige fields, it was not hard to imagine how the Buddhas’ gold- and jewel-encrusted face would have shimmered as it caught the light.

headed to the village for a better look. Though Bamiyan is one of the safest places in Afghanistan, I covered my arms and legs and twisted a scarf around my head. I picked my way through the dusty pathways of the village, drawing a few stares and the occasional smile. The towering niches, though empty, are more impressive close up. It’s still possible to see the statues’ outlines, and some parts remain as if in bas relief.

Most people leave after seeing the Buddhas, but there are other sites worth seeing, including the lakes of Band-i-Amir, five pools of sapphire blue set amid desert canyons, and the ruins of the Red City and the City of Screams, which were built in the 12th century and razed by Genghis Khan a century later.

The Red City, or Shahr-i-Zohak, sprawls over three levels atop a red cliff mountain at the entrance to the Bamiyan valley. Sultani, my driver, used to play there as a boy. He practically skips to the top, following our mandatory military guide while I scramble up the path behind. I cling to parts of the citadel’s fortifications and keep an eye out for red-painted rocks, an indication of land mines.

For my last adventure in Bamiyan, we head to Dragon’s Valley, a ridge in a valley of undulating anonymous gray sand dunes. Legend has it that a dragon terrorized locals, demanding a young girl each day to eat, until dragon slayer Hazrat Ali split the beast in two with his sword and left a fissure 3 feet wide at some points. His deed sparked a mass conversion to Islam.

The ribbed mountain does look like a dragon’s scaly back. Inside the chasm you can hear the dragon’s mournful rumbling -- bubbling spring water streaming like tears from his eyes.

Over the next few days I pack in a day trip to the Panjshir Valley, visiting the marble and stone tomb of Ahmad Shah Masood, a resistance hero who was assassinated by al-Qaeda a few days before the Sept. 11 attacks. The tomb is high on a hill with a commanding view of the valley he defended from Soviet troops.

Early the next day, Great Game Travel company picks me up for a daylong tour of Kabul that jumps from the 5th-century city wall to 16th-century Babur Gardens to the Kabul market.

Standing on a hill looking over the city, guide Ghulam Sakhi Danishjo points out the Kabul stadium where the Taliban once carried out public executions.

What happens there now? "Oh," says Sakhi, "now, they just play soccer."