Travel Afghanistan
Another country I hope to visit but probably never will. The closest I've come is peering across a border checkpoint on a road toward Herat and from a helicopter looking into it's wrinkled brown hills. A cross roads of many cultures and religions since the time of Alexander the Great. This month, it will be ten years of American presence in the country. Here's my collection of armchair travel. 1. The Places In Between, Rory Stewart (2004). In January 2002, Stewart walked across Afghanistan. He sleeps in snow drifts, encounters villages burned and deserted because of the Taliban. Along the way he encounters extreme hospitality, extreme brutality and humor, surviving on his knowledge of local language, the hospitality of strangers and an adopted Mastiff. Stewart seems to be in the model of bygone English adventurers, diplomats and statesman. He went on to serve in Iraq for the UK and later to become a Minister of Parlia...