As I handed my passport to the Iranian border official I considered all of the reasons why I should not be leaving the safety of Iran and heading into the unknown of Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden, the Taleban, al-Qaeda, war, poverty - these were all things racing through my mind. Should I really take the risk? My mind was quickly made up for me as the Iranian official handed me back my passport with a large EXIT stamped on my Iran visa. I had been assured by the Afghani embassy in both Turkey, where I acquired my tourist visa, and Iran that the situation in the country was stable and safe for travel.

     I exited Iran, surrounded by returning Afghanis, handed out a few small bribes to customs officials and walked past hundreds of large trucks, many with UN emblazoned on the side. My first impression of Afghanistan was very stereotypical - all the men had huge bushy beards, turbans and long flowing robes. The children were filthy and wearing nothing more than rags. As a tourist, I was a bit of an anomaly and all the children wanted to carry my bag, for a fee, of course. I declined their offers and walked the short distance to the customs and immigration office, a ramshackle building surrounded by barbed wire and sandbags. My fears of bribes and intimidation were quickly dispelled as I was promptly stamped into the country and whisked past customs by smiling officials. Already I felt good about Afghanistan.

     A taxi driver soon found me and I was ushered into his battered Toyota hatchback. After waiting a few more minutes we were joined by two other Afghani men and a tough-looking military officer. The taxi was then full and so we set off into the countryside.

     The road was a terrible dirt track and the driver took most of the bumps at 80km/h, slowing down only for the numerous, heavily armed police checkpoints. With our military friend in the front seat we easily passed through the barricades. I was told that this was very lucky for me as his presence prevented me having to give large bribes to the desperate soldiers.

     One of the passengers in the car was Mohammed, an Afghani who had been living for twenty years in Iran. He was heading to Kabul to visit his three brothers whom he had not seen or spoken to in the whole twenty years. Due to the overthrow of the Taleban regime, he was now able to come back to his birth country. I asked him if he was excited and his simple answer of "Yes" did not nearly express the incredible look of excitement on his face.

     Ever since I was a child I had wanted to travel to Afghanistan. The country had intrigued me for years and so it felt like a dream to be sitting in that dusty taxi, bouncing over the rocky road. We passed through primitive villages under the backdrop of lush fields and rocky mountains. It was everything I had hoped for.

     Along the road we ran into a phenomena that I witnessed all over Afghanistan. Due to the poor state of the roads and the terrible poverty of the people, children would fill in the holes and expect money from passers-by. The taxi driver would throw 500 and 1000 Afghani notes (about 3 cents) out the window for them to collect. At certain points on the road, the children stretched in a line as far as the eye could see. "It is a more productive form of begging", Mohammed explained to me.

     Four hours and 120 km's later, the taxi bounced into Herat, the first major city in northwest Afghanistan. It was a dry, dusty and bustling city with low-slung mud buildings and people crowding the streets. I was dropped at the only hotel in the city and checked into a rather grotty room.

     "Of course it is", was the hotel porter's response to my question of whether or not is was safe to walk in the city. I walked around town and was greeted with smiles by everyone I saw, even those living on the streets. English had been banned by the Taleban but I was still met by a few people with a "Hello mister". I changed US$100 cash with a vendor on the road and was handed four very large bundles of Afghani currency in a plastic bag. With the highest bill being 10,000 Afg. and the exchange rate at 37,000 Afg. to the dollar, the stacks added up quickly.

     The following morning I was up at the crack of dawn to begin my journey to Kandahar, in the south of the country. I bid a fond farewell to my new friends at the hotel and took a local taxi to the bus stand. There were many touts screaming "Kandahar! Kandahar!" and I was placed in the back of yet another battered Toyota. Soon after, about fifty locals crowded around the car to catch a glimpse of me. The Afghani people are getting used to foreigners traveling through their country in fancy 4WD UN vehicles, but they were astonished to see a Westerner traveling as they did.

     Before the taxi had a chance to pull away, my bag was removed and placed in another vehicle with no explanation given. I was put in this empty taxi and driven around town by the driver and his companion. This passenger kept turning around to me, drawing his finger across his throat and saying, "Kandahar!". I did not take this as a good sign but as neither of them spoke English I was left to wonder where we were going. We finally found the Minister of Transport who informed me it was unsafe, as a Westerner, to travel to Kandahar. He also told me that the direct, and much shorter, route to Kabul took eleven days by road due to the mountains along the route.

