Kabul Afghanistan

Time for a new country and new culture, we continue our trip to Kabul in Afghanistan. To be honest I was not very keen travelling to these areas because of the political instability and dangerous situation. Travel agencies and the government discourage to visit these areas. Moreover I have heard that women  in this culture are disadvantaged and often treated badly. Because of all the bad incidents mentioned in the news like wars and car bombs you created a bad image. In life it is important you have no prejudices and just go for it. 

We travelled by plane so we needed  foreigner registration cards before we could enter the country. This caused some delay by border control but eventually we arrived in Kabul with no further problems.  Kabul is the capital city of Afghanistan and is the largest city which counts almost 3 million local residents.

To explore the natural habitat we visited the gardens of Babur, in my opinion this was the most quiet place in Kabul. It gives a moment of silence after the confrontation with people living in fear and war every day.

  Led by my prejudices I found this city the least attractive, the atmosphere was very gloomy and depressing. On the other hand you can notice a certain renovation of the city where high buildings are constructed. This is  contradictory to the enormous poverty that is present in the streets of Kabul, walking through this street made me feel bad. In de afternoon we commemorated English fighters who had sacrificed their lives in the war. It is believed that this cemetery contains at least 150 English soldiers but after several years only 10 graves were intact, the rest was stolen or destroyed. For me it was a very confrontational excursion. I was glad the day had come to an end and that we were on our way to the hotel.

Naomi H.

http://wikitravel.org/en/Kabul

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/afghanistan/kabul/sights

http://www.pbase.com/andy_guest/british_cemetery_kabul