Northern Afghanistan

Travel north of the Hindu Kush and you’ll find a quite different Afghanistan. The Central Asian steppe starts here, a wide grassy plain that stretches all the way to Russia. For much of its history, the Afghan city-states of the north looked across the Amu Darya towards Bukhara and Samarkand for their interests instead of to Kabul. Indeed, until the Salang Tunnel through the Hindu Kush was completed in the mid-1960s this was a totally isolated part of the country, accessible only by traversing the highest part of the mountains north of Kabul, or making a long desert crossing via Herat.

Travellers should head first for Mazar-e Sharif, home to the shimmering blue domes of the Shrine of Hazrat Ali. Nearby lies the far more ancient town of Balkh, where Zo- roastrianism was born and Alexander the Great took his wife. His footprints can also be detected near the town of Kunduz at the ruins of Ai Khanoum, the easternmost Greek city in the world.

Continuing further east, the big mountains start to rise from the plains again in the province of Badakhshan. One of the remotest corners of the country, roads here become lost in the tangle of peaks where the Hindu Kush meet the Pamirs. The best way to get around is by foot, or with the yaks of the nomadic Kyrgyz who live in the thin tongue of land of the Wakhan Corridor, an area bursting with potential as a future trekking destination.


MAZAR-e SHARIF

Mazar-e Sharif is north Afghanistan’s sprawling urban center, a relatively modern city
standing on the wide steppes near the border with Uzbekistan. Compared to some
of the neighboring towns it’s a relative youngster, and was long overshadowed by
the power and prestige of its neighbor Balkh. It took the dreams of a group of 12th century noblemen to change that, when they claimed to have found the hid-
den tomb of Ali, the Prophet Mohammed’s son-in-law, buried in a local village. Balkh
declined and Mazar-e Sharif grew as a place of pilgrimage. Its shrine today is the focus of the national Nauroz celebrations. For travelers, it has plenty of amenities, and is a good base for the sights of Balkh and Samangan. Mazar-e Sharif is a mixed city, with large populations of Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras (many Pashtuns fled after reprisals following the collapse of the Taliban). This cultural mix is represented in the city’s culture, in everything from the Central Asian flavours on the menu in restaurants, to the comparatively liberal attitudes to women’s
education. Mazar-e Sharif is even the centre for a women’s musical college – something unthinkable elsewhere in the country. The city’s location also means that it is a great centre for that true Afghan sport of the plains, buzkashi. Games can be
seen most weekends throughout the winter until the Afghan New Year. Mazar-e Sharif be- comes flooded with visitors at this time, for the annual Nauroz celebrations . Nauroz coincides with the Gul-e Surkh festival, named for the red tulips that flower on the steppe, which are associated with prosperity and fertility. Mazar-e Sharif mostly sat out the re- cent wars that afflicted Afghanistan, but its outward prosperity masks deeper political problems. In the post-Taliban environment, the city became a case study of Afghanistan’s warlord problem, with rival Uzbek and Tajik strongmen jostling for power and control of revenues from natural gas reserves and the cross-border trade with Uzbekistan. At the time of writing, the situation was stable, but political competition still occasionally sparks into violence. The
presence of a NATO Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT; led by the UK and now
Sweden) has helped calm tensions.

GETTING THERE & AWAY

Regular flights with Ariana and Kam Air link Mazar-e Sharif to Kabul. Kam Air also
operates a twice-weekly flight to Herat. Ariana runs an erratic schedule for Kabul services to Kunduz and Faizabad. The Salang Tunnel connects the northern and southern halves of the country. The main highway from Kabul to Mazar-e Sharif.



Available travel agent who can arrange your trip to Northern Afghanistan.

Ismat Khan

Email address: <snip>

Facebook profile link: https://www.facebook.com/Ismat.Khan.786

Skype: ilsli.ilsli

Mobile number: 0093-789-07-44-84

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