Your Man in Dushanbe

Man, if I thought I was jetlagged before! Here I am, 9 hours ahead of New York and I don't know if I'm coming or going. The Tajik capital has changed a lot since my last visit in 2002: more expensive cars, more businesses, more of a sense of hustle and bustle. There's even a brand-new airline terminal, though they seem to have reinstalled the same obscene old crappers from the Soviet days in the new one.

The Hotel Tajikistan, home to the international press corps during the heady days of the U.S. invasion of neighboring Afghanistan, is decidedly even more worn. Renovations, however, are underway. And a garrison of French troops wearing oh-so-tight cammie shorts ("he wears short shorts!") keep heavily armed pressure on the breakfast chefs to make the food more palatable than in the past.

This coming week, my syndicated column was filed from Istanbul. After that, Tajikistan's previous bland president takes up the mantle of the deceased Turkmenbashi.