Day 1
Flight lands an hour late. Was late leaving Delhi.One stop at Amritsar. Pilot announced Golden Temple while approaching but I was on the wrong side. Was keen to see a bit of Pakistan upon take off from Amritsar. Guess I saw Lahore from a height of 15000-20000 ft. Lot of snow capped mountains as the plane moved up north. Kabul nestled among hills all around, many of them snow-capped.
Airport most unimpressive. Gun toting security types everywhere. No landing form. Baggage put through scanner. Not opened at all. Box lost one castor. Local contact Qaseem was waiting with placard “Mr.Judah” CIR (Center for International Rehabilitation). Saw at least one heavily armed U.S. soldier (I imagine) at the airport.
Qaeem was driving as the driver went out of town. It was a taxi, a Toyota Corolla, 2 door beat up.
Guest House
Not far away from the airport. Care taker speaks Hindi (so does the cook). I thank God I can handle the language a bit. Oldish building, modified. Fort like compound walls all around – reminded me of Saudi Arabia. Not very nice.
Room is okay. Two beds, a table, shelf space, TV and heater. Bathroom common for 3 or 4 rooms. The one on my floor oldish, large, reasonably clean. Flush works. Toilet paper.Water, not a problem;hot and cold. Last night the geyser connection burst open. Discovered a more modern
bathroom down stairs.
Food down in the basement. Good. Nan ubiquitous. Coffee, Tea (green) any time. Bed comes with B/F and dinner. Cost $35/ day. Not exactly cheap, but it is up to CIR. Laundry done by women. Charge included.
Sight seeing
Not tired at all. Qaseem drove me to Karaga dam. Nice view. Town rather underdeveloped, quite sad and drab. Back in the GH invited for weddding in owner’s household. opted out.
Traffic
Toyota rules the road and off-road.
Hiace, townace, Prada, Land Cruiser, Hilux SURF et all. Min buses all from 2nd world war Germany with “reisen” written in bold along with colourful sayings spelt with (gay?) abandon. Noting down examples. Occassional horse drawn carts. Surprisingly few cycles. But dust, dust,dust everywhere. Quite a problem.
Day 2
Friday, weekly off. Switched my morning fast from Sunday. Our ministry level official came over. Tried to locate worhship group. Succeeded but too late for yesterday.
Lunched out with Qaseem. Nan with Kabab. Then went to a valley about 25 KM away. Part of the road leads to Kandahar. Valley chocked with cars. Nice mountain stream, molten snow. Cars being washed. A couple right in the centre of the fjord. crossed over on a footpath. climbed up fairly high to scoop up snow. smeared on the face and ate some.
refreshing.
By the way, temperature on arrival 26 deg.C. So quite warm during the day. No snow in the city.
Get most familiar channels in TV – CNN, BBC, Discovery, STAR movie etc. No Tamil channels but several in Hindi/ Urdu. Also big name Al Jazeera.
Met with young Pakistani engineer Hassan at Dinner.
23 April 2005 Judah
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