East and West part in Kabul as aid workers live the high life

THE Elbow Room bar is the place to be seen sipping cocktails, while the Gator club and restaurant offers a fine range of caviare and Cuban cigars. For brunch, why not linger over an imported cappuccino at the Flower Street cafe, and if you’re still feeling delicate from the night before, there’s a Thai massage available at $25 (£14) an hour.

But this is not a chic metropolitan corner of Edinburgh or London. Welcome, instead, to central Kabul where, in a land still very much part of the ancient, Muslim East, an influx of foreign aid workers has brought the pamperings of the 21st century, liberal West.

Three years after the Taleban finished pushing life back to the Middle Ages, the clock has wound forward with equal speed as Kabul sees a plethora of stylish restaurants, bars and night spots catering to Western tastes - and foibles.

Despite the odd car bomb, rocket attack and threat from Taleban remnants, the Lai Thai restaurant apparently has some of the best spring rolls outside Bangkok, while at the German-run Deutscher Hof, a mini-version of the beer-swilling Munich Oktoberfest has just got underway.

And for those who overdo it, either in work or play, a trained counsellor from Chicago offers personal analysis sessions - and twice-weekly Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

But with most Afghans struggling beneath the poverty line, the birth of "Islington-on-Kush", as one aid worker dubs it, has not been universally welcomed. Among locals especially, criticism is now mounting that the country’s estimated 2,000 aid agencies and non-governmental organisations - NGOs - spend too much time and money enjoying themselves and not enough on those they are here to help.

"Most will not give ten Afghani [11 pence] to a beggar, but they will spend a hundred times that on an evening out," said Najeem Massoud, a taxi driver.

So well-developed is Kabul’s expat world that it has now spawned its own magazine, a well-read weekly title called Afghan Scene with news, columns, and restaurant and bar write-ups. It even has a "Be Seen" page featuring snapshots of charity workers, UN officials and diplomats attending functions, book signings and restaurant openings - a kind of Hello! for the aid world.

For locals, though, such hobnobbing is just another extravagance by what they dub the "Toyota Taleban", a sly reference to the 4x4 sports utility vehicles favoured by UN staff.

The "assistance community", as it prefers to call itself, insists such criticisms are unjustified, pointing out that aid workers are spending their own salaries in restaurants rather than that earmarked for aid. In doing so, they say, the city’s economy also gets a much-needed boost.

But in the dirt-poor streets and bazaars, the perception remains - rightly or wrongly - that much of the money earmarked for them does not get beyond the aid agencies’ heavily guarded headquarters.

Part of the problem is the sheer number of NGOs operating here. With most forced to cancel operations in Iraq, Afghanistan now enjoys something approaching a surplus.

One thing seems certain: "Islington-on-Kush" seems here to prosper.

"When I first arrived here 18 months ago there was virtually nothing to do at night at all," said one NGO worker. "Now I’ve got friends in Britain asking me if they can come out here for holidays."