This is our choices for the best and worst moments of our 22 days in Tajikistan. We've also put together a gallery of our favourite photos which you can visit here here.
Our FAVOURITE Cities/Towns
According to Yann:
1- Dushanbe
2- Ishkashim
3- Khojand
According to Emilie:
1- Dushanbe
2- Khojand
3- Ishkashim
Our FAVOURITE Sights
According to Yann:
1- Amazing nothingness at Alichur, Pamir Highway
2- Yamchun Fort, Wakhan Valley
3- Behzod Museum, Dushanbe
According to Emilie:
1- Yamchun Fort and Bibi Fatima Hot Springs
2- Yassyk Kul Lake
3- Views of the Hindu Kush Mountains from the Pamir Highway
The WORST Sights
According to Yann and Emilie:
1- Scummy, lukewarm hotspring water at the sanatorium in Jelandy, Pamirs
2- Istaravshan, some charm but largely overrated old town
Most DELICIOUS Foods
According to Yann and Emilie:
1- Honey melon
2- Palov (rice pilaf cooked with lots carrots, mutton and lots of lard)
3- Compote (homemade concentrated fruit juice)
4- Homemade sourcream/cheese
WORST Food
According to Yann and Emilie:
1- Stale nan bread
2- Potatoes fried in copious amounts of USAid cooking oil
3- Mutton fat, in all its forms (excepted melted in palov)
BEST Aspects of Tajik Tourism
According to Yann and Emilie:
1- Almost no other tourists
2- Tajik hospitality
3- Unibrows and gold teeth
WORST Aspects of Tajik Tourism
According to Yann and Emilie:
1- Roads, and having to travel on them
2- Officialdom: permits, registrations, police checkpoints...
3- Expensive hotels with stinky bathrooms
4- Tajik Air
Tajik Trademarks
According to Yann and Emilie:
- Mouthful of gold teeth
- Unibrows
- Taxi drivers proclaiming that their extortionate rates are due to "Benzene! Benzene!"
- Shoulder padded, flower patterned, full length moomoos
- Museum displays dedicated to President Rahmon
- Handshakes with one hand placed on the heart
- Four cornered, black and white embroidered hats
- Militsia on every corner (especially Dushanbe)
- Terrible roads
For those interested in our expenses, we have updated our homepage with our financial information for Tajikistan, it is available here
Showing posts with label Tajikistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tajikistan. Show all posts
Let Us Out of Tajikistan!
When we got back to Khorog, we didn't have much time to plan our departure. The four of us decided that we really wanted to fly to Dushanbe, rather than repeat the overland trip (once was enough). The number of flights leaving Khorog, depends primarily on the number of flights arriving from Dushanbe (and there are fewer people wanting to fly in to Khorog than there are wanting to fly out). The second factor affecting the flights is the weather, since the flight passes very close to mountains, the conditions have to be perfect for planes to take-off (rumour has it, during Soviet times, this flight was the only one where pilots received a danger bonus). Despite obviously unpredictable factors, the Tajik Air ticket purchase system remained mind-bogglingly infuriating:
- You can't reserve a ticket for the flight until one day before or the same day of the flight and you can't put your name on a waiting list.
- You can't reserve by phone, or with an agent, you have to go directly to the Khorog airport to buy a ticket...at 7 a.m.
- Once at the airport, no matter how early you arrive, or how close to the front of the line you are, you will inevitably be last in line, after the Tajik men invite all their 'friends' or 'family members' to the front of the line with them (Yann nearly got into a physical fight with one particularly disagreeable fellow, trying to keep him from getting in front of us)
- Nobody seems to know when the office will open, or whether or not there are tickets left for that day's flight, or how many flights there are that day, and no one seems to work at the office. After waiting for almost an hour, a door opened for about 30 seconds, the time for an old man to jump to the front of the queue and hand in his passport as his 'reservation'. He was the only one in line to get on the day's first flight.
- If you are lucky enough to have a staff member take your passport, then it serves as reservation, but we were told that there was 'no chance' we could get a flight that day, and we were fighting to get them to hold us a spot for the next day.
- Meanwhile, all the jeeps heading to Dushanbe fill up from 6-8 a.m. so that by the time we abandoned the hellishness, there was not a single jeep willing to go to Dushanbe AND we didn't have a flight booked for the next day.
With time running out on our visas, we couldn't really afford to linger in Khorog, but after more than an hour wandering around the two bus stations, it was quite clear that everyone heading to Dushanbe had already left. We were eventually approached by a few young guys who were keen on signing us on. Lucky for us, we had chosen the back-to-school weekend to leave Khorog, along with pretty much every young person in Eastern Tajikistan. Prices were much higher than they were supposed to be, but at least the jeep (UAZ) was in new condition.
