the places in between

rory stewart, a scotsman, decided to walk across Afghanistan in January of 2002, on foot, by himself. if you'll recall, January 2002 was about 3 weeks after we installed the new government in Afghanistan. it was and still is a terribly unsafe place for westerners. as it turns out its even unsafe if you're an Afghani. Afghanistan is a country that is primarily still medieval: tribes based on ethnicity, religion, and location are constantly battling each other. this book is rory's travel diary of the trip, and in short i have a man-crush on this guy. equipped only with his knowledge of the local language and an amazing craft to avoid trouble when it is staring him in the face, he nearly dies (twice) and survives on a piece of bread daily for days at a time while hiking 60km a day. this was the look at Afghanistan that I was looking for that the Kite Runner only could provide in part.