Embassies and Public Toilets

17th August 2012

Well it's been a while since I've last posted, had my share of interesting and uninteresting things happening...

My Uncle had to leave me in Kabul last Tuesday while he went to Bamyan because he couldn't get me on the flight there, So I had a couple of days by myself where I just watched movies because there isn't anything else to do. On Wednesday night I tried ordering a pizza from a place called Everest Pizza, which we had ordered from on one of our first nights here in Kabul, and they had decided since then that they didn't deliver to the area of Kabul that I was in. So instead I went out to a place called Bella Italia with an English guy called Dominic - he used to work at the British Embassy but they started pulling out of Kabul and so he found another job with a private company here.

The bill at the end was about $40 US each, and a quarter of that was one can of beer each!

Tony was back again on Friday morning, so he picked me up on the way from the airport to the bank, where he had some papers to hand in. After that we went to a restaurant called Boccaccio's for lunch and to use up time before going to the US embassy to discuss plans for a future solar power project. We were stopped at the gate because my name had only recently been added to the list of people the embassy was expecting and the guards' copy of the list had been printed out early that morning.

As we were waiting an Afghan was admitted through the gate and started talking to us from the other side. He introduced himself as "Akhmed the American", and he did have a very strong American influence in his accent and spoke English very fluently, though you could tell that he wasn't born an American. He had a several projects running which tied into each other. One was breeding goats and getting better prices for the Afghan farmers selling goats,because they earn about US$3 per goat they sell. The other is getting better rights for women. 48.8% of the Afghan population are women and 90% of them are unemployed! It is going to be really hard for the economy to improve when there is over 40% of the population without jobs!

We still hadn't been admitted through the gates, so Akhmed talked to the guards and managed to get us in, which was a very bad security breach really but we didn't mind. Then one of his friends picked us up in a little Jeep and drove us down to where we were meeting this guy called Jim. I thought that the restaurant that I talked about in my last blog was an island in the middle of Kabul, but the embassy was an even greater contrast! American accents everywhere, air-conditioning, free drinks, a pool, and later for dinner that night was steak and lobster! Unfortunately we couldn't stay for that though. I would have taken photos of it all but they confiscated our phones while we were inside.

After the American Embassy we went to the New Zealand embassy to meet our Ambassador. He was a big Maori guy and it was so cool to hear a New Zealand accent again! I didn't realise how much I had missed it! While we were waiting for a taxi to take us back home after seeing the New Zealand ambassador Tony had to go to the toilet, so he had a look at a public toilet that was close to us, then quickly decided he didn't really need to go, and besides, nothing else would fit in it! That toilet must be one of the scungiest places on earth, short of going into an actual sewer...

And that brings us to today, we were going to go to the palaces they have here in Kabul, and have a look at this swimming pool where they used to execute people. With all the water drained out they used to make people jump off the highest platform there, and at the bottom you can see all these bullet holes from where I guess people didn't die fast enough...

But we aren't going there, that might be for some other time. Instead we are going out for lunch at a place called "The Flower Street Cafe", hopefully it lives up to its name!

One of the funniest things I have seen here

A lizard in the shower

I don't even want to think about what the pink and yellow bits are...

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

Driving on the Afghan roads

Driving from the airport to our house, interesting conversation in the first one, dust clouds in the second, and bad driving in the third!

The bird nest right outside my room

New Pictures!

More of the McLaren

Airplane food

I must say, I was a little suspicious of the pink thing...

It turned out to be a strawberry mousse I think, don't know what the clear gel was on top though.

The house I'm staying in in Kabul

Bathroom

Kitchen, Chloe would hate it here haha

My room

Hallway

Tony in the lounge

Study

Front garden

Front Garden

I'm going to try and upload some videos of driving on the roads of Kabul now

The real journey begins

9th August 2012

The plane ride lasted about two and a half hours, and it was really amazing to fly over Iran and see the place where human civilisation started. Iran is basically 99.5% harsh desert, the only place there is any human settlements are right next to rivers. It really showed me how important water is for life to flourish. Granted, I didn't fly over the big Tigress or Euphrates rivers were the first humans settled, but from what I could see the region is a very bleak place - no green or water anywhere! I am so glad I got a window seat for the flight to Kabul, I was glued to watching the ground the whole time, it was very interesting! Even the land itself was really cool. Because the land was so bare, you could see in the mountains all the different layers in the crust and any other geological features of the land.

Weird stripy land features...

The first river I saw, it was unsettled

The dark areas are the farms around the river, the rivers are the only places with civilisation in Iran

Crossing into Afghanistan, clouds started appearing and we hit some turbulence, because of all the mountains that suddenly sprang out of nowhere, forcing air currents upwards. Afghanistan so far looks less arid than Iran, there are a few trees on the mountains, bigger villages and more rivers.

In Afghanistan now, mountains everywhere!

More Mountains!

