Athenry News & Views Winter 2025

Athenry News & Views

A journey in space - and time. Looking down from a near-empty jet, my first sight was of snow-capped mountain ranges with valleys between. Afghanistan’s geography has made it a land of tribes and ethnic groups, a reluctant nation-state. The Taliban, who started out as a resistance against warlords, were back in power. Good news for visitors like me - because that meant security had greatly improved. We could travel through the countryside with our guides. Hotels were set behind high walls, barbed wire and sandbags, we passed through security checks and accessed reception through thick steel doors. Our first hotel, Kabul Intercontinental, was a trip back to 1960s luxury. An added security measure was that we dressed Afghan for the trip. Kabul, in and on the mountains, has the old, new and decrepit. Few traffic lights. There is the unfinished palace, now Taliban offices and museum - exhibits cover ancient times, the Greeks, Sassanids, Mongols and many more invaders. There are fine viewpoints and peaceful parks where couples courted - once. Chicken Street, where 1960s hippies got hash, has souvenir shops. Hippies often got hospitality from poor families and would sometimes end their trip by having their embassies fly them home. Some of them are in the Foreign Cemetery with fallen 19th century British soldiers and others. In the hills are old Buddhist stupas and the house with no power or water where Afghanistan’s only astronaut, Abdul Ahad Momand, lives. Back in Kabul are the markets and the bird market - Afghans love pet birds. And there’s the frequent haze and smell from burning wood and rubbish fuel. Leaving Kabul, we drove over snowy mountains, down canyons and into brown-grey valleys. In a few weeks, there would be glorious colours. We saw wrecked military hardware. A lot of farming but methods were primitive. People lined up for money handouts in one town - a necessity with 85% unemployment and emigration practically impossible. Women were covered to varying degrees depending on their ethnicity. Much has been destroyed but the country is still a museum - huge ruined forts, cities and towers, Buddhas, shrines and mosques from the centuries. And in those ruins, some people live. In Bamiyan, we saw the rubble of huge Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. Elsewhere, we drove by the massive abandoned Bagram US air base - while it was active, farmers liked to work near it in the relative security. In other places, Travel - Afghanistan 2024

By Paul Holland

With my guides near Herat

Centuries-old Buddhist stupa, outside of Kabul

Typical mosque of Central Asia

On the way from Kabul to Bamiyan