Images of Afghanistan

the photographer:

Near Jalalabad, Spring 1971.
Floating the Kabul River on inflated cow skins with three unidentified Afghans.
The presence of the tennis racket remains a mystery.
Photo by Gary Crandall

I left my job in Boston in the summer of 1969. Having spent most of a year traveling through Europe and parts of North Africa, I set out for Greece in the spring of 1970, settling for some months on a beach in Crete. In late July I caught a ride in a Citroen 2CV, crossed Turkey and arrived in Tehran in mid-August. From there I hitched a ride across Iran’s "Desert of Death" into Baluchistan and on to Afghanistan, entering through the southern border town of Spin Boldak. I spent my first night in Afghanistan in a small hotel near the center of Kandahar around the first of September. The temperature was 126° F.

Subsequently, I left Afghanistan in June 1971, traveling to Pakistan, India, Nepal, Burma, Thailand, Maylasia, and Singapore, arriving in Bali several months later. I then returned to Europe and on to the States in 1972. In the next three years I returned to Afghanistan five times.

The inflated cow skins on their way to the river.

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