Within less than an hour on the road, one of the two teenagers squeezed in the trunk with our bags had already started puking. I fed him some gravols and he slept for a long time, which was a relief. Our driver drove exceedingly slowly, which in some ways was a welcomed change, but was also frustrating as he tried to haul the jeep over steep parts of the road in high gear. It was also his first time making the trip to Dushanbe, he got lost in the middle of the night a few times, until he found another jeep to follow. He was a terrible driver who was not comfortable driving the jeep, but at least he was cautious, we made it to the Dushanbe in 22 hours (exactly the same amount of time as in the opposite direction, but this time with virtually no stops). Within a few minutes of entering the city the jeep got stopped by police for having a 'non-regulatory' sticker on the front window, our driver was fined the same amount as the price he charged us for one spot in his jeep. It was karma, for having overcharged us. Now two fat greedy Dushanbe police officers have our money instead, or even better, maybe the Government of Tajikistan has it.
Before leaving Khorog, we had found its only internet cafe, and Yann had read the news that the Uzbek authorities had closed the border with Tajikistan for the next two weeks. This was a serious issue for us as our Tajik visas were expiring before the reopening of the border and our only onward visa was for Uzbekistan. Not to mention, we didn't have a single spare page left in our passport for a new visa, but probably not enough time to apply for one anyways. Oh, and there are no flights between the two neighbouring countries because they just don't get along very well. Myriam and Mathieu, being Central Asian residents and used to the governments bad behavior, tried to reassure us, but we were already making backup plans, trying to figure out the cheapest way of bypassing the Uzbek-Tajik border.
After two nights in Dushanbe, at our beloved appartment, we set out alone to the border post closest to Dushanbe (in case we got sent back), our Russian landlady made sure to remind us that the border was closed. We got to the border quickly, and through the first two Tajik checkpoints without anyone telling us to turn back. We were feeling relieved by the time we were in line for our stamps out, although we heard that the Uzbeks were making all the trouble. The guard took our passports, did the usual inspection and prepared his stamp. But wait... what's this? The consular officer in India has signed your Tajik visas, but he hasn't stamped them with his official consular stamp, we simply cannot let you out of the country. At first, Yann and I were pretty sure that this was a ploy for us to hand over some money, but we held our ground. We had been stamped into the country, we had the receipts for our visas, we were officially registered with the government and we were not shelling out any more money. One of the customs officers began making phone calls to his 'bosses' and we were told that we had to go back to Dushanbe to get our stamp. We held out for three hours at the border, the customs officer even drove us to the army barracks where he made a personal plea to his superiors. The little guys at the bottom of the pecking order had opened up a can of worms and now nobody was willing to give the go ahead on stamping us out (although they will gladly turn a blind eye when things that are actually illegal are going on). We were driven to the taxi stand and sent back to Dushanbe with instructions to the driver as to where to drop us off for our stamp.
So where do we end up? On the steps of the Department of Foreign Affairs, with all our bags and in a really bad mood. Yann marched right in, past the security guards, waving his passport "I need a stamp". We were eventually kicked out and sent to the consular affairs office at the back of the building where we waited for five hours for, once again, the 'boss'. She never showed up, we were told to come back the next day. By this point, we were too exhausted to continue being mad, we were just amazed by the incompetence.
The next morning we only waited a little over an hour, this time the 'boss' was in, but the 'stamp' hadn't arrived yet?! Is there only one of these in the country? We got our stamps and made ourselves one last tuna fish sandwich at the appartment and left for the border, take two. We crossed hassle free and were in Samarkand by that night.
- You can't reserve a ticket for the flight until one day before or the same day of the flight and you can't put your name on a waiting list.
- You can't reserve by phone, or with an agent, you have to go directly to the Khorog airport to buy a ticket...at 7 a.m.
- Once at the airport, no matter how early you arrive, or how close to the front of the line you are, you will inevitably be last in line, after the Tajik men invite all their 'friends' or 'family members' to the front of the line with them (Yann nearly got into a physical fight with one particularly disagreeable fellow, trying to keep him from getting in front of us)
- Nobody seems to know when the office will open, or whether or not there are tickets left for that day's flight, or how many flights there are that day, and no one seems to work at the office. After waiting for almost an hour, a door opened for about 30 seconds, the time for an old man to jump to the front of the queue and hand in his passport as his 'reservation'. He was the only one in line to get on the day's first flight.
- If you are lucky enough to have a staff member take your passport, then it serves as reservation, but we were told that there was 'no chance' we could get a flight that day, and we were fighting to get them to hold us a spot for the next day.
- Meanwhile, all the jeeps heading to Dushanbe fill up from 6-8 a.m. so that by the time we abandoned the hellishness, there was not a single jeep willing to go to Dushanbe AND we didn't have a flight booked for the next day.
With time running out on our visas, we couldn't really afford to linger in Khorog, but after more than an hour wandering around the two bus stations, it was quite clear that everyone heading to Dushanbe had already left. We were eventually approached by a few young guys who were keen on signing us on. Lucky for us, we had chosen the back-to-school weekend to leave Khorog, along with pretty much every young person in Eastern Tajikistan. Prices were much higher than they were supposed to be, but at least the jeep (UAZ) was in new condition.
