KABULI DAYS, TRAVELS IN OLD AFGHANISTAN
Edward Field's grand adventure in Afghanistan began in the most unlikely place, his
dentist's office. It was 1970. Field, in the midst of romantic torment, leafed through a
National Geographic in the waiting room and found pictures of a wild and
unconquerable land. Its strangeness immediately touched his poet's soul but there was
also something oddly familiar about it as well. Field decided to take his broken heart to
Afghanistan, the furthest place he could think of on earth. He set off on the hippie trail
overland to this central Asian country and recorded his impressions and adventures in
his diary, now published as Kabuli Days, Travels in Old Afghanistan. For most of his
fellow travelers, Afghanistan was just a stop on the way to the, inarguably, more exotic
India and Katmandu. For Field, Afghanistan was the goal -- the place, he realized, he
needed to be.
Set in a landscape like the moon, Afghanstan turned out to be the most difficult and
exotic country this experienced traveler had ever seen. The capital Kabul looked like an
earthquake had knocked it down and the citizens were living in the rubble. But the
bazaars of this Crossroads of the World were treasure troves of opulent carpets and
silks and precious stones from all over Asia. He adopted the native costume for one
thrilling night spent in the slums of Kabul at an illegal dervish concert where men veiled
their faces for anonymity, and visited a secret hashish factory in the hills around the city.
His travels around the country, by bus, taxi, and truck, over bone-shaking rocky tracks,
through riverbeds and over perilous mountainside trails made for camel trains, took him
to the fabled Bamian Valley where he climbed the giant Buddhas (since destroyed by
the Taliban). His adventures took him through the astonishing Soviet-built Salang tunnel
in the Hindu Kush at 12,000 feet, to the ruins of ancient Balkh, Mother of Cities, and
finally to the remote corner near China in the Pamir Mountains where paranoia about
spies was so great, the police followed him everywhere. He talked with everyone,
getting to know the people, the language, the traditions and sexual mores of this ancient
culture. His poet's keen eye and open heart vividly chronicle one stirring, life-changing
summer in a mysterious, challenging, and bleakly beautiful land.
Kabuli Days, Travels in Old Afghanistan captures a relatively tranquil time in
Afghanistan's tumultuous history, when it was a politically fragile monarchy, before the
Soviet occupation, the fierce Mujahadeen resistance, the rise of the Taliban and its
current occupation by the United States. It is a deeply personal, yet full-rigged
adventure story that begins in the most dangerous place on Earth, the restless heart.
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Contact: Manuel Igrejas 973 744 3956
mannyigrejas@aol.com