North of Kabul, across the blackened Shomali Plain, past roadblocks and through towns whose crowds jostle and push right up in between the traffic, and then six hours west along a narrow dirt track through the sides of gorges and lowland valleys, a bubbling stream below, our faces wrapped in scarves against the dust and our eyes squinting against the sun. I am in the front with the ill-tempered Tajik driver, Nadene and her dog Kush in the back. We snack on MREs and viciously tempt the fasting driver with tootsie rolls.

MRE = Meal Ready to Eat, the standard American self-contained ration. Many find them foul, I find them miraculous.

Up and up into the Hindu Kush we climb along countless switchbacks, racing our own dust plume until we reach a high alpine plateau on the top of the world but for the snowy mountains in the distance. Under the watch of forgotten towers high above we traverse a narrow pass cut through the rock by a river that dried up long ago.

And then we burst from the last shadows of the pass in a cloud of dust and gravel into a narrow green valley, walled in by dry mountains and nourished by a single narrow irrigation stream. Rice patties and fields of barley blanket the slopes, and the villages are nestled up close between the stream, the road, and the mountains, and shaded by trees just beginning to turn in the autumn. Gone are the hawk-featured Tajiks of the lowlands, replaced by Asiatic Hazaras with broad friendly faces and dressed in bright tunics and dresses. Children run through tree-lined avenues, waving and laughing. We have stepped from Afghanistan into Shangri-La.

At dusk we pass beneath the ruins of the Red City crumbling atop cliffs at the gateway to the central valley and glowing blood in the setting sun. By the time we reach our guesthouse overlooking Bamiyan the sun has set and we stand in the dark, listening to the evening call to prayer echo between the moonless sky of Ramadan and the snow-covered peaks glimmering in the distance.

———

The next morning we arose to the crowing of roosters and the braying of mules. Nadene was in Bamiyan ostensibly to record a piece on Afghanistan’s nascent tourism industry, and I was a tourist. It was a convenient relationship. I was to be interviewed live on BBC that morning but Nadene, distracted by Kush who was hungrily pursuing the neighbor’s chickens, broke her satellite feed one hour before she was to conduct the interview. Thus was my chance at fame thwarted.

Whereas I in a similar situation would have shrugged my shoulders and resigned myself to enjoying the day, Nadene devoted herself to circumventing the obstacle of the broken transmitter. First a boy was sent to the bazaar to find either a spare cable or an electrician to repair the broken one; neither was found. Then Nadene’s driver in Kabul was sent to the BBC office to acquire a spare cable and drive it to Bamiyan; the woman in charge refused to surrender the equipment.

PRT = Provincial Reconstruction Team, militaryspeak for a coalition garrison that is supposed to do nice things like dig wells in addition to blowing down peoples’ houses.

Next, we drove to the local PRT and beseeched the resident New Zealanders to apply their technical expertise to our predicament. The Kiwis, who evidently spent most of their relaxed tour in Bamiyan thrashing local NGOs at pickup rugby and playing the fearsome Afghan horse sport buzkashi on borrowed mules, fell upon the damaged satellite feed with enthusiasm. After an hour’s labor in which much of the camp was involved and during the course of which Nadene’s entire satellite transmitter was disassembled and reassembled expertly, it was determined the damage was irreparable. We paused to enjoy a meal of pork and bread pudding in the mess as the sun set and the frigid night fell.

I contributed to this day’s labor by sympathetically intoning after every failure “Well, you tried your best,” hoping that we could now get down to the serious business of touring. But when we did make forays into the valley’s sights between efforts at salvaging Nadene’s interview, I would over time come to appreciate it as appropriate that we little humans would involve ourselves with little human affairs with this, the most beautiful valley in the world, as the stage. So it has always been in Bamiyan.

Nadene was descended on her father’s side from the Ghaurid dynasty that at one time ruled an empire stretching from Central Asia into India, and her ancestors built two giant cities in Bamiyan while mine were still stealing sheep in Scotland. The first of these was the Red City under whose shadow we passed the evening before. It was here in 1221 that the residents first turned back the Mongol hordes, in the process killing Genghis Khan’s favorite grandson. The Mongols returned, however, with the Khan at their head, and the people of the Red City were not successful a second time.

The second city the Ghaurids built was located atop the strategic hill at the center of the valley. Its original name is forgotten, and it is now known as Gholghola. It is a haunted, dangerous place.

According to local legend, the aging king of Bamiyan took a young second wife, infuriating his jealous daughter in the process. Time passed, grim rumors filtered up the passes from the lowlands, and dread gripped the soul of Bamiyan as the wind from the east carried the smoke and screams of the dying Red City. For a time the king’s guard held out against the hordes as the valley’s people huddled terrified within the city’s walls. But the spiteful daughter betrayed her household, alerting the Mongol Khan to the existence of a secret well upon which the city relied for its water. The well was poisoned, and the citadel fell.

