Grammar rodeo at the Sheraton Hotel in Afghanistan
December 13, 2010 8:47 AM   Subscribe

"Hann sells his Afghanistan tours as a chance to see the country's rugged outback while sleeping on dirty teahouse floors and tackling the country's roads in minibuses that buck like mechanical bulls... Obviously, Hann's tours attract adventurous travelers, but they're not adrenaline freaks or war junkies. Most are past middle age, unmarried, fairly mild-mannered, and childless," Damon Tabor on tourism in Afghanistan.
posted by geoff. (17 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Most are past middle age, unmarried, fairly mild-mannered, and childless.

The perfect gift for the man in your life who has nothing to lose.
posted by 2bucksplus at 9:02 AM on December 13, 2010


The perfect gift for the man in your life who has nothing to lose.
according to the article, the tour group seemed to be split amongst 4 men and 3 women.

The post kind of reminds me a bit of Rory Stewart's The Places In Between where the author, a Scottish prep school kid / British Army veteran / former diplomat decided to walk across Afghanistan shortly after the US succeeded in occupying Kandahar. The Afghanistan of then was still pre-kidnapping industry and pre-Karzai thugocracy, but it was still seem at the time as an extraordinarily reckless act.

What was somewhat remarkable about the narrative was that the author was not into it for the adrenaline or the bad-ass points but because he had, in school, read a lot of the lore of the British Army in Afghanistan during the Great Game and had wanted to go and see it at a point in time when a tourism industry was not in place to filter the experience for him. It is, in many ways, totally hardcore nerd walk.
posted by bl1nk at 9:12 AM on December 13, 2010 [1 favorite]


Do you feel lucky, punk?
posted by mooselini at 9:26 AM on December 13, 2010


This is daft and irresponsible. Counting down to the tragic newspaper headlines.
posted by YouRebelScum at 9:27 AM on December 13, 2010


Jesus Christ. This goes to show that stupidly reckless behavior does cross age lines. I wonder why the journalist did it though, seems like an incredible risk to take for a story in a war zone that isn't about the war.
posted by ChrisHartley at 9:50 AM on December 13, 2010


This is daft and irresponsible. Counting down to the tragic newspaper headlines.

Newspaper headlines if you're lucky - video footage if you're not.

And then it gets used to justify more war, maybe there's a security crackdown, public opinion of the Afghanistan people goes even lower, etc.
posted by Mitrovarr at 9:57 AM on December 13, 2010


I resent people who are less risk-averse than I am.
posted by msittig at 10:01 AM on December 13, 2010 [3 favorites]


>Jesus Christ. This goes to show that stupidly reckless behavior does cross age lines. I wonder why the journalist did it though, seems like an incredible risk to take for a story in a war zone that isn't about the war.

This little expedition just seems like a different version of an already established pattern. You get a war/conflict torn piece of land and you put a tourist stamp on it. As is the case with Nicaragua, Sierra Lione, etc. Or just you climb Everest. Any difficult terrain will find people who are attracted to it. Afghanistan is no exception.
posted by mooselini at 10:04 AM on December 13, 2010


I've got no problem with people who are comfortable with physical risks, just not where they have no frame of reference for the nature of that risk, or ability to calibrate it, or the wider consequences, but plunge in regardless.
posted by YouRebelScum at 10:14 AM on December 13, 2010 [1 favorite]


I've got nothing against somebody who wants to risk their life, but some GI might get it because they get sent in relatively unprepared to rescue these guys who all of a sudden turn up in their battlespace needing help.
posted by atchafalaya at 10:42 AM on December 13, 2010


I am with those saying that this is daft and irresponsible for ALL reasons given! Even the more ballsy journalists don't go some of those places. if you are a journalist you have a reason, if you are an aid worker you have a reason. Everyone else needs to get their happy @&&€& out of the way.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 10:44 AM on December 13, 2010


Ever since I read A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush I've been very interested in going to Afghanistan to climb. Climb Afghanistan has information on climbing in the Wakhan Cooridor in the Northeastern part of the country. A number of expeditions have been going up there in recent years. It sounds like an amazing area and relatively secure compared to the rest of the country.
posted by alpinist at 4:44 PM on December 13, 2010


Hey, at least they get to go through Balkh, birthplace of Rumi (and site of Zoroaster's death). It would be interesting to stop there and recite some of Rumi's quatrains about Divine unity and love and then negotiating a makeshift checkpoint run by guys wielding Soviet designed carbines.

