I spent two days in Kabul in 1978. Given the 20+ years of strife since then, I doubt there's much left of anything that I saw. But for whatever it may be worth, here's what I recall of the place:
- Lots of soldiers, mostly looking more like victims, in very poor uniforms and underfed, but everywhere.
- Women in purdah -- those head-to-toe bags (which might be called chador. At least I think they were women.
- A boy in a shop selling real fur jackets, who wanted to buy my cheap wool coat lined with synthetic fur.
- Turd square: a large empty lot frequently used by people needing a crap. A very nasty experience for the unaware.
- Terrible food. Either chicken or lamb, and neither dish tasted different from the other or anything like chicken or lamb.
- Wonderful ethnic music by a local group who'd name I never did get, and never got to hear the like of again. One of those once in a life time experiences.
- Roadside butcher shops, with carcasses hanging over the foopath.
- The mountains beyond the city. Treeless, grassless and rather sinister really.
- The people, who seemed uniformly pleasant and obliging. Even the money changers were nice, in a money-changer kind of way.