In Kabul

I arrived this evening after a redeye from Istanbul and then long layover in Bahrain airport. Unfortunately they wouldn't let me leave the airport to wander around with my bag checked through to Kabul, so I joined these guys in trying to make up for lost sleep. I appreciate good attentive service, but Gulf Air was over the top: the flight departed at 2am and they immediately served dinner and then drinks and then coffee, rousing me as they came by for each, and the pilot gave us really egregiously frequent updates about travel speed and weather conditions.

As in Dubai, it was amazing how few Arabs were to be found: the employees (with the except of a very friendly maybe Indonesian family running the Costa cafe) and passengers were overwhelmingly South Asian.

I think I'll end up spending my first full day in Afghanistan just catching up on correspondences and reminding myself what research I came here to do. Also writing more on Tarlabaşı while it's fresh in my mind. Internet's less than zippy where I'm staying--though hopefully it's just my room that's so sluggish--so I may be more frugal with images from now on.