     My Afghan adventure was over. The only choice I had then was to acquire a new Iranian visa and head back the way I had come. I felt defeated but was happy to have made it that far. I spent the rest of the day sightseeing around Herat. The city has five huge ancient minarets, a 500 year-old castle and great markets that anywhere else in the world would have been major tourist attractions. On the day I visited I was alone with only a few stray children playing games.

     Herat also had some more recent sights to see. I met a returning Afghani-American who drove me around town and pointed out the various destroyed Taleban tanks and Russian weaponry and even the local CIA headquarters, in a highly fortified area overlooking the city. Everywhere I went the people, who have been battered by decades of war, were always quick to smile and greet me.

     In the evening, I was invited to a local UN party. There were organisations and workers from all over the world discussing the aid work they were performing in the region. I became quite a spectacle as they all wondered why anyone would come to Afghanistan as a visitor. After the party I rushed back to the hotel by 2200, as there is a strict nationwide curfew in effect. Back at the hotel, I began talking to BadamQool, an Afghani who managed a de-mining company. He explained that there are over 10 million unexploded land mines in the country; thirty years work at current clearing rates. When told of my transportation problem BadamQool said that his company had a convoy of three ambulances heading to Kabul two days later and that there was room for me. I fell asleep that night excited that my trip was going to continue.

     The following day I spent visiting my friends around town and having a tailor make me some local Afghani clothes. As a foreigner in Western clothes, I found I was too conspicuous. I was hoping that the long flowing clothes combined with a week’s facial hair would take off some of the edge.

     Under the Taleban all technology in Afghanistan was banned. There was no television, no telephone and not even any mail system. Girls were not allowed to attend school, women not able to have jobs and all females had to be covered from head to toe, by threat of public beatings. In Herat I observed rows of shops selling TV's, satellite dishes and movies. We drove past a school where two heavily armed soldiers watched over young girls filing in to attend classes dressed in the relatively liberal Islamic hejab. Poverty is still rife and living conditions poor but there was a strong hope I witnessed in all those I met.

     At 430am the next morning I was picked up by one of the 4WD ambulances heading to Kabul. The all-Afghani team consisted of one doctor, three drivers, and ten de-miners. It was fascinating talking to men whose occupation was to destroy devices which sole purpose is to kill and mutilate. They had a zest for life, which I had never witnessed before. All had colleagues who had lost hands, eyes and even their lives on the job. They really lived for the moment and were constantly laughing and joking with each other.

     As we were an NGO (Non Government Organisation) we were able to speed through all of the numerous police roadblocks. The weather was hot and dry as we headed south at 100km/h over the somewhat graded roads. The scenery started as rocky mountains but quickly changed to hot, dry desert plains. By 1300, we were approaching Kandahar, the last stronghold of the Taleban before they were defeated only months before. The road was littered with destroyed fuel tankers and we passed by an al-Qaeda training camp - deserted now, of course. On the outskirts of Kandahar was a destroyed radio building. "B52 bombers with laser sights," I was told by my de-mining friends. The amazing accuracy of these laser-guided missiles was evident in the fact that there was no destruction even a few feet from the intended targets.

     We ate lunch in a small restaurant in Kandahar. All of the people I had met so far in Afghanistan were amazingly friendly and giving. In this particular restaurant there were three former Taleban in the corner - they were distinctive due to their long unkempt beards, short hair and clothes. They obviously did not like my presence in their town but only glared at me throughout the meal. The de-mining team joked to me about them in English but I could tell that they were nervous about the situation.

     The road northeast from Kandahar deteriorated quickly and we were forced to slow down to 15km/h in many places. The route had many modern looking bridges but all had been destroyed by the Russians in the '80s and were unusable. Getting around this problem involved winding down steep inclines and driving across dry riverbeds at a snail's pace.

