An island of peace and civility

12th August 2012

Last night we went out for dinner to this nice place that was within walking distance of where I'm staying. On the way there we went past a lot of kids playing with kites because of Ramadan, some of the littler ones knew some English, so they followed us for a while asking us for money until they realised we weren't going to give them any. These were kids from the richer part of Afghanistan too, they had bikes and their houses had concrete outside them, instead of just a dust road.

From the outside, the restaurant looked like just another small house, apart from the armed guard. Just inside the door we got patted down to check for weapons by another guard, then we were allowed through. The restaurant was called "le divan", it used to be owned by a Frenchman but he sold it about 6 months ago on the condition that the menu and name of the restaurant stay the same.

While we were there an Englishman walked past our table, and it turned out to be a guy called Richard that Greg and Tony were talking about just a bit earlier! He was guy in his 60s who seemed like a classic old rockstar, long hair that was turning grey, dressed all in black. He works in Afghanistan doing transportation, but he really loves music and is going to be doing some gigs in Afghanistan at "le divan". They are going to drain the pool, put some scaffolding in it and then put a stage on top of it all!

Richard was meeting another guy there, who was running late, so we invited him to sit with us. Eventually his friend got there, a 30 year old Australian called Eli, who works as a security consultant in Afghanistan. He shouted us a few rounds, so we allowed the Australian to sit with us too. The drinks were really expensive! A vodka and coke costs US$9.90, and a can of beer costs US$10!

We only had US$200 so that went pretty fast, Greg and Tony decided to forgo their dinner to have a couple more drinks, but me being me wanted some food, so I had spaghetti bolognaise. It was quite nice, apart from the cheese they put on top of it, which resembled flakes of coconut, though there was not much of it so that was fine.

All in all it was a nice night, and the setting was remarkably different from the rest of Kabul. The company wasn't bad either, even if there was an Australian.

The pool actually looked fairly clean!

A volleyball court

Dining areas

More seating