Features

Touring the places behind the news stories

By Millie Travis
Published: 04/12/2009

Magnificent cultures, locals bursting with character, and awe inspiring landscapes are just some of the archetypal reasons behind the selection of your holiday destination.

You may contemplate the south of France, America maybe, but would you necessarily consider Afghanistan?

While political pressure at home is mounting for Gordon Brown to bring home British troops, some students are actually willing to go in the opposite direction, all in the name of tourism.

It might surprise you, but a quick internet search shows dozens of travel companies offering to give you a first hand Afghanistan experience.

Despite alarming security advice, hundreds of students and gap year travellers continue to visit the country at the centre of the War on Terror.

Untamed Borders specialise in tailor made tours across Afghanistan and Pakistan, aiming to take students with a keen interest for current affairs and international relations, to places that lie beyond the news.

The company was founded by three young entrepreneurs with an extensive knowledge and a deep passion for the Asian-continental region.

Each year, they take a group of British students to see first hand, some of the most talked about locations in the world.

Geographically speaking, the northern parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan are scenes for some of the most breath taking sites on this earth.

Four mountain ranges, including the renowned Himalayans, grace this area forming staggering mountains and immense glaciers.

One of the founders of the Untamed Borders, James Wilcox describes this area as having “a magic which is hard to quantify”.

But before you book your flights now, it’s worth remembering the bare fact that there is a virulent war in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The intense invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 in order to neutralise Al-Qaeda and the Taliban is far from over, and President Obama’s pledge to tackle extremism and threats to the West has shifted focus to Pakistan with the Pakistani army taking severe action against its insurgents in the Swat Valley.

Foreign Office advice is clear – it advises against all non essential travel to the country, with many areas including districts of the capital Kabul being advised as areas to completely avoid.

Ten British tourists were killed in the country between April 2008 and March 2009. Ongoing military and militant activity in Pakistan continues to cause concern for the Foreign Office as 15 British nationals died last year in addition to kidnapping, and the targeting of Western tourists remaining a major concern.

The danger presented in these two countries combined with the pull of tourists to these areas has been cynically and somewhat ironically labelled as ‘War Tourism’ by the war correspondent and journalist P.J. O’Rourke and has also been developed by John Lennon and Malcolm Foley in their book entitled Dark Tourism.

War or dark tourism is described as visiting places where inhumane acts have occurred with the incentive for these types of holidays being to experience a part of this dark history.

You don’t need to go as far as Afghanistan though to experience your own bit of dark history.

Attractions such as Flanders Fields in Belgium, Auschwitz in Poland, and even the Tower of London, have been war tourism hotspots for decades.

James Wilcox disagrees that the prospect of war and danger is one of the attractions of visiting countries like Afghanistan.

“I do not believe that is the reason why anyone has travelled with us in the past” he said.

So in light of the current hostility and acute violence in both countries, what is it that inspires people to continue taking the risk to visit Afghanistan and Pakistan?

Niall Copeland from Northern Ireland visited both countries in 2007 said that it was ‘curiosity’ that had pulled him towards visiting both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“I came to the area by chance” he recounted.

Unrest in Tibet during his gap year had forced Niall to change route from Hong Kong to Mumbai and then take a rather substantial detour to Pakistan. It was here where he met the Untamed Borders team.

When asked about the aspect of danger, Niall admitted he was scared, but said he found comfort from Kausar Hussain, one of his expedition leaders.

He said: “I was pretty worried about it…but knowing Hussain was going to meet me did calm me a bit.”

“The thing that was most terrifying was the tribal Khyber Pass between Afghanistan and Pakistan and I had to have two armed guards. Two blokes with AK47s do tend to scare you a bit.”

The travel industry is of course highly aware of the threats posed by militants and the general context of the countries’ instability.

Military action primarily takes place in the Pashtun region in the south of Afghanistan, an area which is entirely left untouched by the tours of Untamed Borders.

Nevertheless, the company is keen to rationalise and calm apprehension generated by the terrorist grip on the countries, claiming the post-invasion state of Afghanistan is in fact a good time, especially for the Hazara region in the north.

Away from the danger, and uniting all sides of the controversy surrounding the wars and invasions of the middle-east, is the unequivocal wish to bring peace and security to these countries.

‘Tourism not terrorism’ is a phrase often used by those keen to promote Afghanistan as an alternative holiday destination.

And companies like Untamed Borders claim that their take on low impact tourism could bring many benefits to the war torn regions.

Niall Copeland told me how the local Mullahs of the region had greeted tourists with such warmth and welcome. “They are glad that tourists are coming back, the area used to be full of them” he said.

James Wilcox believes that tourism itself can engage relationships between local people and Westerners.

“We also believe that peace and understanding on a world scale can only come when people of different cultures meet and interact. “Tourism is not going to change the world but every path starts with a single step.”

The arrival of tourists signals a new wave of progress in these troubled regions.

But we must ask ourselves whether these efforts to tie bonds between Western tourists and their Asian hosts are futile when just across the valley the roar of soldiers and militants engaging in war is what the world focuses upon.

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