     As the sun went down it was time to stop. After dark the roads become a dangerous gauntlet with bandits shooting first and looting what is left over. The team leader decided to stop in a town called Qalat, in Zabol province, bordering Pakistan. Dr. Daoud, the team doctor, told me that the area was not particularly safe for me and that there was al-Qaeda in the town, as we had already seen some of their distinctive black turbans. I was given a turban to wear and told to say that my name was Sher-Hamed and that I was from Tajikistan.

     We settled down for some dinner at the very basic hotel, which gave me a chance to talk to several of the guys. KhanSaid was from Kabul and constantly had a smile on his face. He described how his de-mining partner had been killed by a land mine while working and his first wife and children had died of disease under the Taleban. "It is ok," he said,"I have a new wife and baby now and am very happy." Talking to KhanSaid was like talking to anyone at home. The search for happiness and stability in life is an international trait. He also told me that his wife always stayed inside the home and if he ever saw her outside without his permission he would kill her. This seems to be a common problem in strict Islamic countries and made me realise that there really were great difference in our two cultures. When asked how they learned English so well they replied that before going to work they would write on their hands a few English words from the dictionary and periodically study them throughout the day.

     Many people in the town were asking about me and so Dr. Daoud decided that it was not safe for me to sleep in such a vulnerable place. Omar, one of the drivers, took me to the local UN compound where I spine the night under the UN security blanket.

     I was awoken at 400am to hit the road again. As we progressed long the heavily corrugated track, the mountains began to reappear and the scenery once again returned to the Afghani postcard I had enjoyed in the west of the country. Viewing those beautiful landscapes it was difficult to imagine that many parts of the country are off-limits due to the threat of land mines.

     As we were jostled and thrown around in the truck, one of the guys began to sing a traditional Afghan song in Farsi. I could not understand the words but understood that the mournful tune spoke of lost family, age-old wars, sadness and loneliness. I felt like I was riding through a live documentary, complete with soundtrack. Omar wanted me to sing some Celine Dion songs to help the journey along but I quietly declined.

     Finally, after twenty-five hours and almost 900 km's, we reached Kabul. I hurriedly bid farewell and thanks to my de-mining friends and checked into a small local hotel. After the long and difficult journey I fell into an exhausted sleep.

     The next morning I met Naheed, an Afghani-American women who had left Kabul more than twenty-two years before. We shared a cab around town and re-visited all of the places of her childhood. It was fascinating to hear how the now decrepit buildings and streets used to house happy families and laughing children. The old part of Kabul has been almost completely destroyed by the Russians. There were no buildings left untouched and children played amongst the ruins. Kabul used to be called the Paris of Central Asia with palm-fringed boulevards, small cafes and fashionable shops. Now nothing remains of its glory days. The new part of the city is virtually untouched by war but twenty years of neglect have created ramshackle buildings with crumbling facades.

     As there was very little left to see in Kabul I decided to leave the following day. It was surprisingly easy to organise a shared taxi to Pakistan and this time I was not surreptitiously removed before departure. On the other hand, I did start to realise that my "disguise" of local clothes and beard was starting to work. On several occasions the un-uniformed police would accost me for ID. They knew I was not Afghani but as I was wearing local clothes, they were not sure how to react to me.

     The taxi finally filled and snaked its way through Kabul traffic. We passed by the massive coalition forces base on the outskirts of town with the flags of many nations flying high. The drive up the Khyber Pass, the ancient route between Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent, was filled with breathtaking scenery - cows grazing by clear green rivers on the backdrop of green rolling hills and snow-capped peaks.

     There are an estimated six million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and now that the Taleban has been overthrown, they are beginning to return. I witnessed truck after truck piled high with refugees and their meagre belongings passing by us going home to Afghanistan. The looks on their faces showed eager anticipation of finally returning home.

     The vehicle wound its way up the pass and suddenly we were at the top facing the Pakistani border. It took me two minutes to get stamped out of Afghanistan and another two to get into Pakistan. I had made it.

     Afghanistan was everything I could have hoped for, and much more. Decades of war have left the country in a mess but has also given the people a resilience that we in the west cannot comprehend. There is so much hope for the future and already things are starting to change for the better. It will be a long time before the country once again becomes a stop on the tourist trail but it has many things to offer. I am very happy that I was able to visit Afghanistan, see the beautiful scenery and let the local people know that the world really does care what goes on in their remote central Asian country.