cc01 Road at Shaidan
For decades there have been three routes across Afghanistan, from Herat to Kabul. The main road, a paved highway built by the USA and USSR, runs through Kandahar, and since 2001 it has been demined and much of it has been rebuilt. A second road runs through the north, and though it has usually been shown on maps, it has existed only as a series of rough, good-weather-only, four-wheel-drive tracks from Sheberghan to Herat, though the way from Kabul over the moutains to Mazar was paved by 1970. The third trail across the country, the notorious "center route," has been much more difficult and time consuming. It runs from Band-i-Amir to Herat through Lal and Chaghcheran. This chapter takes us across the center route in the fall of 2003.
Shaidan, Yakaolang District, Bamiyan Province, Afghanistan, August 2003, (LP19.313.05)