words i don't really need to hear

I left Herat Saturday for Kabul to attend a two day conference, and what a "business trip" this is turning out to be. We departed Camp Stone in Herat with the Italians, the flight took about 1.5 hours, the drive across Kabul took longer! If you think you've experienced bad driving you haven't, unless perhaps you have had the pleasure of driving in Kabul. There is no order, no discipline, it is pretty much total mayhem. We were driving in three humvees but also had a big truck with us, and we pretty much were leaning on the horn the whole time to get people out of the way which most of them did in fairly rapid fashion. A few drivers were of course visibly upset but we didn't want to loiter in downtown Kabul any more than we had to. Driving through that city felt somewhat surreal, almost as in a movie with the exception that I was right in the middle of it. And hearing my driver utter the words halfway into the drive "I think we are lost" isn't something I particularly want to hear while in downtown Kabul. But lost we ended up not being, we obediently followed the track on the computer and arrived at our assigned destination, Camp Morehead on the outskirts of Kabul. A very nice setting this is, surrounded by mountains, but then again mountains are readily available in this country. I'll have a "few" pictures to load up when I get back to Herat (I didn't want to bring my laptop along) including pictures of the King's Palace and the Queen's Palace (two separate buildings), or actually what is left of them!