Day 2 Kabul

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Sept 2

After a paranoid night of restless sleep...including a lame attempt at barakading the door with the nightstand it was off to the usual place for milk tea and deepfried dough of some kind. Today since the embassy is closed we have decided to head to west Kabul to see some of the destruction caused by the heavy fighting that took place there over the recent years. This also brought us to the Kabul zoo though its lacluster entrance made us skip right to the destroyed buildings. After wandering around for several hours of streets with old fortified watchtowers and a side trip to a shelled out cinema. A local gave us a guided tour all the way to the roof were great views of the surounding area. After attempting to further follow the streets to the top of T.V. mountain we were once again told to leave before we were kidnapped or stabbed for our camera's.

The rest of the afternoon entailed going back to chicken street and going to a afghani version of McDonalds....simply called Fast Food. Though the burgers with fries in them were awesome and a welcomed break from kebabs and sweet rice. Here we also meet some young afghani's who work in the parliament and tell us about a good restaurant called foot hole were its possible to get beer and western food. The next two hours was spent trying to fing this Foot Hole.....eventually we realized it was actually called the Food Court, somewhat unimaginative in fancy restaurant names. Several hours later we returned in western clothes and had a great meal with beer, my russian came in handy as the ukrainian waitresses spoke barely any english, it was nice to see women again after several weeks within an Islamic country. After the meal it was into the Restaurant bar with bad techno and the occasional foreigner stumbling through, here we meet a German who further advises us to go to a place called La Atsmosphere (at least their getting better with the names). After a bewildering walk through the slums of Kabul in the dark we arrive at this restuarant/club. No pictures were allowed inside and everyone had to check in with their passport and have a full pat down. Though as far as places to have a good time the ones in warzones seem to be the best, A pool, awesome bar with a small bungalow in a fenced garden provided an amazing atmosphere to get away from the rigors of living in Kabul. The best part was the other guests which included BBC journalists, contractors, security personel, and of course the UN/NGO staff. The stories that were told were amazing as well as the characters of these people that risk their lives everyday in this country. Chris and I were quite the hit when it was discovered that we were actually tourists and had come to this country voluntarily..... After a great night it was back to the hotel by safe taxi ( a recomended taxi company that has the taxi's checked once a day for bombs)

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Photos

Writing my Will
something every tourist should do while in Kabul

Comments

[anonymous]

cool keep up the blogs, love to read about this country. Happy Daze

[Carol]

Your travel blog
Your blog of trip was fascinating. Hope you made it home alright. It just seemed to end at Day 2 in Kabul.

[deleted_27878]

wow
I love this story, it is amazing and sounds just as if it were to come out of a movie. I would of been nice to see those pictures of the tanks, and the whole skyline at night while you were on the roof top of the hotel in Kabul. I hope you got back home safe. Take care of yourself! János

[Sharon Jumper]

The Theatre
I stayed at the Afghans 4 Tomorrow guesthouse a block away from that theatre! It's a small world!