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An Afghan adventure in April 1966. Flying to Kabul from Tehran over rugged, mountainous country.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coming down to Kabul can be seen a flooded river

 

 

A typical village, each house forming a rectangular compound with bare walls on the outside

 

 

The main street of Kabul, crowded with people, with not a draught animal in sight

 

 

Part of the old town rises above the river, with snowy mountains behind

 

 

The Kabul River. The rather fine riverside buildings all, except the mosque, with tin roofs.

 

 

The hotel where I stayed, built and owned by Czechs

 

 

Street scenes. The tea merchant.

 

 

The women were almost universally dressed like this

 

 

The British Embassy, some four miles from the city centre

 

 

A mosque in town

 

 

Bringing home the shopping

 

 

It was always the men who seemed to have leisure

 

 

The tyre vendors. Up some steps leading from this yard was the office of the money changer, where one haggled to get a much higher rate for pounds than the banks offered. This service was surprisingly recommended by the British Embassy in its handout to visitors.

 

 

 

 

 

There being no draught animals in the street, porters waited for loads. They were almost invariably Mongolian in type, this sector of the population being at the bottom of the economic pecking order.

 

 

The hand-cart takes off with a load.

 

 

More sales in the bazaar and in the street.

 

 

Note the use of home-made scales, operated in a very questionable way. Often the weights were cogs from a car gearbox.

 

 

Making pans for the scales from flattened-out oil drums

 

 

The balance in use with customer watching

 

 

 

 

 

Oranges waiting for customers. The balance is tucked into a corner of the pannier.

 

 

The bread shop

 

 

And a bread carrier

 

 

The vegetable and flower seed trade. The seller had, for guidance, a copy of a European seed catalogue

 

 

 

 

 

A bus queue

 

 

Fat-tailed lamb on sale

 

 

The Palace Guard! The king was deposed not long after my visit

 

 

Smokers’ requisites

 

 

Down south in Kandahar. Americans and Russians were both wooing the Afghans, who became adept at playing one off against the other. This splendid airport was American-built, while the fine road into the city was built by the Soviets

 

 

 

 

 

Kandahar streets. Unlike Kabul, here there are draught animals

 

 

 

 

 

The level, very bare desert outside Kandahar with hills rising abruptly out of the plain

 

 

Brick kilns outside Kandahar. Note the salt on the land surface.

 

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