I felt similarly upon visiting Tabriz (hometown of Rumi's male muse, Shems) in present-day Iran.
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:36 PM on December 13, 2010


Hann's tours attract adventurous travelers, but they're not adrenaline freaks or war junkies. Most are past middle age, unmarried, fairly mild-mannered, and childless"

Yeah, if I hadn't had a kid, this is totally something I'd see myself doing around my mid to late 50s.

For childless people who love travelling, as the years click by there are fewer & fewer places left to visit that aren't just minor variations on places you've already been, and which have something you'd actually like to see. Also, I've been wanting to visit Afghanistan for years, only the War on Abstract Principles got right in the way.

If I was just short of 60 now, single & childless, it'd be an question of "if not now, then would I ever be able to go there?" and the experience of a guide who seems to know the ropes on the ground would add to the appeal, especially if you've come to feel that nowhere is really as dangerous as the warnings make it out to be.

It would help to have a bit of a death wish, too; one that doesn't involve dying lonely & forgotten in a nursing home.
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:59 PM on December 13, 2010


It's rare that I can write about something authoritatively, but:

I've worked in Afghanistan for most of the past four years, 90% of my time since mid 2006 has been spent living in Kabul.

This guy is a moron. He's trying to do these tours with minimal Dari and no security? It's just asking for trouble. You do not even CONTEMPLATE driving from Herat to Mazar-e-Sharif via Maymana.

Organized tours from Kabul to Bamiyan are one thing, and relatively safe (taking the non Wardak route). Bamiyan to the minaret of Jam is safe. The rest I would not do without a professional security team and evac plan.
posted by thewalrus at 6:32 PM on December 13, 2010 [1 favorite]


I've read Rory Stewart's book. I also know a number of people in Kabul, mostly Brits, who can best describe him as a "right pompous wanker". Try saying it in your best east London accent.

This is something I've been wanting to write about on MeFi for a while.

bl1ng: Rory Stewart's trip was recklessly stupid because of one main reason: Including a large, mangy dog. If you're an American or Canadian, unless you've lived in Afghanistan for a few years, it's hard to fully appreciate the different place dogs occupy in Afghan culture. You do NOT show up at random strangers' doorsteps in mid winter with a large dog asking to be given a place to stay... It's just not done. Dogs do not -ever- come inside houses. The route he walked was traveling through a really impoverished area. Showing up at random houses and expecting to be given a warm place to sleep was a real hardship on the random people he chose to grace with his presence. The cost of firewood in the high mountain areas of Ghor and Bamiyan provinces is not negligible. The particular region of Hazarajat he walked through is at a really high elevation (5500+ ft) and hard enough to survive without random foreigners showing up expecting hospitality. People keep their sheep and goats inside their property's perimeter wall at night, which does not mix well with large dogs.

As best I can tell from the book he walked in a route from Herat, directly up river, to Jam, through the Chagcharhan area, through Bamiyan, exited Bamiyan province over the Hajigak pass into Wardak, and then from Wardak into the southern end of Kabul.

If he really wanted to do the trip on foot (in winter!) he should have brought with him first class, high end mountain climbing grade -30C down sleeping bags, a $700 tent, food, etc. Similarly he should have brought cooking fuel and condensed food. Think similar to doing a trek through a really isolated region of Nepal. Obviously he could have afforded to do so and chose not to...
posted by thewalrus at 6:46 PM on December 13, 2010


thewalrus - I'm not sure a tent etc. would be a good idea. You can't sleep outdoors anywhere rural without a serious risk of getting robbed or worse. I tried it once near the top of the Panjshir, and got woken by four guys with guns and it was only the fact that they were my Afghan mate's cousins that I got away with it. (Incidentally, I got the impression that they fly back from Herat.)
posted by YouRebelScum at 1:37 AM on December 14, 2010


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