Things Marco Polo might (not) have seen in Afghanistan

On the small television screen, two naked young women dance to the sounds of "Hotel California" as gunfire fills the Kandahar night. The fighting may have slowed reconstruction in Afghanistan, where the fundamentalist Taliban began in 1994, but pornography is flourishing, officials say. Porn arrived in Kandahar as soon as the Taliban left, but was generally confined to the back rooms of teahouses. Now it is increasingly available to anyone with a satellite dish or a couple of dollars for a DVD. 

"Pornography is a problem," Kandahar police chief General Asmatullah Alizai told The Scotsman. "According to our Islamic rules and beliefs, people cannot accept this kind of thing. I don't want people to see this kind of film."

Meanwhile, Wild Frontiers is planning two trips to Afghanistan in 2010 for those who would like to follow in the footsteps of Marco Polo. The "Afghan Explorer" tour lasts for 17 days, from 24 September to 10 October next year. "From Kabul and the foothills of the Hindu Kush, you will visit the extraordinary city of Herat, the famous mountain caves of Bamiyan, the historical northern towns of Mazar-i-Sharif and Balkh, climaxing in the famous Panjshir Valley." A visit to Kandahar is not planned, however.