Centre right is Kabul, where I am now. Centre left is Bamyan, about 150km away

Flying into the airport was really cool, there were military helicopters and planes lining the whole length of the runway. I was wearing shorts and a shirt on the plane, Tony told me that when we get our luggage from the plane I should go and get changed into some long jeans right away. Apparently in the Afghans' eyes you may as well be walking around in your underwear if you wear shorts, even short sleeve shirts are pushing it, though I saw a lot of tourists and Afghans wearing them.

I was really expecting there to be more guns visible on the guards at the airport, but none had any weapons except for batons in the terminal. As I was leaving the terminal a few guards had pistols, and I saw one with a rifle. A couple of vanloads of soldiers were leaving the airport too, and I got a quick glimpse of a machine gun of some kind. You see guns all the time in movies, but in real life they really are fearsome, you don't really think of them like that when you see them on the TV screen. They look really, really big...

The drive from the airport to where I am staying was very interesting! The roads were wide enough for 3 lanes going each way, with a barrier in the middle to separate traffic going in opposite directions. However, apart from that barrier there were no other road markings to separate lanes, so the whole thing turned into a huge free-for-all. The situation only got worse when the wind really picked up and started blowing sand everywhere, reducing visibility to just 10m or so... I recorded a few videos of the car trip but they don't seem to be uploading so I'll try them again later!

Greg Hussey has his own place in Kabul, so we are staying there, we have internet and electricity and beds so all is good here!

The German Shepherd, Jed, where I'm staying at the moment!

And finally, off to Afghanistan!

9^th August 2012

I’m about to be on my way to Kabul! Boarding the plane in 10 minutes so I’ll write until then! Haven’t done too much so far today, finished my book while sitting around in the hotel which was probably a really bad idea, because now I don’t have anything to read…

So this terminal is very different from the other terminal I was in when I arrived, I think it is a more local area terminal. Still very, very large though. The lady at the check-in desk was very surprised I was going to Afghanistan, but I’m not the youngest person she has seen flying to Kabul – she has had an 8 year old before! Once we got past the security checks and into the international lounge we saw probably the coolest car I have ever seen with my own two eyes. A “Volcanic Orange” coloured McLaren road car. It is the prize for a raffle, 2000 tickets total at 500 Dihram each. So to buy all the tickets would cost 1m Dihram which is NZ$300,000… I’m fairly sure that would be cheaper than the car!

I have more pictures of this, but this one is the only one that uploaded, I'll try and get more up later!

Well I must go, I have a plane to catch!

The second day in Dubai

8^th August 2012

My second day in Dubai started when I woke up at quarter to 6 in the morning. Turned out I crashed at 5.30 last night and so did the other two! This meant of course, that we had all missed dinner last night and were all starving! So it was off to the buffet again! Luckily, it seems tourism comes before Ramadan at our hotel so we can eat there! Today they had added hash browns, I pretty much filled up on them. The croissants had been replaced too because we had almost finished them yesterday so they were soft!

After that big breakfast we left to get our Afghanistan visas again, while Tony stayed behind to do work again. We caught a taxi straight to the embassy this time, because we wanted to get there nice and early. We only had a 100 dirham note and the taxi driver didn’t have change for it, so he told us just to give it to the desk at the hotel we are staying at and he would get it from there! I was amazed that he would be so trusting of us. Once inside the embassy we were given a number, and sat in some seats to wait. The air temperature was regulated to a cool 30°C! And it actually did feel cold compared to the outside air… While we were waiting around there were officials coming past and talking to people, exchanging their tickets for one place in the queue for another. This was my first experience of the corruption I’m likely to encounter in Afghanistan.

After we had handed in our passports we jumped on the Metro to the Emirates Mall to fill in some time. We grabbed some water from a supermarket in it but, of course, we couldn’t drink it because of Ramadan, so we had to wait until we left the mall for that. I found an outdoors shop and bought some socks and some tough shoes for in Afghanistan, because I left home with almost no clothes, and just planned to get them all on the way, figuring they would be cheaper to get in Dubai than in Wellington. Then we read a map of the mall and we found out they had a ski slope inside the mall!! It was astounding they had the money to build this thing in a place where temperatures get so high. Me and Greg were talking about temperatures and apparently the water in the sea here gets above 30°C, which I thought was awesome, but Greg said that it feels like a spa and you really can’t stay in it that long, it’s warmer than an air temperature of +40°C. And then I thought about the pools here. In New Zealand we advertise warmed pools, but here they would probably be above 35°C even unwarmed, so really what you would want in a pool is for it to be cooled!

Anyway, I’ve had a few beers (they come big over here) and I’m feeling really tired! So goodnight! Next time I write I’ll be in Afghanistan!

The slope and playground

A kids' ride

I actually think that this shot with the flash looked better than the one without...
Anyway, a zorb ball (I think that's what they are called) slope.