Afghanistan

Kabul — the capital of Afghanistan (652,000km² at the crossroads of Central, South and Western Asia, population 40 million — ruled by the Taliban since their takeover in August 2021, following the US withdrawal after 20 years of NATO presence — a country of landscapes, archaeological richness and cultural depth that has been at war continuously since 1978 and whose people carry the accumulated trauma of five decades of conflict). The UK FCO, US State Dept and all major governments advise against all travel to Afghanistan. This content is for informational purposes about when conditions may improve.

The Taliban takeover (15 August 2021 — the day the Taliban entered Kabul without fighting as the US-backed Afghan government collapsed, ending 20 years of the NATO-backed Afghan republic — was the most significant geopolitical event of the decade, directly affecting 40 million Afghans and profoundly impacting millions of Afghan diaspora worldwide. The preceding 20-year period of US/NATO presence (2001–2021) was the longest war in US history, costing approximately US$2.3 trillion and killing 176,000+ people.

Bamiyan (the central Afghan valley at 2,590m — the site of the two colossal Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban in March 2001, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site for the empty niches and the surrounding cave monastery complex of Foladi and Kakrak — with the extraordinary Band-e-Amir National Park (the first national park in Afghanistan — five brilliant turquoise crater lakes at 3,000m in the Hindu Kush, created by natural travertine dams, among the most strikingly beautiful natural landscapes in Central Asia).

The Bamiyan Buddhas (carved into the sandstone cliffs of the Bamiyan Valley between the 4th and 5th centuries CE — the largest standing Buddha statues in the world at 55m and 38m — were destroyed by the Taliban in March 2001 despite international protests from the UN, UNESCO, Islamic nations and world leaders. The destruction was described by UNESCO as “a crime against culture”; the empty niches remain as the defining archaeological loss of the 21st century.

Band-e-Amir National Park (six vivid turquoise lakes in the Hindu Kush at 2,900m — Afghanistan’s first national park, established 2009, with the deepest and most visually striking crater lakes in Central Asia, set against a landscape of red ochre mountains, green fields and white-capped peaks — the most beautiful natural landscape accessible in Afghanistan and one of the finest in the entire Central Asian region, comparable to the lake landscapes of Jiuzhaigou in China or Plitvice in Croatia).

Band-e-Amir (the “Dam of the Emir” — a series of six deep-blue lakes created by natural travertine dams, the calcium carbonate precipitated from spring water creating progressive cascading pools of colour — was the first area identified for national park protection in Afghanistan (established 2009 with US financial support), the result of the recognition that the Bamiyan-Band-e-Amir area represented Afghanistan’s most significant natural tourism asset.

Herat (the “Florence of the East” — western Afghanistan’s most culturally refined city, the centre of the Timurid Renaissance in the 15th century when it was the most sophisticated centre of art, architecture and scholarship in the Islamic world under Shah Rukh and Husayn Bayqara — with the Musalla Complex minarets (the surviving towers of the greatest mosque-madrassa complex of the Timurid period, partially destroyed by British forces in 1885), the Herat Friday Mosque and the Herat Citadel).

The Timurid Renaissance in Herat (1405–1507 — under the Timurid rulers Shah Rukh and Sultan Husayn Bayqara, Herat became the most important centre of art and intellectual life in the Islamic world — the miniature painting school of Bihzad, the poetry of Jami, the architecture of the Gowhar Shad Mosque — producing artistic and intellectual achievements considered the pinnacle of Persian cultural expression. The minarets of the Musalla Complex are the last surviving elements of this cultural moment.

Mazar-i-Sharif (the fourth-largest city of Afghanistan — the Shrine of Hazrat Ali (the Blue Mosque), the most important Islamic pilgrimage site in Afghanistan and one of the most important in the Islamic world, with its blue-tiled domes and the thousands of white doves that nest in the shrine complex — accessible from Kabul via Salang Pass or by flight — and the Nawruz celebrations (the Persian New Year, 21 March) when hundreds of thousands of pilgrims visit the shrine).

The Shrine of Hazrat Ali (Mazar-e-Sharif — “Tomb of the Exalted” — built in the 12th century on the claimed tomb of the Caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib, the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, though the main Shia tradition places his tomb in Najaf, Iraq — is Afghanistan’s most important pilgrimage destination, visited by millions annually. The blue tilework of the shrine complex, repaired and restored multiple times, is considered one of the finest examples of Timurid tile decoration outside Samarkand and Bukhara.

The Wakhan Corridor (a narrow strip of Afghan territory extending 350km east to the Chinese border — one of the most remote inhabited areas on earth, the corridor was created by the 1873 Anglo-Russian agreement to create a buffer zone between British India and Tsarist Russia — with the Wakhi and Kyrgyz communities maintaining a pre-modern pastoral lifestyle at 4,000–5,000m altitude, the excellent trekking of the Pamir Mountains, the Zorkul Wildlife Reserve and the cultural isolation of the corridor communities).

The Wakhan Kyrgyz (approximately 1,000 nomadic Kyrgyz who have lived in the Pamir plateau of the Afghan Wakhan Corridor since the 1920s when their ancestors fled Soviet collectivisation — maintaining a pastoral yurt-based lifestyle at 4,200m altitude without roads, electricity or formal healthcare — are the highest-altitude permanently nomadic community in Central Asia. The corridor has historically been one of the safest parts of Afghanistan due to its extreme remoteness and the traditional hospitality of the Wakhi communities.

A final reflection on Kabul: a city of historical depth (the ancient Bala Hissar fortress, the Babur Gardens — the tomb and garden complex of Babur, founder of the Mughal Empire, laid out in 1528 and restored after 20 years of war — the Kabul Museum with its partially recovered collection) and the Afghan hospitality (pashtunwali — the Pashtun code of honour that places hospitality to guests as the highest social obligation — which has made individual travel in Afghanistan, in better times, among the most warmly received in the world) before flying from Hamid Karzai International Airport (KBL).

Afghan chai culture (the green tea (chai sabz) with cardamom served in every shop, teahouse and home throughout Afghanistan as the primary expression of hospitality — served in a small glass with sugar on the side, the ritual of tea-sharing being the most important social gesture in Afghan culture — is inseparable from the pashtunwali code of hospitality that has made Afghanistan, in periods of stability, one of the most welcoming countries for travellers in all of Asia.