Saturday's Adventures

It was about the time that after a few weeks stuck inside the Embassy compound with just a few quick forays to Camp Eggers and the ISAF compounds just down the street, that I was starting to grow restless, feeling trapped behind the walls. Then, riding in out of the dusk comes an old friend to rescue me. He carted us off to the house of one of International Republican Institute's staff who was gracious enough to throw a pizza party in our honor. So, the 8 of us ate and drank and shared story after story, late into the night. Given the setting, we could have been anywhere in the world, except the Colonel was in his uniform. We talked into the morning and then went on over to the COIN (Counter-insurgency) Academy that the Colonel runs, slept a few hours, woke up early and headed out to explore the ruins of the Queen's Palace (aka Taj Beg)located in Darulamon.

We wound our way up the hill toward the palace, looking off into the distance at the King's Palace further down the valley, the Soviet Officer's Club perched up on an adjacent hill, and the old Parliament building sprawling across the valley floor. The path was lined with beautiful flowers-and even with the dainty yet feared poppy. I was about to cut up the hill to take a more direct route when an instructor from the academy that joined us shared how we needed to be careful since the last guy that was exploring an old wreck off the path stepped on a land-mine.

The palace had seen better days. It's roof was collapsing, the walls were covered in Dari, Russian, Pashto, and English graffiti, some rooms had burned, the walls were pock-marked by bullets with a few holding gaping holes from shelling. The building from King Amanullah's reign during the 1920s seemed to hold the history of the last many decades in its walls. It was initially destroyed as the HIG invaded the region and the Queen had to flee via underground tunnel for her life. Later the Soviets seized it, and then the Taliban. Now, it is a wanderers curiosity at best. The German Government has pledged more than $20 Million to help restore the palace.