As the Mongols rampaged through the city, slaughtering every living being within and the blood of her people flowed between the cobbles, the vain daughter put on her most beautiful dress and stepped out to meet Genghis Khan, eager for the gratitude of her new lord. But the Khan was not to be found. He had left orders that the princess should be stoned amongst the ruins of her burning city, following her doomed people into oblivion. The city on the mountain came to be known by its new name: Shahr-e Gholghola, the Screaming City.

Today the mountain is a barren, sun-bleached place of hollow arches and crumbling walls, under which it is said you can still unearth the bones of Gholghola’s dead. Scattered over the rocks and culverts among chips of faded pottery are spent shell casings, rusted weaponry and empty boxes of supplies, testament to the blood that has been spilt upon the strategic heights during more recent wars. One side of the mountain has been shorn away by B-52s.

ANA = Afghan National Army

Nadene, Kush and I threaded our way up the well-worn path between broken towers and catacombs, wary of the red-flagged mines still in the recesses off the path. At the top we greeted the lone ANA soldier there, and admired the solar panels of the local Voice of America station, representatives of the new occupiers of this haunted mountain.

Later, while awaiting word from the New Zealand technicians, we walked to the bazaar where I discovered that the normal spectacle of a beautiful Western woman was for once out-shown by the sight of the sleek Afghan hound loping at our sides. The locals had never seen anything like Kush, and stared in disbelief as we passed by. Soon a mob was following us, pointing and jostling for view – we might as well have been leading a dragon. As Nadene shopped for fabric I was left to control both the uncooperative hound and the curious throng. What is it, they asked. A dog, I said, an Afghan dog. They shook their heads and smiled at one another. Where is it from? How much did it cost? From Badakhshan. I don’t know, it was a present.

Soon the mob had become so close and thick that things were becoming alarming. “You are frightening my dog,” I said, pointing to the shaking Kush. The villagers were undeterred.

“You are frightening my woman,” I tried, indicating Nadene. This chastened them some, but the lure of the dragon was too great. It was only when we abandoned the bazaar and fled back to the guesthouse that we lost the crowd of admirers.

That night Kush repaid my efforts in her defense by urinating on my headlamp in the corner of our room and spending the night sleeping on me, despite venomous stares and thrashing legs.

———

The following morning we drove to the two giant Buddhas of Bamiyan, where a team of German archeologists were laboring amidst the rubble in search of a rumored third reclining statue buried at the feet of the other two. We made our way up the cliff face, passing caves in which yellow-robed monks once prayed, to a collapsing entrance that led us to a narrow stair winding precariously up into the heart of the mountain. In places the stair, or worse the wall between the stair and the snow-flecked void outside, had crumbled away entirely and our legs quivered as we edged our way up.

Finally we reached the top, where a doorway led out onto a ledge without handrail or wall overlooking the dizzying fall back down to the foot of the cliff some forty meters below. Footprints in the dust indicated that souls braver than I had dared this ledge, but Nadene and I contented ourselves with moving on to another perch across which a metal pole had been recently installed as a token of safety.

We were standing above where the head of the Buddha had once been, seeing what he saw for the nearly two millennia of his life. Out over the dusty ruined bazaar were forests and green fields in which brightly-clad women, children, men, and beasts all labored together. Sheep bleated, mules wailed, and roosters crowed. Beyond the shimmering river rose dry, brown foothills and beyond them the blinding whiteness of the Hindu Kush.

The two giant Buddhas, along with any number of smaller ones and entire networks of caves, were constructed as part of a religious seminary in the valley sometime between the 3rd and 5th centuries. Their faces were gold, their clothes made of glazed enamel, and frescoed antechambers all along their sides were lined with delicately carved statues of angels and saints. Created by adherents to a faith that rejected worldly vanity and in an age before tourism, these giant monuments were not built as an attraction or as testament to a ruler’s greatness, but rather as an offering. They were built in this, one of the most inaccessible corners of a remote country, because no other place on earth could be found where God would rather live.

Musalla in Herat = Giant and spectacular 15th century mosque and religious seminary built by the Timurids. Knocked down by the British because they thought the Russians might be coming, and wanted clear fields of fire.

Bila Hissar in Kabul = Old, old Kabul castle and seat of kings until the British knocked it down because they were really mad that the Afghans had recently massacred about 40,000 redcoats and camp followers in the passes between Kabul and Jalalabad.

Khalili = one of the warlords of the Hazara faction, made one of two vice presidents of the first Karzai administration.

Constructed before Mohammed walked the earth, the Buddhas survived the coming of his religion, they watched over the rich caravans of the Silk Road, saw the rise and fall of countless Persian empires, watched as the Mongol terror laid waste to the Red City and Gholghola, witnessed the rise of new global empires in the 19th century, and heard of the destruction of the Musalla in Herat and the Bila Hissar in Kabul. Butterfly mines crowned their heads during the Soviet occupation, and warring Mujahideen chipped at their enamel for souvenirs during the ensuing civil war.

