Downtown Kabul is Fat City, Afghan style. The first shock for a new visitor is how undamaged and commercially busy it looks. On my second day, I bought a camera, one of a large range, from the only Hindu shopkeeper left in town, and French cheese and Carr's water biscuits with sesame seeds from a shop in Flower Street - which had a far more elaborate choice of English biscuits than most of the better US supermarkets.

In the exchange market, huge sums of money change hands every day. Or rather, huge piles. With the Afghani at around 38,000 to the dollar, and the largest note the 10,000 Afghani, you need to bring along a shopping bag if you change $100. There is even a new international hotel, set up by an extremely brave and enterprising returned Afghan emigré from New Jersey. For a variety of reasons, it would be difficult to fit it into the Michelin star system, but it certainly deserves five stars for effort.

LRB 4 April 2002 | PDF Download