The four men were dressed in Afghan police uniforms, innocuous enough until one blew himself up at the gate of the hotel. Another threw a grenade into the outside screening room, and a third ran into the car park where a guard shot him, causing his explosive vest to detonate.

The fourth went on a shooting rampage, pushing through the 15-foot carved wooden doors and into the marbled lobby of the capital's only five-star hotel, the Serena, where that night, as most, a bevvy of journalists, aid workers and diplomats were eating drinking and working out.

The gunman made for the gym, down the stairs lit by tea candles and scented with rose petals and into the spa, where he shot the Filipina receptionist. Another five people were killed that night, including a Norwegian journalist.


That happened in January 2008, but you can't help but relive the story each time you visit the Serena, still the capital's most luxurious hotel.

I thought about it last Friday as I slipped my bag onto the conveyor belt and watched it go through the xray machine and as I submitted to a pat down in a curtained room by a female guard; I thought about it when a heavily-armed guard opened the inner security door leading to the car park; and as I pushed through the carved wooden doors and into the cavernous, cool luxury of the hotel lobby. But mostly I thought about it as I walked along the marbled hallway and down the stairs lit with tea candles and scented with rose petals and as I handed over my US$32 to the Filipina receptionist so that I could have a swim in the hotel pool.

There are many surreal experiences in Kabul. A trip to the Serena is one of them. When you push through those grand wooden doors, it's like finding the back of the wardrobe and stepping into Narnia. The first time I went, I sat in the garden with a friend, people watching. A Japanese man, about 70, walked up and down the path, his face covered with a surgical mask. Who is he, I thought? What could he possibly be doing in Kabul?

Last Friday, a friend and I made a date for swimming. She picked me up in her SUV. I was so excited at the thought of going for a swim, that even her personal guard, an AK-47 on his lap, couldn't knock my mood.

After we paid our fee, we entered the spa area/changing room. Beautiful oak lockers, rain forest showers and an area with sunbeds, just to laze and read a magazine. We got changed quickly and headed out to the pool. It was 9:30am, but already half of the two dozen sunbeds had been taken; mostly by thin pale European women in bikinis. Three people were doing laps in the pool and Ann, my American friend and I, dumped our stuff on two sun beds on the grass and joined them.

The water was cool, but not chilly, the sky above was a turquoise blue and bougainvillea was growing on trellises that hid the 20 foot blast walls. And although it's a terrible cliche, as I scythed up and down the lengths of the pool, in between two tattooed Americans, I almost forgot where I was; so much so that when I plumped back down on my sun bed, I slapped on some suncream, pulled out Hillary Mantel's Wolf Hall and put my Jackie O sunglasses on.

The facade lasted until the first helicopter buzzed low in the sky.

I was in Kabul, land of dirt, poverty and insurgency, not at a beach resort. I should be covered up, reading Steve Coll's Ghost Wars or Butcher and Bolt, about the history of foreign intervention in Afghanistan.

The sunglasses had to go ... and even Wolf's magical book about Henry Tudor and Thomas Cromwell, after a few pages, found its way back in my bag as Ann and I chatted about the challenges of living and working  in Afghanistan (yes, I do see the irony of talking about how hard life is while lazing by a pool).

I could have laid there all day, but Ann had told her guards to pick us up at 12:30 and we still had to go for coffee and croissant in the hotel cafe.

As I was getting changed, it finally sunk in that what I was looking at in two corners of the changing room were Kevlar bullet proof vests. I wondered which of the pale European women in bikinis they belonged to.