“The next morning, I hit the road at 7 am, and no more than an hour down the road, a man on a motorcycle came up beside me, pulling down his face scarf to reveal that it was, once again, my new Taliban follower. Was he there for my safety or to keep an eye on what I was doing? I’m not sure. Probably a bit of both. But for the next handful of days, he would pop up just about anywhere that I would stop, to the point where we started to coordinate where I would sleep for the night, which pretty much took wild camping out of the equation. That meant looking for teahouses where I could sleep inside. Still, I was thankful that he didn’t just drive me out of there or ride right next to me all day.”