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Herat was the first big Afghan town we came to in the late afternoon and it was dusty and noisy and bustling with people but no one paid us much attention. Unlike Iran, no one tried to direct us to their cousins campgound or their brothers carpet shop.
We didn’t stay long in the mosque, not because we’d seen enough or felt unwelcome, but because in winter, Afghanistan is a very cold place, and without shoes on, our feet quickly began to freeze.
We visited the 5 leaning minarets just out of town, the sole remains of a dozen or so from a former mosque, the Musallah Complex, built in the 15th century under the rule of Queen Gawharshad, daughter-in-law of the Mogul Emperor Timur.
[Historical Note: It was the British Army who destroyed much of the Musallah Complex in 1885 to improve visibility for their artillery against a Russian invasion (which never happened, not then anyway).
With supreme irony, when Russian troops did arrive (a century later, after their 1980 invasion), they caused further damaged to the complex when they turned Herat into a free-fire zone. See this excellent reference on the history of Herat].