I left Islamabad early on a December 2017 morning on the Grand Trunk Road to Taxila, an hour to the northwest, to visit the WHS's ruined second-century Buddhist monastery. From Taxila, it was a two-hour drive to Takht-i-Bahi, another Buddhist monastery, which was abandoned in the seventh century. From Takht-i-Bahi, it was less than an hour to Peshawar, where I arrived just in time for Friday prayers at the 17th-century Mahabat Khan Mosque. The mosque is located down one of the many narrow passageways in Qissa Khawani Bazaar, where the friendly vendors were surprised to see an overseas customer. In fact, I didn't seen any other foreign visitors in the heavily fortified and militarized city, maybe because it's less than 40 miles from the border with Afghanistan.