Within less than an hour on the road, one of the two teenagers squeezed in the trunk with our bags had already started puking. I fed him some gravols and he slept for a long time, which was a relief. Our driver drove exceedingly slowly, which in some ways was a welcomed change, but was also frustrating as he tried to haul the jeep over steep parts of the road in high gear. It was also his first time making the trip to Dushanbe, he got lost in the middle of the night a few times, until he found another jeep to follow. He was a terrible driver who was not comfortable driving the jeep, but at least he was cautious, we made it to the Dushanbe in 22 hours (exactly the same amount of time as in the opposite direction, but this time with virtually no stops). Within a few minutes of entering the city the jeep got stopped by police for having a 'non-regulatory' sticker on the front window, our driver was fined the same amount as the price he charged us for one spot in his jeep. It was karma, for having overcharged us. Now two fat greedy Dushanbe police officers have our money instead, or even better, maybe the Government of Tajikistan has it.
Before leaving Khorog, we had found its only internet cafe, and Yann had read the news that the Uzbek authorities had closed the border with Tajikistan for the next two weeks. This was a serious issue for us as our Tajik visas were expiring before the reopening of the border and our only onward visa was for Uzbekistan. Not to mention, we didn't have a single spare page left in our passport for a new visa, but probably not enough time to apply for one anyways. Oh, and there are no flights between the two neighbouring countries because they just don't get along very well. Myriam and Mathieu, being Central Asian residents and used to the governments bad behavior, tried to reassure us, but we were already making backup plans, trying to figure out the cheapest way of bypassing the Uzbek-Tajik border.
After two nights in Dushanbe, at our beloved appartment, we set out alone to the border post closest to Dushanbe (in case we got sent back), our Russian landlady made sure to remind us that the border was closed. We got to the border quickly, and through the first two Tajik checkpoints without anyone telling us to turn back. We were feeling relieved by the time we were in line for our stamps out, although we heard that the Uzbeks were making all the trouble. The guard took our passports, did the usual inspection and prepared his stamp. But wait... what's this? The consular officer in India has signed your Tajik visas, but he hasn't stamped them with his official consular stamp, we simply cannot let you out of the country. At first, Yann and I were pretty sure that this was a ploy for us to hand over some money, but we held our ground. We had been stamped into the country, we had the receipts for our visas, we were officially registered with the government and we were not shelling out any more money. One of the customs officers began making phone calls to his 'bosses' and we were told that we had to go back to Dushanbe to get our stamp. We held out for three hours at the border, the customs officer even drove us to the army barracks where he made a personal plea to his superiors. The little guys at the bottom of the pecking order had opened up a can of worms and now nobody was willing to give the go ahead on stamping us out (although they will gladly turn a blind eye when things that are actually illegal are going on). We were driven to the taxi stand and sent back to Dushanbe with instructions to the driver as to where to drop us off for our stamp.
So where do we end up? On the steps of the Department of Foreign Affairs, with all our bags and in a really bad mood. Yann marched right in, past the security guards, waving his passport "I need a stamp". We were eventually kicked out and sent to the consular affairs office at the back of the building where we waited for five hours for, once again, the 'boss'. She never showed up, we were told to come back the next day. By this point, we were too exhausted to continue being mad, we were just amazed by the incompetence.
The next morning we only waited a little over an hour, this time the 'boss' was in, but the 'stamp' hadn't arrived yet?! Is there only one of these in the country? We got our stamps and made ourselves one last tuna fish sandwich at the appartment and left for the border, take two. We crossed hassle free and were in Samarkand by that night.
Tour of the Wakhan Valley
Mathieu and I woke up at 6 a.m. Monday morning to try and find a jeep driver for a three night, four day tour of the Wakhan Valley. Our target price was 300$, but we were getting nervous about whether or not we would be able to find anyone willing to make the trip. Our planned route passed through some areas that are barely inhabited, and thus not frequently travelled by locals. Our first two encounters with drivers were fruitless, one wanting 500$ and the other concluding that his jeep wouldn't survive the trip. We found Samat, a willing driver at the bazaar, his rundown Russian UAZ already half full with passengers. Once we agreed to the 350$ pricetag he promptly kicked out the locals and within an hour we were on the road.
Two out of four doors were functioning, the suspension was completely shot, the tires were slick, we had to hold the windows open and the jeep smelled strongly of gasoline. But, at least Samat's UAZ had four wheels and seemed to be functioning, and of course, the price was right. Samat, our driver was young and seemed friendly he spoke some English but preferred speaking Russian with Mathieu.
