Kabul, Afghanistan – In the 1960s and ’70s, Afghanistan was part of the hippie trail, a magnet for stoned backpackers seeking nirvana. Well-heeled tourists also came to visit. Afghanistan’s rugged terrain was ideal for mountaineering expeditions and hunting trips, and rich collectors could stock up on antiques and fine carpets.
Then came the Soviet invasion and its long occupation and war against guerillas, followed by the grim rule of the Taliban and, in 2001, the U.S. invasion in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Three years after an American-led coalition ousted the Taliban regime, the State Department still warns U.S. citizens against visiting Afghanistan. A low-level insurgency continues on the border with Pakistan, and rival warlords occasionally clash.
Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden remains at large, believed to be somewhere in the region.
Still, adventurous tourists are returning to this wild and exotic landscape.
It is not a vacation spot for the faint of heart.
Charles Clapham recently drove to Afghanistan from Bristol, England, in a 1961 Land Rover. After crossing Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and India, he headed north to Afghanistan, planning to drive back to Europe through the former Soviet Union.
He stopped for a few days at a guesthouse in Kabul and spent a few days cycling around the capital. Contacted later by e-mail in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, where he was waiting for a visa to Uzbekistan, Clapham said he encountered no problems crossing the Torkham border post between Afghanistan and Pakistan but saw few signs of other solo motorists on the same route.
“According to the register of ‘carnet de passage,’ mine was the fourth foreign vehicle to cross the Torkham border this year,” he said.
Hessamuddin Hamrah, the president of the Afghan Tourism Organization, is confident that foreign visitors will come back.
But since the fall of the Taliban, his agency has hosted only 35 tour groups of 247 visitors from mostly Western Europe and Japan.
“We hope a lot of tourists will come,” he said. “Because it’s really important to us for economic revival.”
Admittedly, Afghanistan’s reputation as a haven for terrorism – and as one of the most heavily mined places on the planet – has been a poor advertisement for tourism.
“The news they hear from Afghanistan is bad,” said Hamrah. “But the security (situation) in Afghanistan now is not bad.”
Lonely Planet, the bible of budget travelers, published a section on Afghanistan in the latest edition of its Central Asiabook (previous editions simply said “Don’t Go!”). Other guidebooks are forthcoming.
Haji Sefat Mir remembers the golden age of Afghanistan as a tourist destination. He recalls a day in 1968 when he worked as a guide for a wealthy European hunter, who dropped two wild rams with one shot at 150 yards.
They were in the Wakhan corridor, a mountainous sliver of land in northeastern Afghanistan that extends to the border with China.
His client, a member of the Rothschild banking family, was stalking Marco Polo sheep, a highly sought-after trophy for big-game hunters.
Sefat Mir still has an outdoorsman’s robust physique, but he last led a hunting expedition in 1978, a year before the Soviet invasion launched two decades of ruinous war. During the Soviet-Afghan conflict, Sefat Mir fought with the mujahedeen under legendary guerilla commander Ahmad Shah Massoud. With a tenuous peace taking hold in Afghanistan, he is hoping the government will resume the big-game hunts.
“Maybe next year,” he said.
Entrepreneurs also are counting on a revival of Afghan tourism.
Volodymyr Yakovliev, general director of Mandryk & Co., a company based in Kiev, organizes “extreme tours” for newly wealthy Ukrainians. He recently visited the Afghan Tourism Organization to get approval for an expedition to Kandahar, a former Taliban stronghold.
“These are people who are adrenaline addicts,” he said of his clients. “They love the thrill of danger.” Yakovliev’s next tour group is scheduled for early January – not the most hospitable time of year.
“It’s mostly businessmen,” said Yakovliev. “They’ve already been on the beach a bunch of times, in Bulgaria or Turkey or wherever, and it’s not interesting to them anymore.” For some of Yakovliev’s clients, it’s not their first trip to Afghanistan. Others are veterans of the Soviet-Afghan war, now returning for a nostalgic trip. Yakovliev said a Soviet headquarters was situated in Kandahar, “So we know the place very well.” Yakovliev said Afghans harbor no ill will toward Ukrainians despite the wartime experience.
“We’re brothers, in the sense that we were occupied by one and the same country, Bolshevik Russia,” he said. “As soon as I explain that to Afghans, they’re my best friends.”
The details
Kabul Caravan travel guide: <a href="http://www.kabulcaravan.com
“>www.kabulcaravan.com
Matthew Leeming: <a href="http://www.matthewleeming.com/travel/
“>www.matthewleeming.com/travel/
U.S. State Department: <a href="http://www.travel.state.gov
“>www.travel.state.gov
