Asymmetrical Information

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From The Economist's Cities Guide:

Accommodation

If you are lucky you will be sleeping six or eight to a room at the Club, on thin mattresses. If you are unlucky, you will be sleeping in the corridor, or outside. Bring your own sleeping bag, preferably a very warm one in case you are in the garden. Other things to remember include a thin foam mattress, a mosquito net, a towel, soap, lavatory paper, water and water-purifying equipment, satellite telephone, several thousand dollars in small denomination bills and a flak jacket.

Booking ahead of time for the Club is impossible, but you may be able to send a message via the Afghan embassy in Dushanbe.

Eating and drinking

The menu at the Club does not vary: bread, tea and curds for breakfast; Plov (rice with meat), for lunch and dinner. You can buy supplementary food in the bazaar. The carrots are delicious, as are the raisins and dried apricots. The fiery local hot peppers may kill the local intestinal parasites before they start trying to kill you.

Sanitary arrangements

There is no running water in the hotel, or indeed anywhere in Faizabad. The standpipe water is piped from the mountain and has been tested for potability by Oxfam. It is probably better to stick to tea, or the two dozen bottles of water you have wisely brought with you.

Washing in the hotel can be done outside, from a cistern of fresh water, which the bodyguards find highly amusing, or in the washroom inside the hotel, which is less salubrious. You may be able to cadge a tin of warm water for shaving.