During a few days in 2001, while the cowed Hazaras watched from the hills where they had fled with Khalili, a few dozen Pakistani-educated Pashtuns from the sun-blasted southern deserts arrived with dynamite and artillery. They hacked away the faces and hands of the angels at the shoulders of the Buddhas, they peppered the frescoes with bullets, and painted the name of the Taliban along the walls of ancient caves. And with gurgling streams, green fields, and snowy mountains as backdrop they blew the Buddhas to pieces.

———

Bamiyan is the most beautiful place I have ever seen, raw and immortal, and in no other place have I felt smaller and more fleeting. In Bamiyan the mountains are unblemished, the winters harsh, the stream clean, the ruins untended and untarnished by sentimentality. The inhabitants of the valley, like the rest of their nation, have suffered almost constant tragedy throughout their history but here the burning cities, the fallen empires, even the casual demolition of the ancient Buddhas served only to emphasize the beauty of the place in which they were all blessed to exist for a time. Beneath the white Hindu Kush and giant sky the petty little tanks of the Taliban must have seemed laughable to the Buddhas, even as they blew them down.

Within ten years, all of this will be destroyed. For the Mongols, the Soviets, the warlords and the Taliban had no power like ours. The valley is too beautiful for mortals to resist its exploitation, and Bamiyan will become the greatest tourist destination of Central Asia, an island of prosperity in an impoverished land.

A paved road will replace the winding dirt track. The stair up the side of the Buddha will be closed because it is too dangerous and too-rapidly eroding. Gholghola will be cleared of its mines, its spent ammunition boxes and rusting canteens, and informative signs will be placed along the path to the summit, telling of the latest archeological efforts and warning the visitor to please stay on the designated trail. Where simple mud-walled compounds now sit atop the bluffs multi-storey luxury hotels will rise, blotting out the stars with their neon, and the sound of raucous pool-side parties will drift down to the valley at night. The Hazaras will become used to dogs, and much more besides. The bazaar will swarm with crowds of Japanese purchasing mass-produced antique carpets and having their wallets stolen. The fields of barley will slip beneath kilometers of rental cottages, the lowing of cattle will fade, and meticulously crafted pedestrian bridges will crisscross the irrelevant stream. Above the valley ski slopes will scrape the majestic Hindu Kush and giant complexes of authentic Tibetan huts will serve kebabs and hot chocolate to rosy-cheeked Europeans.

There is even talk of re-building the Buddhas. Cobbled together from their own corpses like giant stone Frankenstein monsters, their heads crowned in Christmas lights, their dead eyes fixed upon the mutilated Hindu Kush, their blank smiles will shine over the carnival valley where God once lived

———

Back down through the passes we drive, waving Hazaras and their green fields receding behind us. The driver, evidently deciding that the rigors of this journey are greater than any pious man can endure, smokes, drinks, and eats with abandon and during one rest stop in a small mountain village we are quickly surrounded by the curious throng. “It is an Afghan dog,” I say, “It is hungry and it likes little boys. It will eat you.”

Past the high alpine plateau on the top of the world, and down into the Tajik villages where the children are less frequent and the burqas more so. There is less waving now, and the stares seem less friendly when not coming from round Asian faces.

At the road north of Kabul our cell phone reception returns, and Nadene begins checking in on her various enterprises. The heating stoves have still not been installed in the guesthouse, and she becomes increasingly furious as she learns of the failings of her staff, a tremble coming into her voice. “I can’t even go away for two days,” she shouts into the phone, “not even two days!”

I call my own office to find that one of my staff left a day early while I was away, lying and saying that I had said that he could do so. My office manager wants to leave every day at one because of Ramadan.

ISAF = International Stabilization and Assistance Force, primarily composed of European troops responsible for maintaining order in Kabul and other major cities. The Coalition is a separate command composed of line units primarily from the U.S. and UK, and responsible for blowing things up and shooting people out in the provinces.

The traffic becomes more frequent, and the driver more ill-tempered, savagely laying on his horn and swerving around vehicles moving slower than his preferred reckless speed. Kush refuses to sit still, roaming about the backseat and adding to the irritability of both the driver and Nadene. The driver is angry when the windows are up, and Nadene cannot hear her phone when they are down. We spot our first ISAF patrol rumbling along the highway, .50 caliber chain guns tracking passing vehicles suspiciously. The sun is sinking towards the mountains, and the driver says that we will be late.

At the outskirts of Kabul we discover that it is rush hour, the vehicles revving angrily while they sit filling with exhaust. The dust is tainted with sewage here, and the men that line the streets are sullen.

“This is the last call of the day,” rages Nadene behind me, “Have the stoves installed by 9:30 tomorrow morning, or somebody’s going to get fired. Do you hear me? This is it!”

“We are late,” the driver says as we finally pull in front of my guesthouse and I hastily gather my things and flee inside with only the most hurried farewells.

I lie in the garden, watching the sun set in the haze and waiting in vain for my friend Gulzarin the kitten to come. I drink warm beer and scroll through the pictures on my camera.