4-Day Kabul, Bamiyan & the Blue Lakes

Your guide meets you at Kabul airport and drives you to the hotel, and then the city — continuously inhabited for more than 3,500 years and sitting at 1,800 metres — is yours for the afternoon. You start at Bagh-e Babur, the terraced garden laid out before 1530 where the Mughal emperor Babur chose to be buried, then continue to the Shah-Do Shamshira Mosque and the Kah Faroshi Bird Market, a Silk Road-era lane whose name means 'straw seller'. A short drive away stands the mausoleum of Timur Shah Durrani, the king who moved the Afghan capital here from Kandahar in 1776. As the light softens you head up Wazir Akbar Khan Hill for a sunset view over the whole city. The night is spent at the Khyber Kabul.

An early start takes you west out of Kabul and over the Unai Pass at 3,200 metres, a five-to-six-hour mountain drive into the Hazara heartland — the road is winding and rough in stretches, so take motion-sickness tablets if you are sensitive. First stop is Shahr-e Zuhak, the Red City, its ruined watchtowers glowing rust-coloured against the cliffs, followed by Shahr-e Gholghola, the City of Screams that Genghis Khan destroyed in 1221. In the Kakrak Valley you visit a smaller set of Buddhist niches before reaching the main event: the empty niches of the 55-metre Western and 38-metre Eastern Buddhas, carved between the 5th and 7th centuries CE and destroyed in March 2001. You climb through the honeycomb of monastic caves beside them, then finish the day with tea in a cave house, hosted by a local family whose people have called this valley home for more than 700 years.

Today is a full 4WD day trip to Band-e Amir, Afghanistan's first national park, declared in 2009 — six lakes of improbable turquoise held back by natural travertine dams that look like walls of ice. You walk the rim of Band-e Haibat, where legend says Hazrat Ali created the dams with a blow of his sword, cross the water by boat, and visit the small mosque and footprint shrine that pilgrims still travel here for. Lunch is a scenic picnic on the shore. The lakes sit at 2,900 metres, so walk slowly and drink plenty of water. Back in Bamiyan by late afternoon, there is time to browse the town market before dinner.

After breakfast you retrace the mountain road over the Unai Pass, a drive of around five hours back to Kabul with photo stops along the way. Your driver takes you straight to the airport for an afternoon departure — book your outbound flight for 17:00 or later and allow three hours for check-in. Kabul connects daily to Dubai with flydubai, and onwards to Doha, Istanbul and Abu Dhabi with Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines and Air Arabia.