Beautiful Bamyan

We went on a 6 days trip to Bamyan. Loic had to work 3 days, but besides that it was pure relaxation! Bamyan is an 8 hour ride from Kabul (on very bumpy roads). But it was amazing. The landscape was absolutely beautyful. And the weather was perfect; clear blue sky.

The Buddhas of Bamyan

Our hotel (The roof of Bamyan) was perfectly located. Here we are on the roof of the hotel enjoying the morning tea in front of the Buddhas (that are no longer there, unfortunately). They vere bombed by the Taliban in 2001. The sight is still amazing though.

Ea on trip with Phil and Mike

Loic had to work and I spent the day with two gyus from Channel 4. We met at our hotel and they vere making a documentary about the show called Afghan Star (Afghanistans American Idol). The show had reached the finals, and one of the finalist was from Bamyan. So we drove around the city and interviewed locals about the show. Here a boy on a donkey...

Band-e-Amir lakes

We vent to the Band-e-Amir lakes about 3 hours (also on very bumpy roads) from Bamyan. It was a fantastic place. The nature there was stunning!! We had a nice picknic and relaxed in the sun for a couple of hours, before driving back.

Humajoun and Miles

We went on a trip one day with a bunch of people. We drove in a car with Humajoun and Miles, two great gyus. Here we have a break, hanging out on a tank left in the roadside (a sight you see very often i Afghanistan)

New Year

New year is comming soon here in Kabul. The 21st of March we will enter the year 1387 (the Persian calendar).

We are making a calendar for the Civil Service Commission, and therefore we took a lot of pictures of the staff of the Commission. In one of them I was asked to join. So that is what you see on this picture: Ea with the Civil Service Commission; the white one in the background. Funny, ha?

If you look closer here, you will see the dead goat at the feet of the horses. The riders gather around it. As soon as one of them manages to grab the goat the others will chase him, and try to take it from him. It is actually quite difficult to understand what it is happening during the game.

Bushkashi

With no respect for the horses, the players crash into each others in order to steal the dead goat from the other players.

One of the last bushkashi of the season

This sport is extremely violent for both men and horses. It is played on a bounderyless area. So people are standing next to the action and risk at anytime to be trampled on by the horses.

Our street

Some hazarats (mogolian descendants) sunbathing at the begining of our street.

Kabul Bank

Our bank, all our fortune is well kept! :-)

Buses on top of each others

A graveyard for buses. Hundreds of them are piled up on top of each others. Weird!

Friday Prayer - 1

Afghanistan's biggest mosque (Majdid Idga). Hundreds of men go to the weekly prayer on friday morning.

Friday Prayer - 2

A local mosque (close to where we live). It gets so crowded on weekends (fridays) that worshippers can not find a place inside the mosque and are forced to sit outside on the sidewalk.

A truck crashes

A truck missed the curve. For no apparent reasons, all the trucks are decorated

with, as some would say, fancy/ psychadelic paintings.

Women drinking tea

Tea Time at the beginning of butcher street. As the one woman in the back

shows, women may not show their face to stranger, so she turns her face to the wall in order to sip tea.

Afghan carpets

You find a lot of small shops selling carpets in Kabul. We went with a Danish friend of ours (Erna) to visit this shop. She has been in Afghanistan on and off for the last five years, and knows this carpet seller very well. We ended up buying a carpet here. Not the one on the picture, but the same style and colors. It is from Herat and made by a family called Musvani. The carpet is a mix of Kelim and normal knitted carpet.

Butcher Street

In the centre of Kabul there is a street called Butcher Street. Here you have a big selection of shops that sell all kind of food. The meat is always hanging outside like on this picture. Sometimes a living sheep or cow is standing just next to the meat, waiting for its turn.

Dogs

Me and our dog Spy in front of the house. There are a lot of dogs in Kabul. And they are in general very big. They are used for dog fights, which take place early weekend mornings. Our dog though is not a fighter, he is a lover.

The Staff

This is us with the entire staff of the agency. We took this picture because one of the guys, Faiz Ali was leaving for Canada. It is taken in our studio.

Some boys playing football just next to the Qasr-e-Darulaman castle.

On the other side of the street there is a big ISAF base (International Security Assistance Force). ISAF is led by NATO and was established by the UN in 2001.

A woman in the traditional blue Burga sitting on the street with her child.

Qasr-e-Darulaman

The king Mohammed Zahir Shah used to live in this castle before it was destroyed during the civil war. We took a walk together with Marie Louise (a danish friend) around the castle some weeks ago. I tried to take some pictures of the scenery when almost immediately a armed guard showed up and angrily asked us to leave. Anyway, here are the pictures we managed to save. We think that give a good idea of how violent were the fights between the different factions during the war.

Our garden

This is our garden and our guard Aziz. He is there during the day to take care of the house and let people in when we have guests coming over.

Some boys we met on the street.

This small shop in the street is where we buy our fruits and vegetables.

As it says on the picture, this used to be
the Industrial Development Bank of Afghanistan.