Our first stop of the day was the Yamchun fortress a five kilometer drive above a village. The views from the fortress ruins were fantastic and we explored for a few hours before finishing off at the Bibi Fatima hot springs (Bibi Fatima is the prophet Mohammed's sister). Mathieu and Yann had the first session, then Myriam and I got to enter the hot spring water with a bunch of cute old naked Tajik women. Women supposedly come to bathe here for help with fertility problems. The water comes directly from the spring into a small cave where a cabin has been built to shelter the cave. Other than the teenage attendant who decided she would stand a foot away from Myriam and I while we changed, the springs were very pleasant. 
Our next stop was the town of Vrang, where we wanted to see some ancient Zoroastrian (first monotheist religion) worshipping platforms. In Vrang, we were first invited for lunch in a local Pamiri home, where we enjoyed the first of many potato and carrot meals. Pamiri homes are interesting, as they usually are made up of a single room, with no windows other than a giant skylight. Along the walls there are elevated platforms for sleeping and cooking, and the roof is supported by five wooden pillars (there is some Islamic symbolism behind this). 
After lunch we were guided up to the Zoroastrian platforms perched on the mountainside above the village. The platforms were not as 'fascinating' as described in the guidebook, but the surrounding mountains are dotted with ancient Buddhist caves and the views of the valley below were worth the visit. 
After Vrang, the next scheduled stop was Zong, for yet again, fortress ruins and spectacular views. Unfortunately, Samat was getting tired, and didn't know where the ruins were, after a pretty lame attempt to find them, he told us that his jeep couldn't make it up the hill and that we would have to walk. I voted to skip the ruins, and soon after the others followed, I suspect all according to Samat's plans. While Samat attempted to turn the jeep around, the locals whose home we were in front of came out to see what was going on. At first it was only a teenage girl, and within minutes, grandchildren, grandparents, brothers, sisters were out greeting us. It was hilarious and cute, another Tajik swarming of tourists. 
We settled for the night in Langar, the last 'large' settlement in the Wakhan Valley. We found a good homestay, run by a lovely group of women. After a hearty dinner, the young girls put on Tajik music and we all danced. Myriam and Mathieu showed us some Uzbek dancing, the young girls proudly displayed their Tajik moves and Yann even brought out his Pakistani dance. With no electricity and a long day ahead of us we went to bed early. The first day of our tour was deemed a great success.
The second day of our Wakhan trip started with a tough walk in Langar to see petroglyphs carved into rocks high above the town. Our driver Samat, didn't seem very keen on waiting around while we visited them and made an attempt at claiming that the 'nice' petroglyphs were actually at the base of the mountains (our guidebook described them as being a difficult one hour walk straight up). He showed us two faint carvings and then began rounding us into the jeep. Thankfully, Mathieu had already started the climb and we chased after him, with Samat telling us to "be quick" (as if we had somewhere else to be?!). It took us a few hours to get up to the petroglyphs and back down to the jeep, and to give Samat credit, they were disappointing. Carved over most of the ancient drawings was newer graffiti.
For the next few hours we drove through beautiful but desolate scenery. This part of the Wakhan is almost completely uninhabited. We crossed a few cyclists (tourists), a handful of shepherds and one vehicle coming from the other direction (a jeep full of tourists). The only settlement we passed was a military base where we had our passports checked by two very bored looking soldiers, who begged Mathieu for a few cigarettes. We met up with the actual 'Pamir Highway' and paved roads a couple of hours later. We had chosen the town of Alichur as our stop for the night, mainly because it was about the right place on the map, not because the town had anything particular to offer. Before stopping for the night we had planned to visit a brakish lake near Alichur.
Samat apparently had different plans for us, and even though we had made it quite clear that we would be stopping at the lake, he expressed shock and disbelief when we stopped him as he attempted to drive right by it. It's not the first time we had experienced drivers becoming impatient near the end of the day, usually because they have friends in town that they are meeting up with. Samat had been talking about how great Alichur was for most of the day, so we were convinced we had a drinking buddy (buddies) waiting for him. Yann fed him some peanuts to appease his hunger that he was now complaining about, and we prevented him from driving us up to the edge of the lake through the grass. We visited the lake with Samat pouting in the car, which took away some of the enjoyment of our short time there.
Alichur is a very sad looking place. Way above the tree line, it is cold and barren and it isn't clear how anybody can or would want to live there. There is no running water or electricity, the town shares public outhouses near the centre of town. We found room to sleep in the English teacher's home, then Samat disappeared to the town's only restaurant. We figured out why he was so eager to get to Alichur: fried fish. The restaurant's served up fried fish from a nearby lake. Availability of a variety of different foods is definetely something that we Westerners take for granted. We were all still pretty mad at Samat, especially when he started to dispute our plans for the next day. 
We had only one stop scheduled for the next day, the town of Bulun Kul 16km off the main highway. When Mathieu and I were first dealing with Samat we had presented him with a list of all our stops including kilometrage, which he had quickly glanced at and agreed to. Now when we presented him with the same list he claimed that he had never seen it and we had probably just written it. I threatened that he leave us behind and not get his pay, he responded that he would get the police after us. He had really turned into a nasty little brat. Mathieu was able to speak to him (in Russian) and get him to agree to our itinerary (which he had already agreed to once).
