From Chai to Checkpoints: What an Indian Woman Saw Travelling Solo Across Afghanistan

“I need individuals to learn about Afghanistan,” Sharanya Iyer tells me. “However I am not selling tourism there.”

Earlier than I sat right down to interview a lady who had travelled to Afghanistan purely for leisure, one picture stored returning to me.

In October 2025, Indian girls journalists had been reportedly stopped from coming into a press convention in New Delhi addressed by the Taliban’s appearing international minister. 

The choice was later reversed after the ladies refused to simply accept the exclusion, male colleagues stood in solidarity, and the episode drew widespread public criticism. 

The ladies returned, took their seats, and requested questions on women barred from faculties, girls’s rights and the shrinking area for feminine voices.

That episode was in my thoughts as I ready for this dialog.

How does one journey by way of a rustic the place hospitality and heritage exist alongside extreme restrictions on girls? 

What does a customer witness, and what stays past the attain of the traveller’s gaze? 

Can documenting magnificence additionally go away room for acknowledging the realities that form on a regular basis life?

These had been the questions I carried into my dialog with travel creator Sharanya Iyer, recognized on-line as Really Nomadly, whose solo journey in November 2025, throughout Afghanistan has now drawn lakhs of viewers. 

The dialog moved past ticking locations off a map. 

The Afghanistan we expect we all know 

For generations of Indians, Afghanistan has typically lived in reminiscence by way of literature earlier than geography. 

There may be the mild fruit vendor of Rabindranath Tagore’s Kabuliwala, carrying with him the ache of distance, his little daughter, and residential. Then there may be Khaled Hosseini’s Afghanistan, the place Amir and Hassan chase kites throughout Kabul, whereas Mariam and Laila discover energy in one another amid conflict and oppression.

Sharanya’s account, too, holds collectively heat, magnificence and troublesome realities.

Her movies transfer by way of Kabul’s crowded streets and mountain roads. She pauses at checkpoints and travels alongside roads the place permits are checked.

“The fact on the bottom can typically be very totally different for you as a vacationer versus what it’s for an area,” she says.

That distinction got here up repeatedly all through our dialog.

The privilege of being simply a vacationer 

For Sharanya, travelling by way of Afghanistan meant studying in a short time that the nation she might transfer by way of as a vacationer was not essentially the nation an Afghan girl might transfer by way of in the identical method.

Even one thing as unusual as getting from one place to a different got here with guidelines. Tourism, she explains, is permitted solely with authorised native guides, who prepare motion permits earlier than guests arrive.

“My passport at all times needed to be within the automotive. At each checkpoint, my information would present the paperwork.”

That distinction grew to become particularly arduous to disregard on the street to Band-e-Amir Nationwide Park. As they approached a checkpoint, her information requested her to tug a shawl over her head as a result of native girls usually are not permitted to enter.

Sharanya, nevertheless, was allowed by way of.

“I’m a vacationer,” she mentioned. “Male or feminine does not matter. I’ve totally different guidelines.”

It’s a small second, however one which modifications the way in which you take a look at the whole lot that follows. The identical street, the identical checkpoint, the identical nation, however a special set of freedoms relying on who you might be. Sharanya is cautious to not confuse the entry she acquired with the fact of ladies who stay there.

After which, simply as simply, Afghanistan might reveal one other facet of itself.

Her sequence, together with what she referred to as the “Kabul Specific”, strikes by way of Kabul’s markets, roadside tea stalls and busy neighbourhoods, stopping to note individuals whose lives and crafts hardly ever make it into headlines.

Amongst them was a field photographer working with an vintage picket digital camera, whom Sharanya describes because the final practitioner of the craft in Kabul.

She got here residence carrying one among his portraits. It’s an unusual memento on the floor, however it additionally captures one thing her journey stored returning to: behind the checkpoints, guidelines and politics had been individuals going about their lives, preserving abilities, making issues, working, speaking and welcoming strangers.

Hospitality, chai and an Indian connection

After the checkpoints and permits, there have been moments in Afghanistan that felt surprisingly acquainted to Sharanya.

