CNN's Chris Burns journeys into Afghanistan

Burns

NORTHERN AFGHANISTAN (CNN) -- CNN correspondent Chris Burns is one of the few Western journalists working in Afghanistan, reporting from territory controlled by the Northern Alliance opposition group.

He described his journey to the worn, battered country Saturday.

BURNS: After leaving behind a California vacation, I joined my colleagues in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, where we head for Afghanistan in an aging, Soviet-made helicopter, piloted by young Afghans in the Northern Alliance that is battling the Taliban.

The landscape is rolling farm land and grassy plain until we reach Afghanistan's northern border, marked by the river Darya. A sudden change as we encounter Afghan architecture -- homes made of mud, grass and wood. We fly over Alliance-held territory, though the Taliban aren't far away.

And the topography intensifies.

In the western edge of the Himalayas, some peaks top 7,000 meters, about 23,000 feet. We hang and hope on old Soviet engineering.

Then comes the Panjshir Valley, legendary during the Soviet occupation from 1979 to 1989. By cutting off the route to the Soviet north, the Afghan mujahadeen left the Soviets heavily dependent on helicopters, then shot some of those down with U.S.-made Stinger rockets.

It is the kind of forbidding landscape U.S. forces could also face in their war on terrorism. Historical irony weighs heavily as we land -- arriving on a Soviet helicopter, piloted and greeted by Afghans, now armed by Moscow against the Taliban.

We unload our half-ton of equipment and supplies, then take to the road. Wrecked Soviet tanks still litter the Panjshir Valley. After a three-hour drive down rugged roads, our voyage ends at our base.

After a week here, the food, water and electricity are in limited supply, it's beginning to look like home -- at least like California's Mojave Desert. But in the back of our minds, the threat of U.S. air strikes hangs in the air.