The town of Bulun Kul was possibly even more sad and desolate than Alichur, if mainly because it wasn't even on the main highway, completely isolated. After a four hour walk to a nearby lake, we had tea with a local family. The head of the house was also the town weather man. Four times a day he walked out to his little weather station, recorded the temperature and then reported it back by telegram to the central station (in Kazakhstan). He proudly showed us his meticulously kept notebooks (he's probably the only employed man in Bulun Kul). It was August and he had already recorded many temperature below zero degrees. He lamented with Mathieu a bit about the good old Soviet times when trucks actually came to town with fresh fruits and vegetables, those days were quite clearly long gone.
We arrived in Jelandy in the late afternoon, where we checked into the local truckstop/hotsprings. We were pretty keen on more hotsprings, but were disappointed by the grotty settings: lots of men (including one carrying a large rifle), public baths with tiles covered in about 2 years worth of scum filled with luke warm spring water. We hadn't bathed in almost a week, otherwise we probably wouldn't have entered the pools. Myriam and I didn't even take a pre-bath shower, a taboo, since we were covered in dirt (this really grossed Mathieu and Yann out when they heard). We also made an important Tajik cultural discovery pertaining to shaving. We had already observed that Tajik women don't shave their legs nor their armpits, but after two naked public baths we were able to conclude that there seems to be widespread shaving of another part of the body...weird (note this was mainly Myriam's discovery).
The next day, we stopped to see ruins near Khorog, I didn't join the other three because of stomach problems. I sat outside beside the jeep and within about 3 minutes I had already been beckoned into a villager's home. I resisted at first but after the third family member had come to get me I surrendered to their hospitality. I was fed a full meal and left with my hat and bag full of apples and tomatoes from the garden. This was the last stop before Samat dropped us off on the side of the road in Khorog, didn't even bother to bring us to our guest houses (we should have insisted but we were tired of arguing with him). Yann and I were warmly welcomed back to our homestay, and Myriam and Mathieu ended up there with us. Despite his best efforts our driver hadn't managed to ruin our trip, or taint the Pamiri reputation of friendliness and hospitality.
Two out of four doors were functioning, the suspension was completely shot, the tires were slick, we had to hold the windows open and the jeep smelled strongly of gasoline. But, at least Samat's UAZ had four wheels and seemed to be functioning, and of course, the price was right. Samat, our driver was young and seemed friendly he spoke some English but preferred speaking Russian with Mathieu.
Our first stop of the day was the Yamchun fortress a five kilometer drive above a village. The views from the fortress ruins were fantastic and we explored for a few hours before finishing off at the Bibi Fatima hot springs (Bibi Fatima is the prophet Mohammed's sister). Mathieu and Yann had the first session, then Myriam and I got to enter the hot spring water with a bunch of cute old naked Tajik women. Women supposedly come to bathe here for help with fertility problems. The water comes directly from the spring into a small cave where a cabin has been built to shelter the cave. Other than the teenage attendant who decided she would stand a foot away from Myriam and I while we changed, the springs were very pleasant. Our next stop was the town of Vrang, where we wanted to see some ancient Zoroastrian (first monotheist religion) worshipping platforms. In Vrang, we were first invited for lunch in a local Pamiri home, where we enjoyed the first of many potato and carrot meals. Pamiri homes are interesting, as they usually are made up of a single room, with no windows other than a giant skylight. Along the walls there are elevated platforms for sleeping and cooking, and the roof is supported by five wooden pillars (there is some Islamic symbolism behind this). After lunch we were guided up to the Zoroastrian platforms perched on the mountainside above the village. The platforms were not as 'fascinating' as described in the guidebook, but the surrounding mountains are dotted with ancient Buddhist caves and the views of the valley below were worth the visit. After Vrang, the next scheduled stop was Zong, for yet again, fortress ruins and spectacular views. Unfortunately, Samat was getting tired, and didn't know where the ruins were, after a pretty lame attempt to find them, he told us that his jeep couldn't make it up the hill and that we would have to walk. I voted to skip the ruins, and soon after the others followed, I suspect all according to Samat's plans. While Samat attempted to turn the jeep around, the locals whose home we were in front of came out to see what was going on. At first it was only a teenage girl, and within minutes, grandchildren, grandparents, brothers, sisters were out greeting us. It was hilarious and cute, another Tajik swarming of tourists. We settled for the night in Langar, the last 'large' settlement in the Wakhan Valley. We found a good homestay, run by a lovely group of women. After a hearty dinner, the young girls put on Tajik music and we all danced. Myriam and Mathieu showed us some Uzbek dancing, the young girls proudly displayed their Tajik moves and Yann even brought out his Pakistani dance. With no electricity and a long day ahead of us we went to bed early. The first day of our tour was deemed a great success.The second day of our Wakhan trip started with a tough walk in Langar to see petroglyphs carved into rocks high above the town. Our driver Samat, didn't seem very keen on waiting around while we visited them and made an attempt at claiming that the 'nice' petroglyphs were actually at the base of the mountains (our guidebook described them as being a difficult one hour walk straight up). He showed us two faint carvings and then began rounding us into the jeep. Thankfully, Mathieu had already started the climb and we chased after him, with Samat telling us to "be quick" (as if we had somewhere else to be?!). It took us a few hours to get up to the petroglyphs and back down to the jeep, and to give Samat credit, they were disappointing. Carved over most of the ancient drawings was newer graffiti.
