Battered flowerpots are strewn outside the front door of the house that Osama bin Laden built in his al-Qaeda training camp on the edge of the village of Darunta, in eastern Afghanistan.
It is here, in the beautiful surroundings of the Turghar and Dare Noor mountains, just 15 kilometres from Jalalabad, that the world's most wanted man trained hardline Islamic volunteers in his war against the West.
We have come to see bin Laden's camp as reports that he is nearer to capture intensified. It is said the besieged Islamic leader is trapped in a 30-kilometre zone in southern Afghanistan. His time may be up.
This is one of several training camps and safe houses bin Laden has spread in his network across the country. He has not been here for several months, way before September 11th, locals say.
Treading carefully around a huge crater left by an American cruise missile, we find the pathway to the house once occupied by bin Laden. The building is situated in the middle of the training compound amidst a grove of splendid Eucalyptus trees.
US warplanes came here three weeks ago to bomb the training camp.
It was precision bombing. All that is left are remnants of tanks, heavy artillery guns, and buildings. Bin Laden's house is half standing.
The one building in this compound that escaped much damage is the mosque which a local man says bin Laden had built in the last few years.
All that is inside is a prayer mat made from rushes and the tattered remains of a copy of the Koran, lying on the window sill.
Strewn on the ground is a hand-written set of accounts, detailing payments made to various people, and money spent on food.
Outside bin Laden's house there is an advertising leaflet for the Ford 7-series pick-up. It is ironic that it is this American truck model that is most favoured by bin Laden and the Taliban.
Bin Laden had a beautiful view from his sitting room window across the Darunta reservoir with the mountains beyond providing the backdrop.
A winding mountain road in the distance leads to Kabul. There is a network of al-Qaeda caves in these treacherous mountains, used as hiding places.
The sentry post on a hilltop overlooking the compound, which was until a week ago manned by Taliban, is now in the hands of a local mujahideen group.
As we explore the compound, two rounds of anti-aircraft fire are let off by the soldiers. Frightened, we look up to see the mujahideen laughing and cheering at us.
They salute us with a thumbs up.
We drive through the Darunta village which is one kilometre from the bin Laden compound. Until the night the American bombs came, the village was occupied by 35 families, scraping together a living as best they could.
The village initially looks like a ghost town. But one by one people emerge from the mud huts, curious at the arrival of the western journalists.
Father of five, Said Qassen, says he and all the other villagers left the day of the bombardment.
"The planes came in the afternoon. First there were cruise missiles and then cluster bombs. All the families fled. Some went to Lagham province and others to Jalalabad."
Some villagers were hit in the fallout from the bombing of the bin Laden training camp nearby, he says.
Said had returned with his family to Darunta only two days ago. He shares the small compound he and his family live in with his two brothers, their wives and children.
"I came back because I heard the Taliban were gone. I want to get on with my life again."
Before the Taliban took power in 1996, Said held a job as a clerk in a government office in Jalalabad. He was fired by the new regime and now gets some work as a labourer.
His wife, Amina, agrees to talk to me, but insists my male translator turns his back to her. In accordance with Muslim culture, women are not allowed to be in the company of strange men.
She is not so sure the departure of the Taliban is a good thing.
"It makes no difference to our lives. The Taliban and the Northern Alliance are much the same." Amina was not wearing a burka. "Not because I don't agree with it but because I cannot afford to buy one," she says, as she wraps her one-year-old daughter in her arms.
"When I have the money I will buy one. This has been our tradition since before the Taliban."
By lunchtime nine of the 35 families had returned to Darunta. Said says he does not know where he will get his next meal for his family.
"But we are survivors. We have been surviving war here for the last quarter of a century."
Back in bin Laden's compound, we find a map of east Afghanistan on the floor of one of the rooms, a picture of a war plane sketched in a corner.
In another corner, a verse of a poem is written in Arabic.
"With the support of the blood it is the fight between the truth and evil. A revolution is the slaughtering of the hate."