Searching Questions

So, waiting in the spiffy lounge of the new international terminal at KaIA, wondering mildly about the triply redundant security.

Traffic was light, so the hotel-to-airport trip took perhaps 10 minutes of smooth (y'know, it's Kabul, so relatively - mostly we were on the correct side of most roads) sailing. Then, Kabul International Airport began.

First a car check and body search - separate male and female lines, of course. Then another car check and another body search, plus a bag check. The only thing that raised interest? Some ceramic teacups, purchased early this morning as a last-minute gift. No idea why.

We were de-SUV'd in the parking lot. The terminal opens with another pat-down (again, of course, separate lines), and another bag check. Getting a boarding pass from Safi Airways - a fairly new, private Afghan airline - was easy as pie. Upstairs, through an initial customs check (what is your job? asked the border cop. I had to think: Do I try to explain "director of solutions planning" … 'I teach university' I said. He smiled; 'OK.')

Immigration stamps. Another line. Another metal detector and carry-on X-ray. Another pat-down - men only, and very, very thorough; TSA and a few surreptitious Chinese joints in Malden could take a lesson (or so I'm told).

Emily asks: What the hell could we have picked up between the first and second body-search, or second and third, or third and fourth? Answer: A new friend, perhaps. Some more dust. But look: Better safe than smithereens.

And this terminal, even the grounds, are head, shoulders and pakol above the old terminal (still in use, domestic flights only) that, by my standards, this was a walk in the bagh. The lounge is clean; 'Afghan Idol' is playing on the one big-screen TV that seems to work; there's free wireless (password in theory required, but not actually needed); and in addition to the usual Afghan pastry counter, there's a duty-free shop. It sells leather cowboy hats.

Yee-hah.

Anyone eager for a whiff of the old airport, though, can hit the tashnab (toilet) before the flight. No change there.

Flight in 30 minutes. Random notes:

• the kerfuffle about the failed airport radar system (story in the WSJ in fall 2013) was a ploy to get the German government to cough up cash to fix it. The old radar system, which had operated for decades, was still in business; now the new one is again as well. Insider gossip: the story was shopped around but many foreign journos say through it; the WSJ rotates scribblers in and out of AFG and one of 'em bit.

• the airport terminal fronts a field of solar panels. Again, gossip: None of them work. Installed a few years ago by expat engineers, they've not been maintained, and the expats are understandably loath to return just to fix 'em for free; no one's ready to pay for these.

Khoda hafez.