For the next few hours we drove through beautiful but desolate scenery. This part of the Wakhan is almost completely uninhabited. We crossed a few cyclists (tourists), a handful of shepherds and one vehicle coming from the other direction (a jeep full of tourists). The only settlement we passed was a military base where we had our passports checked by two very bored looking soldiers, who begged Mathieu for a few cigarettes. We met up with the actual 'Pamir Highway' and paved roads a couple of hours later. We had chosen the town of Alichur as our stop for the night, mainly because it was about the right place on the map, not because the town had anything particular to offer. Before stopping for the night we had planned to visit a brakish lake near Alichur.Samat apparently had different plans for us, and even though we had made it quite clear that we would be stopping at the lake, he expressed shock and disbelief when we stopped him as he attempted to drive right by it. It's not the first time we had experienced drivers becoming impatient near the end of the day, usually because they have friends in town that they are meeting up with. Samat had been talking about how great Alichur was for most of the day, so we were convinced we had a drinking buddy (buddies) waiting for him. Yann fed him some peanuts to appease his hunger that he was now complaining about, and we prevented him from driving us up to the edge of the lake through the grass. We visited the lake with Samat pouting in the car, which took away some of the enjoyment of our short time there.
Alichur is a very sad looking place. Way above the tree line, it is cold and barren and it isn't clear how anybody can or would want to live there. There is no running water or electricity, the town shares public outhouses near the centre of town. We found room to sleep in the English teacher's home, then Samat disappeared to the town's only restaurant. We figured out why he was so eager to get to Alichur: fried fish. The restaurant's served up fried fish from a nearby lake. Availability of a variety of different foods is definetely something that we Westerners take for granted. We were all still pretty mad at Samat, especially when he started to dispute our plans for the next day. We had only one stop scheduled for the next day, the town of Bulun Kul 16km off the main highway. When Mathieu and I were first dealing with Samat we had presented him with a list of all our stops including kilometrage, which he had quickly glanced at and agreed to. Now when we presented him with the same list he claimed that he had never seen it and we had probably just written it. I threatened that he leave us behind and not get his pay, he responded that he would get the police after us. He had really turned into a nasty little brat. Mathieu was able to speak to him (in Russian) and get him to agree to our itinerary (which he had already agreed to once). The town of Bulun Kul was possibly even more sad and desolate than Alichur, if mainly because it wasn't even on the main highway, completely isolated. After a four hour walk to a nearby lake, we had tea with a local family. The head of the house was also the town weather man. Four times a day he walked out to his little weather station, recorded the temperature and then reported it back by telegram to the central station (in Kazakhstan). He proudly showed us his meticulously kept notebooks (he's probably the only employed man in Bulun Kul). It was August and he had already recorded many temperature below zero degrees. He lamented with Mathieu a bit about the good old Soviet times when trucks actually came to town with fresh fruits and vegetables, those days were quite clearly long gone.
We arrived in Jelandy in the late afternoon, where we checked into the local truckstop/hotsprings. We were pretty keen on more hotsprings, but were disappointed by the grotty settings: lots of men (including one carrying a large rifle), public baths with tiles covered in about 2 years worth of scum filled with luke warm spring water. We hadn't bathed in almost a week, otherwise we probably wouldn't have entered the pools. Myriam and I didn't even take a pre-bath shower, a taboo, since we were covered in dirt (this really grossed Mathieu and Yann out when they heard). We also made an important Tajik cultural discovery pertaining to shaving. We had already observed that Tajik women don't shave their legs nor their armpits, but after two naked public baths we were able to conclude that there seems to be widespread shaving of another part of the body...weird (note this was mainly Myriam's discovery).The next day, we stopped to see ruins near Khorog, I didn't join the other three because of stomach problems. I sat outside beside the jeep and within about 3 minutes I had already been beckoned into a villager's home. I resisted at first but after the third family member had come to get me I surrendered to their hospitality. I was fed a full meal and left with my hat and bag full of apples and tomatoes from the garden. This was the last stop before Samat dropped us off on the side of the road in Khorog, didn't even bother to bring us to our guest houses (we should have insisted but we were tired of arguing with him). Yann and I were warmly welcomed back to our homestay, and Myriam and Mathieu ended up there with us. Despite his best efforts our driver hadn't managed to ruin our trip, or taint the Pamiri reputation of friendliness and hospitality.
