PAKISTAN: Deaglán de Bréadún, Foreign Affairs Correspondent, reports from the Khyber Pass, where terror, squalor and war live side by side.
For such an undesirable place, the Khyber Pass is very hard to reach. My first attempt was foiled by heavy fog, making it "99 per cent dangerous", according to my guide.
Visibility for my second attempt two days later was perfect but there was another problem that had more to do with the political climate than the weather. The Khyber Pass, I was told, was "a wonderful place" but foreigners like myself ran the risk of being kidnapped, usually for money.
Foreigners are prohibited from entering the area without an official permit. You must also travel by private vehicle and take an armed escort. Either the Pakistani government or a travel agency will make the security arrangements.
And so it was that I ended up careening through this notorious valley of death last week in an unduly ostentatious white Corolla, behind a battered-looking maroon-coloured pick-up truck containing three men with automatic weapons.
Dressed in black, the Pakistani Rangers chatted amiably among themselves the whole time, but with the occasional glance backward to ensure the foreign journalist was still there. They were so laid back, I stopped feeling guilty that they were putting themselves in harm's way because of me.
The Khyber Pass is, of course, a place of legend. Although its role in history has been overstated, it was and remains a significant gateway between Afghanistan and the Indian Subcontinent.
Many a squaddie from the British army, a good few of them Irish no doubt, breathed his last in this arid and inhospitable terrain after being picked off by a tribesman's bullet. The monuments are there to prove it. I lost count of the British regiments who have their own plaque embedded in a stony hillside.
And still it goes on. When I got to the part where Pakistan ends and Afghanistan begins, the border was temporarily closed to members of the public.
This had been done to facilitate troop movements by US forces in the area. "The War on Terror," someone said. No doubt it had other names in the past - "The White Man's Burden" comes to mind - but essentially this was another case of young soldiers a very long way from home tracking a largely invisible enemy.
The rocky landscape could be from the moon. Trying to find the likes of Osama Bin Laden and his associates in such terrain must be a nightmare. It's no help either when the locals make themselves visible: if you are a soldier, how do you distinguish a harmless trader or goatherd from a terrorist about to whip out a gun and shoot you?
But despite the dangers and the tension and the fact that I seemed to be the only Western non-combatant for miles, the border post was buzzing with activity.
After the all-clear was sounded, an endless stream of enormous trucks packed with such items as food and cement made their way through the checkpoint into Afghanistan, while others who had got rid of their load were coming back for more.
There were also hundreds of people making their way on foot. While nobody on the Pakistani side looked even moderately well-off, the contrast with those coming from the Afghan direction was nevertheless startling.
Several people I saw were literally in rags. Most shocking of all, an endless parade of very young children carried extremely heavy loads on their backs through the checkpoint.
The sacks were torn and badly made so it was possible to see cardboard boxes through the holes. I was told that these contained cans of oil, whether motor or heating oil was unclear, because it was much cheaper on the Afghan side and could be sold on Pakistan territory at a profit.
Some of the children, boys and girls, looked as young as six and few of them were older than 10 years. Watching me stare in amazement a group of them stopped to stare back. Their gleaming, innocent smiles only highlighted the Dickensian filth and squalor of their clothing, smeared with oil and the dust of the road, which had also got into their hair and on their faces.
It was early in the afternoon: these children should be in school, or at the very least at home with their parents, scrubbed and tidy.
At this stage my Rangers escorts had pushed their neckerchiefs up over their faces, like characters in a cowboy film, thereby adding to the general air of menace. It was time to get going. But no longer afraid, one simply felt sad at the thought of the billions being spent to fund war and warriors while in the same narrow space, small children were enduring such desperate conditions.
The one consolation was the convoy of trucks from the World Food Programme with the words "Donated by Japan" emblazoned on the side, indicating that at least one country had learned from the horrors of war about the need for universal human solidarity.