An Australian tour company versus the Taliban. Who would you trust?

If I am not mistaken nearly everyone would choose the tour company. I did too.

After all, it is ‘white-owned’, from a ‘developed country,’ and the default conclusion is that ‘I would be safe with them’ in an otherwise unsafe country—in this case, Afghanistan under the Taliban.

Instead, as the only person of colour in a group of 10 led by two white Australian tour leaders, I was subjected to a barrage of India-bashing from the group. By the time one of the group, a Welshman living in Poland, crossed the lines on the seventh day of the tour, I’d had enough. I told them to stop. What happened next is what travel nightmares are made of. Continue reading →