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From The Times

December 28, 2002

Latest guidebook gossip: what's on in sunny Kabul

by Tom Chesshyre

IT’S not at the top of most peoples’ city break list, but Kabul now has its very own tourist guidebook.

The Survival Guide to Kabul gives information on what to see, where to stay, places to eat, how to arrange a visa, and how to get about in the Afghan capital, where a trickle of tourists has begun to return since the fall of the Taleban.

Among its tips are to carry your passport with you at all times (“one Japanese tourist without his passport was arrested and sent to a prison for interrogation, where he was beaten up”) and how to deal with tetchy officials at the Passport Office, who will apparently shout “boro, boro” (go away, go away) at you.

Meals cost from about 60p to £6, says the guide, and accommodation ranges from about £2 a night in a guesthouse to £40 in a top hotel; US dollars are widely accepted alongside the local currency, the afghani.

The best souvenirs, mainly carpets, are found in the markets around Chicken Street. Postcards to Britain cost about 50p, with many foreigners opting for a new issue of stamps that pictures the site at Bamiyan after its Buddhas were destroyed by the Taleban.

Pickpockets can be a problem, but petty theft is not widespread, according to the guide. Torches are useful as powercuts are frequent. And women need not wear burkas, but are advised to wear a head scarf and not to bare arms.

Dominic Medley, a former BBC journalist who co-wrote the guide with his friend Jude Barrand, another journalist, said that all the money from the sale of the guides goes to young street vendors.

“We had an initial print run of 3,000 earlier this year, and we gave all these to the kids who sold them on street corners, mainly to UN employees,” said Medley, who plans to produce more copies in February.

“They were sold for anything from $1 to $10, which obviously made a lot of difference, as the average monthly wage is $40.”

Medley says that he has yet to see a “proper tourist” in Afghanistan, although a group of British tourists did visit the country in August on a ten-day sightseeing trip. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office “strongly advises” against travel to Afghanistan.

Maya Catsanis, spokeswoman for Lonely Planet, the guidebook publisher, said the company has no plans to produce a guide to the country. “We never tell travellers not to go to a place, but you’d have to be pretty intrepid to go to Afghanistan,” she said.

Naser Barotali, aged 15, who sold The Survival Guide to Kabul for two months and used the income to support his younger brother and his blind grandfather, said: “The good thing about the guide is I get to keep all the profit. I use the money to buy extra food for my family.”