---
type: Place
title: Kabul
description: Afghanistan's capital — checkpoints and AK-47s alongside a 50-year-old street camera, roundabout pomegranate juice, and highway barbers earning a dollar a day.
tags: [kabul, afghanistan, taliban, barbers, money, photography, hospitality]
coordinates: {lat: 34.5270, lng: 69.1851}
timestamp: 2026-08-05T12:00:00Z
---

# Kabul

Capital of [Afghanistan](/countries/afghanistan.md), population around 6
million, and Harry's arrival point, a few hours' flight from Dubai. The drive
from the airport feels to him like going back a century — the shopfronts, the
dress — punctuated by frequent security checkpoints. Taliban white flags fly at
the airport.

He covers it across two videos: the arrival, and a full day on the streets that
ends with him giving away $1,000 to a row of highway barbers.

## What it's like to be a tourist here

- **Checkpoints, several times a day.** Passports are checked and sometimes
  questions asked. Harry describes the security as the most intense he has seen
  anywhere and reports no trouble at any of it.
- **Armed Taliban are simply part of the street** — AK-47s and M16s over the
  shoulder, and pickups with seven men hanging off them.
- **Hotels have their own armed security.**
- **Don't film at checkpoints, and never film women** — a misunderstanding about
  this got Harry confronted by a Taliban soldier until his guide intervened (see
  [travel with a local guide](/tips/travel-with-a-local-guide.md)).
- **Traffic has no rules.** No lanes, pedestrians walking through moving
  traffic, and vendors working the roundabouts.
- **Flag Hill** is known as a Taliban gathering spot.

## Money

The afghani is a **closed currency** — you cannot obtain it outside the country.
You change money on the street, from a man sitting at a table by the road, who
hands over fresh notes for dollars. Count it before you walk away.

For scale, from people Harry asks directly:

- **A highway barber earns $1–2 a day**, and reckons on about four customers.
- **A shave costs 50 afghani**, around 50 cents.
- **$20** to a juice seller is roughly a day's takings.

## The old photographer

The best thing in the Kabul material. A street photographer working a wooden
box camera he has had for decades: no buttons, no screen — he removes a cover,
you smile, and the print is developed inside the box.

He invites Harry into his house for tea while the household prays, and shows him
his portfolio. He was a soldier in the Afghan government army during the Soviet
war — Harry's guide is careful to distinguish that from the mujahideen — and
took up photography afterwards. His grandson is learning the trade.

## Pomegranate juice

Harry's standing recommendation for Afghanistan, and here it is sold from a
roundabout that doubles as a tyre-repair stand.

- Pressed by hand, and it is genuinely hard work — he tries the press and can't
  operate it.
- The glasses are washed in front of you.
- **Regional difference**: Kabul's are sweeter, made with pomegranates from
  Mazar-i-Sharif; the ones in [Kandahar](/places/kandahar.md) are local and
  sourer.

## The highway barbers

A row of barbers working on the side of a highway, and the sequence that gives
the video its title.

- **A shave for 50 afghani.** Harry asks for a clean blade, which he says matters
  here, and notes the barber rarely does a clean shave at all because men are
  expected to grow beards.
- The barber's hand shakes badly throughout — Harry suspects a condition, says
  so with sympathy rather than alarm, and observes that the man has lived through
  forty years of conflict, doesn't complain, and gets on with the job.
- **A haircut next door** from a barber whose entire kit is a triangular mirror,
  one pair of scissors, one razor and a bag. Harry is openly nervous — there's no
  training and no reference photo — and ends up happy with it. The head massage
  that follows he rates, laughing, as the worst in history.
- **Taliban stood watching** throughout, which he mentions but doesn't film.

Then the giveaway: **$1,000 split between the barbers**, handled through his
guide to avoid arguments — 33,000 afghani each to the two who did the work, which
his guide says is more than they could earn in a year, and 2,000 each to the
others who hadn't cut anything.

Two things Harry records honestly about it:

- **A crowd formed the moment money appeared**, and, in his words, people
  suddenly acquired disabilities. He explains to them that he gives to people who
  work and who quote him an honest price, not to people who ask.
- **He isn't sure he got it right.** He says on camera that with hundreds of
  people pressing in he may not have divided it fairly, and that this is what it
  actually feels like in the moment. The barber who received the most immediately
  offered to share it with the others, which Harry says he was not expecting.

## Harry's tips

- **Wear the local shalwar kameez** — everyone wears it, and it helps you blend
  in.
- **Let a trusted local guide book hotels and logistics**; Harry didn't even know
  where he was staying until arrival, and it was the safe choice.
- **Film yourself, not the people around you**, unless invited.
- **Change money on the street and count it there.**
- **Ask for a fresh blade** before any shave.
- **Get the pomegranate juice.** It's his single most repeated recommendation in
  the country.

## Source

- [7 Days in the Most Dangerous Country in the World 🇦🇫](/videos/IXFVJx6BZ_Y.md) —
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXFVJx6BZ_Y
- [$1000 USD Street Shave in Kabul, Afghanistan 🇦🇫](/videos/_Wos7f8D0yw.md) —
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Wos7f8D0yw