Bill Castor letter to William S. Paddock, 1954-09-07

              						Kabul Afghanistan
						September 7, 1954	
Dear Cousin Will,
	Afghanistan has always fascinated me, and at last I have
been able to get here. When I left Geneva, I was not sure that
I would get the necessary visa.	
	On September 1, I left Peshawar in the legendary North West
Frontier Provinces of what is now Pakistan. I came by mail
bus through the Khyber Pass. Unfortunately, photography is
strictly forbidden there. There is a fort or observation port on
the almost every hill. There are also British regimental
tablets adorning some of the mountain sides. In that respect only,
it reminded me of the highway through Gettysburg. The bus
I travelled in was Afghan, and quite slow. Of course “highways” in
Afghanistan are not conducive to speed. They are absolutely
the worst I have ever seen. Pakistan’s, by contrast, are by far
the best I have seen in this area. To get back to the bus: it
follows no set schedule. The other passenger (an Algerian
archaeologist) and myself were told that we would spend the
night in Jalalabad. Instead we merely “dined” there at an
open air native restaurant where we followed the old
procedure of looking in the pots and pointing at what
looked least repulsive. When we finally stopped for the night, it
was at one of the numerous teas houses along the road. (The
Afghans, Paks, & Iranians drink great quantities of tea). The
driver and his assistant slept outside on the cots where
the people here usually squat to eat. The Algerian and
myself stayed in the bus. I slept 
on the mail sacks which where in the aisle. Actually, it
was not too bad. In fact it was better than being outside
because it gets quite cold at night. For example, Kabul
is at an altitude of 6000 feet, and during the day, the
temperature here is 90° or so, while at night it goes
down to about 50°.
	Coming into Kabul (pronounced “Cobble”) it is quite
mountainous with beautiful scenery. There is a river flowing
along side the road. Most of what one sees here this time
of year are dry river beds.
	As far as Kabul itself is concerned, there is not much here. It
has wide streets – several are paved – as well as the many
bazaar alleys. Actually the bazaars do not contain much of
souvenir interest. They do have some rugs, but Afghan rugs
run to black and red combinations which I do not especially
care for. When I come back through Iran, I hope to get my-
self a little one. Kabul also has quite a few “”jueys” 
which are streams that flow down sidewalks, etc. and are
considered by the natives as an all-purpose water supply.
	Tomorrow I am going by bus to Paghman, a nearby
mountain resort town. I will come back tomorrow night,
and then leave the next morning by bus for Kandahar. 
After that, I go up to Herat, and then back to Iran.
	When I came through Iran, it was an extremely
pleasant surprise. I realized that anti-foreign feeling
had calmed down quite a bit from the days of Mossadegh [Mosaddegh]
a year before. I figured that I would cross the country on
a sort of “live and let live” basis.
as far as the local population was concerned. However, I
found them to be extremely kind and helpful. For example
in Isfahan which is the real sightseeing center of the
country, I had a 2 day guided tour. It happened that on the way
down by bus from Tehran, we stopped for tea. An Iranian