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ANYONE planning to visit Faizabad, provisional capital of the northern (non-Taliban) part of Afghanistan, had better be well prepared. Assuming that you want to visit the main city in the poorest province of the poorest country in Eurasia, here’s what to do.

How to get there

Faizabad is not served by scheduled transport of any form. The least uncomfortable way of reaching it is by an elderly Soviet military plane which makes an occasional run from Dushanbe, the capital of neighbouring Tajikistan. The round trip is $300, although no return flights are currently scheduled. If you are desperate to return, keep $900 handy in cash. You may be able to persuade the pilot to drop you off at Dushanbe when he flies his return leg, which is to a Russian military base in Tajikistan where the plane is maintained.

For flight details, join the queue of journalists, chancers and do-gooders clustered outside the Afghan embassy on Bakhtar Street, Dushanbe. You will need a return Tajik visa, a letter from a western organisation accrediting you, and a Tajik government pass (obtainable from the Tajik ministry of foreign affairs). These formalities (including an Afghan visa) take two or three days, after which you can start haggling for a place on the plane. Your chance of getting one of these places will depend on your importance, persistence, charm, and good luck.

The only alternatives are:

a) by land from Pakistan. This involves crossing a 4,700-metre-high pass on a donkey, and is impossible in winter. The border is currently closed, but porous for those with enough money;

b) by land from Khoja Bahauddin, the military headquarters. This is a bone-shaking ten-hour ride on very bad roads. To get to Khoja, you need a helicopter. If you have friends at CNN, you may be able to get a place on one of their flights. If not, join the queue at the Afghan embassy in Dushanbe.

Arrival

Faizabad airport is a desolate former Soviet military airstrip, surrounded by a few ruined huts. There are no facilities of any kind. You will be met by a jeep and taken to the so-called Club, which is a guesthouse for visiting foreigners. There is another hotel, The Star, for guests of the government.

Accommodation

If you are lucky you will be sleeping six or eight to a room at the Club, on thin mattresses. If you are unlucky, you will be sleeping in the corridor, or outside. Bring your own sleeping bag, preferably a very warm one in case you are in the garden. Other things to remember include a thin foam mattress, a mosquito net, a towel, soap, lavatory paper, water and water-purifying equipment, satellite telephone, several thousand dollars in small denomination bills and a flak jacket.

Booking ahead of time for the Club is impossible, but you may be able to send a message via the Afghan embassy in Dushanbe.

Communications

Faizabad’s phone system dates from before the second world war. There is a publicly available satellite telephone at the telephone exchange in the new town (open: daily, 8am-6pm), as well as a short-wave radio (in the old town post office, near the police station in the bazaar main square) that can be used for calling 15 other towns in the region, including Dushanbe.

Eating and drinking

The menu at the Club does not vary: bread, tea and curds for breakfast; Plov (rice with meat), for lunch and dinner. You can buy supplementary food in the bazaar. The carrots are delicious, as are the raisins and dried apricots. The fiery local hot peppers may kill the local intestinal parasites before they start trying to kill you.

Language

The locals speak Dari, a dialect of Persian. English is spoken very little. However, everyone will ask you how you are and what is your name, even if they don't understand the answer.

Useful words & phrases

Man Mikheim = I would like…

Chai = tea

Teshekur = thanks

Berem! = Let’s go

For about $30-50 a day you can have a translator. The best one, who has studied English in Pakistan, is called Fawad. He can be contacted through the hotel.

Sanitary arrangements

There is no running water in the hotel, or indeed anywhere in Faizabad. The standpipe water is piped from the mountain and has been tested for potability by Oxfam. It is probably better to stick to tea, or the two dozen bottles of water you have wisely brought with you.

Washing in the hotel can be done outside, from a cistern of fresh water, which the bodyguards find highly amusing, or in the washroom inside the hotel, which is less salubrious. You may be able to cadge a tin of warm water for shaving.

There is no mains electricity supply. At the time of writing, the hotel generator was running for about four or five hours in the evening. You should use this opportunity to charge satellite phones, camera batteries, laptops, or anything else. It is wise to bring an inverter (available from hardware stores) with which you can convert electricity from a car cigarette lighter to mains current.

Sightseeing

The most fascinating sights in Faizabad are in the bazaar. You can buy, for example, a 1918-vintage Lee Enfield rifle, complete with 1942 ammunition, at the kiosk in the alley running down to the left of the police station. There is an antique shop, half way up the main street in the bazaar on the right-hand side going away from the hotel, where you can buy lapis lazuli jewellery and other local handicrafts. An Afghan “petu” (wrap) is a good investment against the cold, especially if you have to sleep outside. There are also attractive hats (Pakols) but these will lead to death or imprisonment if worn in the Taliban-controlled parts of the country.

Entertainment

Faizabad has the only television station in Afghanistan. It broadcasts for three hours every evening. Sit in a tea-house in the bazaar and drink in the atmosphere, or go the to the mosque. During Friday prayers, you can hear the Burhanuddin Rabbani (who lives in Faizabad) speak. Mr Rabbani is president of the internationally recognised government of Afghanistan, which controls between a tenth and a fifth of the country.

Expeditions

Leaving Faizabad is possible with a government-approved driver (check at the hotel). You can go and see the lapis lazuli mine, which is about a day’s drive away, or visit the Pansjir valley, currently the scene of desultory fighting. Ask at the hotel for details, and expect to pay $100-300 per day for a jeep and driver, depending on the kind of car and the danger of the expedition.

Kill an hour

The nicest expedition is to cross the river at the bridge below the Club, and then turn right, walking about 1km along the precipitous parapet of the newly built fresh-water canal. You will then reach an interesting forestry project (deforestation in Afghanistan is terrifying) and a water wheel. Continue on and you are in the new town, where you can hobnob with any remaining foreigners, or make a call from the municipal satellite telephone. Then cross the river, and you will arrive in the middle of the bazaar. Turn right, and head down through the ford, up the hill, turn right at the petrol tankers (take care not to be splashed as they decant petrol from the big cisterns into little cans) and you will arrive back at the hotel. At a gentle pace, this takes about 45 minutes.

Social customs

Although women may work, and girls can go to school, the sexes are strictly segregated in public. If you have made Afghan male friends, do not expect them to introduce you to their womenfolk. Women visitors should not smoke in public, and should dress as modestly as possible. Such crumbs of western-style social-life as exist are among the handful of intrepid foreigners still resident here. They all live and work in the same street in the new town, easily identified by their organisations’ emblems (Red Cross, Medicins sans Frontières, etc).

Currency

The local currency is the Afghani (northern version) which trades at about 130,000 to the dollar. The largest denomination is 100,000. It is better to change small amounts of money. As well as the US dollar, Tajik, Iranian and Pakistani money is easy to change. There are no banks (see article: Mullah moolah, October 4th 2001).

Medical care

Medicins sans Frontières has a hospital. Apart from that, you’re on your own.