The Road to Dushanbe, bordering Afghanistan

Now, it has been a couple of days without writing anything, so here am I, back on press. Last time I wrote I was kind of stucked in Khorog, waiting for a mean of transportation for Dushanbe, fervently hoping to be able to catch a flight. Well I did not managed to fly, so I took a car and was on the road for 22h, non-stop, with 3 Swiss. This is why I wanted to avoid driving.

To summarize, we started at 8 a.m on Tuesday, and arrived at the Hotel in Dushanbe – capital of Tajikistan – on Wednesday, 6 a.m. Exhausting. Not only it was long, extremely long, but also literally painful. The road was unpaved almost the entire way, so I managed to sleep maybe one hour in total. We crossed numerous rivers, passes, passport check points with crazy Tajik military, etc…

And arriving in Dushanbe I thought I would be able to finally relax, but this was impossible. First of all the sweet babooshka at the  Hotel reception refused to give us a room until 8 o’clock, so we had to sleep on the carpets in the front hall. But then she didn’t wanted us to sleep on the carpets so we had to fight countless times, and in the end we got a room.

But then it was already 8a.m, so I had to go out again and find the damn Uzbek embassy in order to try to get an Uzbek visa. After walking through the whole town I finally found out where the embassy was; only to discover that I needed to renew my Tajik visa before doing the Uzbek one. Welcome back to the visa world. Then I met another Swiss on a bike, coming straight from Afghanistan, who told me that he had been waiting for more than a week for the visa renewal and still no sign of success.

Ah! That’s when I realized that Uzbekistan was not in any part of my destiny, so I decided to get myself a new mission: get to Bangkok as soon as possible! So I walked through the whole town again, this time trying to find a travel agency so I could book a flight out of this  dark visa nest… After some time I found out that there is one street – ONE – where all the travel agent are. So I went there, only to hear that all flight are full so I had to wait until Sunday in Dushanbe. 4 days in Dushanbe, no way!

But after some time my dear travel agent managed to get me the last seat on a plane to Almaty, Kazakhstan, for the following day. Great! And then he found another last seat from Almaty to Bangkok on the 8th (so tomorrow now). Previously I would have to wait until the 13th to get to Bangkok (thus missing Sandra). So finally things start working out !

Of course there was a last impediment to my success: they don’t take credit card in Tajikistan (the guy said “welcome to Tajikistan ha ha ha”), and no ATM has money in it! So I searched the whole town, once again, and in the end managed to find a ATM full of cash, thanks to an American guy learning Tajik in Dushanbe. Never underestimate a lone American.

So, then it was only 6p.m (I had then been awake for 36h) when things got sorted out, and I could go and have a beer with shashlik on the plaza next to the hotel. And that was really, really nice.

Beer and Shashlik in Dushanbe

Yesterday I was in Ishkashim, at the entrance of the Wakham valley, for the Afghan Saturday market. One a week the border opens and people from both sides gather together to shop, sell, and eat shashlik with palov. I was happy to witness that event and specially meet some Afghans in their own country.

First of all I was really amazed to see that people were that friendly and happy! Maybe it was because of the market day, but it was still fantastic to say ‘assalamu aleikum’ with the right hand on your heart to everyone, and everyone answering you with a beaming smile in the same fashion, and sometimes even tanking you for saying ‘hello’!

Then I bought an Afghan hat and two turbans, just so I can say that I have a hat and a scarf bought in Afghanistan. I think this country would have amazing to travel to if not at war.

So now I’m back in Khorog, on Sunday, when everything is closed, hoping to get a flight tomorrow to Dushanbe, the capital. I went today to the airport but apparently there is bad weather so the plane is not coming from Dushanbe. Tomorrow inch’ Allah they said. Else I’ll have to take a Chinese minivan for 24 hours or more depending on Allah’s mood once again. I love transportation in Tajikistan!

The Pamir Highway

But what’s that? Let’s see:
Last time I wrote I was in Osh, where there’s the biggest bazaar in Central Asia – which I did not see. Anyways, there I met a Swiss couple and we took a car together all the way to Murghab, a village in the middle of nowhere. Actually it’s not in the middle of nowhere; it’s in the middle of the Pamir, the remotest corner of Tajikistan, which was maybe the remotest republic of the USSR, and still one of the remotest country in the world. Also you people should not be fooled by the word ‘highway’ in ‘Pamir Highway’; indeed on the picture above is one of the nicest pavement experienced, and most of the time it’s just dirt road. Another specificity: most of the Pamir highway is above 4000m above the sea, with the highest pass at 4655m high.

One of the many stops on the way...

So, to resume: Starting from Osh we drove all the way to Sary Tash, 150km but strangely it took almost 8 hours! This is maybe because we had to stop every 20min to let the car – an old Russian jeep – cool down. In Sary Tash we got invited for dinner by some Kyrgyz guys who thought we deserved it.

Karakol lake, at 4000m above sea level

The second day we continued to the village named ‘Karakol’, which strangely lays on the shore of the lake ‘Kararol’, merely at 4000m above sea level. This was also the entrance to Tajikistan, although the landscape and people were pretty similar to Kyrgyzstan. I also had to deal with Yak derived products to my great tragedy (I really hate the yak taste…) but it remembered me Tibet.

Finally the 3rd day we made it to Murghab, which is in fact a village just as lost as Karakol. From there I took a minibus to Khorog, the last stop on the Pamir Highway. But for that I had to wait the whole morning that the car fils up, and then endure 9h of dirt road with the highest pass at 4200m high only .

But from then on the road started to go down all the way to Khorog, going in the bottom of a green vallee on the side of a torrent. There some houses were appearing more and more on the side of the road, with Tajik people walking or just hanging around the road. And what a surprise!!! Tajiks actually look much more European than any people I’ve met so far!

I’m really glad I’ve ended up here, and I’m looking forward to discover more of this country!