Welcome to Kabul! Wanna go to a dog fight?

 KABUL – I’ve traveled around the world to some unusual destinations for work, but my first trip to Afghanistan was unlike any other I’ve taken.

It began as I walked out of the gleaming, modern Dubai International Airport into the aging Boeing 737 of Safi Airways.

First of all, there was the time change. I always set my watch to the time of my destination. That meant moving it 30 minutes ahead. Not an hour. Not two hours. But half-an-hour. As one who is ever-mindful of the time at “NBC News World Headquarters in New York” (as Michael Douglas intones at the beginning of “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams”), I’m in for a lot of strenuous mental mathematics over the next four weeks.

Majid Saeedi / Getty Images

Afghan spectators watch as two fighting dogs attack each other during a weekly dog fight in Kabul on Dec. 11, 2009. Dogfighting is having a resurgence after it was banned under the Taliban for being un-Islamic. Click here for a slideshow of civilian life in Afghanistan

And there’s the English-language in-flight magazine. These publications are usually bright and cheery, touting the beauty and charms of the airline’s destination cities. The lead feature of the April/May edition, under the heading “Live Entertainment in Kabul,” is about what appears to be a major spectator sport in the capital city: dog fighting.

“Growling, snapping, leaping and grabbing, the dogs attack each other in swirling clouds of ochre-colored dust,” the article chirps. “Dogs may be a costly investment for the average Afghan, but they can also make their owners money.”

Then take the magazine’s city guide for Kabul, headlined “Full of Life,” which includes these helpful tips:

– At the airport “Taxis are available to the city center, but it is safer to be picked up.”

– “Westerners are occasionally targeted by criminals or Taliban sympathizers, and kidnapping can be a threat.”

– “Riots happen occasionally and are often accompanied by looting – stay well away from them as authorities will respond with lethal force.”

– “Kabul is generally considered one of the safer parts of the country, but bombings have increased somewhat.”

At least no one can accuse them of sugar-coating.

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