Weekend in Ishkashim
After our 22 hour ride from Dushanbe, we still had an hour of walking around town in an attempt to find our guesthouse. We had some notes scribbled down, such as 'look for the blue gate with a gold sign' and other landmarks and even the address in hand, but after alot of walking (uphill), a car pulled over and offered to help, we got in (no questions asked, dumb). We eventually found the place, but not without paying too much to the helpful driver. The guesthouse was full, but we were offered a place outside on the verandah for the same price, actually we were ready to accept, the weather is lovely and we would get a pile of blankets, but then they suggested we go sleep at the neighbour's homestay across the street. We really lucked out, same price, our own room and a sweet host family recieving their 7th and 8th guests. Our dinner was a feast of local products including homemade 'compote' (concentrated fruit juice). We decided we would stay two or three nights.
Then, Myriam and Mathieu came by looking for us. They had already been in Khorog for 2 days, they also had not managed to find the guesthouse, and so were staying at the other end of town. They eventually tracked us down with the hope of a local. After an exchange of descriptions of our trip from Dushanbe, we concluded that Mathieu and Myriam had definetely had a worst time than us. Actually their trip was so bad they were reluctant to talk about it, some highlights: waiting 3 hours for their jeep to leave only to be told that the driver doesn't want them in the car (he later changed his mind when they agreed to ride in the trunk), sharing the trunk of a jeep with three other people for 25 hours, running over a dog on a straight, paved road in clear weather then being swarmed by locals wanting "compensation for their loss", exceedingly drunk passengers and driver, running out of gas at the top of a mountain pass in the middle of the night in land-mine infested mountains, being spat on by another passenger (inadvertently, but still)... After hearing their story, we really had nothing to complain about. We then got to business, Myriam and Mathieu had been checking out taxi prices for two days and had concluded that travel costs were too high for us to travel separately. We had almost identical itineraries, so Yann and I agreed to head out with them the next morning to Ishkashim, the capital of the Tajik Wakhan.
Finding a taxi to Ishkashim was harder than we thought, mainly because we hadn't set out very early in the morning. We got the usual ridiculous offers, including 100$ for the ride (the actual price should be about 6$ per person). We finally were approached by someone heading back to Ishkashim and wanting to fill the car, actually I don't think they even had any money to fill the gas tank, so they really needed passengers. We agreed to the local price, of course when we were shown to the car, the four of us in the back of an old Russian Moscovite. With a little more energy we would have insited on paying for three spots, but instead, Myriam and I took turns sitting on Mathieu and Yann for the four hour ride. Yann only had to get out to push the car three times, all-in-all, a great deal.
Having Mathieu and Myriam with us was wonderful, not only for their company, but for their knowledge of the region and their Russian speaking abilities (Mathieu is a graduate student at the IFEAC, Institut Francais des Etudes sur L'Asie Centrale, based in Tashkent, Uzbekistan). When we arrived in Ishkashim, Mathieu negotiated a good room rate for us, not an easy task since there was only one hotel in town. We met up with a few other travelers at the hotel who had left Khorog earlier than us and who made us regret our sleeping in. Had we arrived a few hours earlier in Ishkashim, we could have made it to the cross-border market with Afghanistan: leave your passport at the border and cross over into Afghanistan for some shopping and eating. We missed our chance, Yann and I were pretty bummed out. Yann contented himself with throwing rocks over the river/border. 
Ishkashim is smaller than we had imagined, and we were told that it was virtually impossible to find transportation on Sunday, which is when we wanted to head out. We decided we would spend two nights in the the town, wait until Monday, when we hoped we could arrange a jeep to take the four of us around the valley. Sunday morning we walked around town, there was not much activity but anyone who spotted us tried to invite us in for food and tea. We managed to find a taxi to bring us to a village 15km away, the sight of the ruined Khakha fortress. We spent most of the day slowly walking back to Ishkashim, passing farmers and their families harvesting wheat. 
Everyone was eager to call us over, offering us tea and fresh fruits, we couldn't go more than a few meters without a new invitation. It was often painful to have to turn down the eager, smiling villagers. In a place where people cannot even produce enough food to feed themselves they were more than happy to sit down and share with us. 
Then, Myriam and Mathieu came by looking for us. They had already been in Khorog for 2 days, they also had not managed to find the guesthouse, and so were staying at the other end of town. They eventually tracked us down with the hope of a local. After an exchange of descriptions of our trip from Dushanbe, we concluded that Mathieu and Myriam had definetely had a worst time than us. Actually their trip was so bad they were reluctant to talk about it, some highlights: waiting 3 hours for their jeep to leave only to be told that the driver doesn't want them in the car (he later changed his mind when they agreed to ride in the trunk), sharing the trunk of a jeep with three other people for 25 hours, running over a dog on a straight, paved road in clear weather then being swarmed by locals wanting "compensation for their loss", exceedingly drunk passengers and driver, running out of gas at the top of a mountain pass in the middle of the night in land-mine infested mountains, being spat on by another passenger (inadvertently, but still)... After hearing their story, we really had nothing to complain about. We then got to business, Myriam and Mathieu had been checking out taxi prices for two days and had concluded that travel costs were too high for us to travel separately. We had almost identical itineraries, so Yann and I agreed to head out with them the next morning to Ishkashim, the capital of the Tajik Wakhan.
