The official language of Pakistan is Dari, which is basically Farsi (Persian)- the same language spoken in Iran. There are many dialects (Tajiki, Hazari, etc.) among different ethnic groups. The other main language is Pushto, spoken by the Pashtun people close to the borders with Afghanistan. It's often difficult to communicate with people in Afghanistan and learning a little Dari or Pushto (or a lot if you want an even better experience) can go a long way.
Few people in Afghanistan speak English and I often found myself going through pantomimes in order to get a hotel room or order a meal. Fortunately, the young Afghans are obsessed with learning English. In all my travels around this planet I've never met people more eager to learn English. After the fall of the Taliban, English schools popped up all over the place. If you want to do a little bit to help the people of Afghanistan (and learn a little bit of Dari or Pushto), visit an English school. They're everywhere in major cities.
FOOD
Afghanistan has some great food in my opinion. The main dish is pilau (which means rice) and comes with curried vegetables or meat. The rice is usually cooked with raisins (tastes great!) and you'll be given some curd. Another dish I loved was mantu- a ravioli type of dish similar to Tibetan momos. Kebabs are all over the place too.
Bread (naan) is served with all meals. You'll get used to eating a lot of bread and seeing it sold everywhere.
The water isn't safe to drink. I drank it everywhere and didn't get ill but I drink the tap water in New Dehli. A safer option is drinking tea. Bottled water (often Nestle) is found everywhere as well as soft drinks, often Iranian brands such as Zam-Zam.
HOTELS
Most hotels in Afghanistan are free. This may sound strange but it's true. They're restaurants where you buy a meal and then get to sleep for the night with everyone else on a long table. It's an interesting experience but will probably be a little too rough for most westerners. Finding accomodation, as in a room of your own, can often be difficult but just takes time. The worst place for accomodation is Mazar-i-Sharif, a place you probably wouldn't want to visit anyway due to its poor security. Local officials will try to get you to stay at the Bharat Hotel where they will insist you pay $50 for a grimy room with no bathroom and a bathroom down the hall with no water. As a westerner, you often feel as if many hotel managers consider you to be a relative of the famous Bill Gates that they have heard so much about. Still, Afghanistan is a very cheap country even if you pay $30 for a bad hotel room.
MONEY
If you're coming from Pakistan, it's best to change some money into Afghanis (the currency of Afghanistan) before you enter the country. Rates are the same as in Kabul. It's possible to pay in Pakistani rupees and US dollars but most transactions are conducted in Afghanis. You won't have trouble finding moneychangers in Kabul as they're everywhere. Costs are more expensive than India and Pakistan, especially transportation. Food costs a great deal more in Kandahar than in Kabul as well. Of course, it's all very reasonable when you compare it with hotel room in Manhattan.
TOURIST INFORMATION
There's no current guidebook to Afghanistan as you'd expect. Lonely Planet's guidebook to Central Asia from the 1980s contains a fair amount of historical information but you're better off tracking down a copy of Nancy Dupree's Historical Guide to Afghanistan. It's an excellent book and can be found iin bookshops in Peshawar or at the vendors near the Spinzar Hotel and Chicken Street in Kabul. I also highly recommend her Historical Guide to Kabul. While many of the sights in both books have been destroyed, they're still full of fascinating historical information. In Kabul you can also find old tourist brochures from Ariana Airlines in shops.
There's no tourist office at the Ministry of Information and Culture anymore. The tourist information office at the Kabul Inter-Continental Hotel near Bagh-i-Bala is not functioning either.
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