“As an Indian vacationer, I felt very protected,” she says.

Generally, merely saying she was from India modified the dialog.

“The minute I mentioned I used to be from India, their physique language modified. They love India. They love Bollywood.”

After which there was chai.

“If there’s a visitor who involves you, they may give you chai.”

For an Indian traveller, the gesture wants little rationalization. You sit down, somebody brings tea, a dialog begins. For some time, you might be merely a visitor in somebody’s nation.

That heat formed a lot of Sharanya’s expertise. On the similar time, shifting by way of Kabul and Kandahar made her discover who was typically lacking from the streets, markets and public spaces round her.

“The absence of ladies in public life could be very conspicuous,” she says.

As soon as she seen it, it was troublesome to look previous. Sharanya might journey with male guides, transfer by way of checkpoints and sit in public areas. Afghan girls round her lived with a really totally different algorithm. Ladies’ schooling successfully ends after Class 6, universities now not admit girls, and eating places typically keep separate seating.

It made the distinction between being welcomed into a rustic and truly understanding what life there may be like particularly necessary. Sharanya had entry as a result of she was a customer. The ladies who lived there didn’t routinely have the identical freedom.

“One should always remember that what one is experiencing is solely as a vacationer. It is not the blanket fact for the nation or the individuals.”

That’s the rigidity she retains returning to when she speaks about Afghanistan. The individuals she met might welcome her warmly, share tea together with her and discuss India. And outdoors these conversations, she might nonetheless see how a lot smaller the general public world had change into for a lot of Afghan girls.

‘The persons are not their authorities’

Maybe the strongest thought to emerge from our dialog was Sharanya’s tackle separating unusual residents from political regimes.

“You come again from international locations like this understanding and internalising the truth that the persons are not their authorities. The persons are not their regime.”

She first started to grasp this whereas backpacking by way of Iran, and the concept grew to become much more pronounced in Afghanistan. 

When she spoke with Afghan girls, many described aid that many years of conflict had subsided. Additionally they spoke candidly concerning the restrictions that now outline their lives. 

“There may be stability now,” she remembers them saying. “They are not dwelling round bombs and rockets on a regular basis anymore.”

The conversations prolonged past her journey. Immediately, Sharanya mentors a younger Afghan lady by way of a world on-line programme, the place they spend time discussing books, life and potentialities past formal schooling.

“My transient is to be a pal to this lady, to be a supply of energy.”

‘Not a journey suggestion’

The extra Sharanya tried to grasp Afghanistan, the tougher it grew to become to suit the nation into one neat model of itself. 

Bamiyan added one other layer to that image.

The valley is residence to the empty niches the place the large Buddhas of Bamiyan as soon as stood, reminders of a time when the area was an necessary centre of Buddhist studying. Standing in entrance of them, Sharanya discovered herself overwhelmed.

“I used to be crying.”

For her, the second carried the burden of the whole lot that had existed there earlier than, the whole lot that had been misplaced, and the whole lot about Afghanistan that also remained unfamiliar to her. 

She is now researching a movie on the positioning’s layered historical past, tracing Afghanistan’s previous as a centre of Buddhist studying earlier than later transformations reshaped the area.

That reluctance to flatten Afghanistan into one straightforward story additionally shapes what Sharanya chooses to share concerning the journey. Regardless of the eye her movies obtain, she intentionally avoids sharing visa guides, itineraries or journey suggestions for Afghanistan.

“I need individuals to learn about Afghanistan,” she says. “However easy methods to go, when to go, or possibly why to go — you’ll not see that.”

She desires individuals to come across the nation by way of what she noticed and heard, with out turning that have into an invite to comply with her route.

That is positively not an endorsement, she reiterates.

Maybe that’s the level she is most snug leaving us with. Afghanistan gave her no single reply, and he or she doesn’t need to give her viewers one both. If the journey leaves individuals just a little extra curious concerning the lives, histories and other people behind the headlines, that, for her, is sufficient.