Our initial plan to travel in Afghanistan was to spend at least 3 weeks up to one month. We decided that way since the cost of the visa was not that cheap for us Malaysian and we rather make full use of it.However, we cut short our Afghanistan trip. Here was the plan of cities to be visited: Kabul, Bamiyan, Jalalabad, Kandahar, Mazar-I sharif and Herat before crossing into Iran.
Somehow, we just managed to visit Kabul and Herat. What a shame, 2 out of 6. however, we did visit Kabul and its vicinity like Paghman, and Panjsher Valley. Even then, we were denied our stay in Panjsher Valley.
Few weeks to days before we arrived in Afghanistan, there were few attacks and bomb blasted killed hundreds in total.
First, our anxiety have been triggered a little. There was an incident where we asked our host to asked a local man some question and to take some photo, he ended up cursing us and accused that we are an Al-Qaeda spy.
Secondly, the road through Salang Pass to Mazar-I-shrif was close due to heavy snow.Then, a lot of locals that we met advised us to stay away from using any road connection to other cities because of some violent activities reported.
In fact, our host would stop us to go anywhere if we decide to use the road connections. The only choice that the recommend and bless our decision was to take a plane.
We took few more days up to 10 days just in Kabul to see how the situation leads to. However, situations worsen, at least 4 suicide bombing attempts were neutralised by the Afghan’s authorities. In fact, our very own host, who worked in Ministry of energy and water was one of the victims who were in the situation of life and death when the Intel told them.
It was a very short visit to this complicated yet beautiful country in the heart of Asia. But the experiences, good and bad were enough to make us wanting to travel in Afghanistan again next time.
