These photos belie what the future Afghanistan actually spawned.  The tapestry of peaceful hues contrasts starkly with the current picture of religious intolerance, military intrigues and offensives and corruption.

Maybe Afghanistan was not the idyll but certainly in the 1960’s many bohemian Westerners hitch hiked through Afghanistan on the itinerary to an ephemeral Shangri-La. It was into this sedate peaceful setting that Dr. Bill Podlich relocated to Afghanistan with his family in 1967 to work for the Higher Teachers College in Kabul on behalf of UNESCO. Fortunately for posterity he took his camera with him. He captured not the harrowing pictures of a war-torn country, but rather the now non-extinct tolerant modernising society at peace with itself. I was fortunate enough to obtain copies of these pictures a year ago from a friend was had met his daughter Peg in Australia. Subsequently these insightful photos have been published by Time Magazine and are now freely available.

Afghani men out on a picnic

 On a trip from Kabul to Peshawar in Pakistan

 

 Dr Bill Podlich on a hillside outside Kabul

 

 A Buddha statue in Bamiyan Valley. In 2001, the Taliban destroyed the two largest ones.

 Men looking over Istalif, a centuries-old centre for pottery

 Men and boys enjoying the waters of the Kabul River

 An Afghan decorating cakes

 During a shopping trip to Istalif

 Senior English Class at the American International School of Kabul

 

 Young students in a playground

Students of the Higher Teachers College

 An Afghani Military Band

 An Afghan Army parade through Kabul

 Afghan repairmen in Kabul

 Shah-do-Shamshira Mosque built in the early 20th century under the reign of Amanullah Khan

Parking lot of the American International School of Kabul

 A Chemistry Lesson in a mud-walled classroom

 Sisters milling in the streets of Kabul

 Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Valley home to numerous Buddhist monastic ensembles and sanctuaries as well as Islamic edifices

 A man preparing jibabee, a sweet desert

A residential hillside in Kabul

 Two Afghani men walking home

 King’s Hill in Pagham Gardens

 The Soviet built Salang Tunnel which connects northern and southern Afghanistan

 A petrol station in Kabul

Afghan girls coming home from school. Both Afghan boys and girls were educated until the high school level

 Two Afghan teachers

 A stop during the family’s bus trip through the Khyber Pass

Peg Podlich arriving in Kabul