Afghanistan Handy Tips:

Your vest will have lots of pockets, it's what Afghans use them for, you should too. ;)

Write your blood type on your boots. A good idea is to wear a small neck-chain or leather or rope around your neck and get a band-aid (plaster) and write on it both your blood type and nationality (the latter in english and Persian)

The reason for this is if you are unlucky enough to have some unfortunate event befall you, they won't search your pockets unless you're already dead - if you're alive the first things they'll remove are your shirt and shoes. - The best solution is to have blood-type, NKA (No Known Allergies: or allergies if you have them) and nationality in Persian.

I have it written on the collars of all shirts also, on a folded cloth-strapping tape on a poly-neck chain and on the cover of the notepad that is always in my pocket as well as blood type on boots - both sides and the tongue.

It may sound paranoid but it saves lives.

Afghanistan - Entering from Mashad

The trip is relatively painless. You will have one or two Iranian stops for drug and people smuggling and the border is about as un-chaotic a border as you will ever see in life.

The process of bringing the bus over is slow, usually an hour or two, but you shouldn't expect any hassles.

You can and should change money at the border, as the children there will give you the correct rate. When you get the Herat the bus stop is a carpark full of taxis, take one to your desired hotel.

Money: 

The Currency of Afghanistan is the Afghani, it is usually just under 50Afs for $1USD (normally about 47 or 48) and US dollars are often widely accepted by hotels and restaurants so long as they don't need to give much change. US dollars are the best currency to bring to Afghanistan, but Euro's are also easy to change in major cities (Kabul, Herat, Mazar)

ATM's dispensing both US dollars and Afs are widely available in Kabul, in fact, it is entirely possible to rely on these machines for most of your cash if you are making several short visits to Kabul, but always have back-up cash in case the machine is down, or you need to get from wherever you are, to somewhere else safer in event of emergency.

(to be continued)