I've been invited here to take photos, yet this is a country where under the Taliban's Islamic code. There are severe restrictions on taking photographs. Tomorrow I'll get a permit, but as always to discover, getting the permit is one thing, making it work, quite another.

Morning in Kabul and sunrise reveals a shattered city. Twenty years of fighting has taken a terrible toll on the Afghan capital. This was once the Shah's Mausoleum, and this was the old royal palace. Today, they are little more than rubble. But with shahs and emperors long gone, shepherds run their sheep in the royal grounds. My journey will take me across the country from Kabul to Herat, but before I leave, I need permission from the ministry of information to travel to the great Buddhas of Bamiyan. And for that, I'll have to wait. And all the time I'm being watched. The Taliban are everywhere. You can tell them by their black turbans. The word "Taliban" means religious student, and at the religious school or the madrasah they learn the Koran by rote, all 140 Chapters of it. By doing this, they hope to interpret Islamic law in a pure, uncontaminated way or that's the theory. As a force for change, the Taliban have only been around since 1996. Even so, their rules for living are based on an eighth century text. It determines everything they do, even whether or not I can take photographs. But time is running short if I want to get to the Bamiyan Buddhas. There is still no word from the ministry, so it's time to do a bit of public relations.

turban: man's headdress, consisting of a long length of material wound round a cap or the head, worn especially by Muslims and Sikhs

madrasah: (also madrasa or medrese) a college for Islamic instruction