Finding a taxi to Ishkashim was harder than we thought, mainly because we hadn't set out very early in the morning. We got the usual ridiculous offers, including 100$ for the ride (the actual price should be about 6$ per person). We finally were approached by someone heading back to Ishkashim and wanting to fill the car, actually I don't think they even had any money to fill the gas tank, so they really needed passengers. We agreed to the local price, of course when we were shown to the car, the four of us in the back of an old Russian Moscovite. With a little more energy we would have insited on paying for three spots, but instead, Myriam and I took turns sitting on Mathieu and Yann for the four hour ride. Yann only had to get out to push the car three times, all-in-all, a great deal.
Having Mathieu and Myriam with us was wonderful, not only for their company, but for their knowledge of the region and their Russian speaking abilities (Mathieu is a graduate student at the IFEAC, Institut Francais des Etudes sur L'Asie Centrale, based in Tashkent, Uzbekistan). When we arrived in Ishkashim, Mathieu negotiated a good room rate for us, not an easy task since there was only one hotel in town. We met up with a few other travelers at the hotel who had left Khorog earlier than us and who made us regret our sleeping in. Had we arrived a few hours earlier in Ishkashim, we could have made it to the cross-border market with Afghanistan: leave your passport at the border and cross over into Afghanistan for some shopping and eating. We missed our chance, Yann and I were pretty bummed out. Yann contented himself with throwing rocks over the river/border. Ishkashim is smaller than we had imagined, and we were told that it was virtually impossible to find transportation on Sunday, which is when we wanted to head out. We decided we would spend two nights in the the town, wait until Monday, when we hoped we could arrange a jeep to take the four of us around the valley. Sunday morning we walked around town, there was not much activity but anyone who spotted us tried to invite us in for food and tea. We managed to find a taxi to bring us to a village 15km away, the sight of the ruined Khakha fortress. We spent most of the day slowly walking back to Ishkashim, passing farmers and their families harvesting wheat. Everyone was eager to call us over, offering us tea and fresh fruits, we couldn't go more than a few meters without a new invitation. It was often painful to have to turn down the eager, smiling villagers. In a place where people cannot even produce enough food to feed themselves they were more than happy to sit down and share with us.
The Long Road East (or: How to Average 24km/hr)
Our alarms woke us up at 4:30 a.m. and we were out of our Dushanbe appartment before sunrise on our way to the Badakhshan bus stand. The bus stand is basically a parking lot where jeep and minibus drivers assemble every morning to collect passengers. We arrived just after 6 a.m. (after a long walk, because it was too early for our public bus), and after much negotiation and a car switch we ended up in a Russian mini-bus, squeezed in with 14 other people for the day long, 527km journey. Day long? 527km? Oh yes, and here's how...
07:51 Leave bus station (after almost two hours of being there)
07:53 Get stopped by police for 'random checking of papers'
08:01 End of police check
08:24 Stop to buy snacks onthe side of the road
08:38 Police road block, papers checked
09:30 Get stopped by police for 'random checking of papers'
09:39 Get stopped by police for 'random checking of papers'
09:44 Construction road block
10:04 Start moving through construction site, oh no wait, false start
10:14 Start moving through construction site
10:42 Stop to eat at roadside tea house
11:17 Leave tea house
13:30 Stop to eat at tea house
13:44 Leave quickly because there isn't any food, only tea
14:54 Stop to eat at tea house
15:51 Leave tea house
16:01 Stop for gas (one tank on each side of the bus, gas is poured out of big buckets through a funnel)
16:12 Finish filling up gas
16:34 Stop at security check point
16:36 Leave security check point
16:53 A stop, possible engine trouble?
17:00 Engine seems fine, we can go
17:35 Tea break right before a mountain pass, the scenery was beautiful and Yann and I strolled around only to notice an abandoned tank left over from the civil war. As we crossed the pass a few minutes later, signs warned of landmines covering the whole area. I first thought that they were signs warning of forest fires (yes I know, we're above the tree line) until Yann pointed out the stick figure above the flames with his leg being blown off.
18:09 End of tea break in land mine territory
19:41 Stop at military check point
19:48 Leave military check point
20:06 Stop in a town to make inquiries about something
20:18 Leave after making inquiries about something
So that's the first 12 hours or so, the next 12 hours are more of a blur, and our note taking was now being done in the complete darkness, so accuracy cannot be guaranteed, but we can definetely confirm that it was a way worse 12 hours than can possibly be described in this time line...
20:30 Stop at cafe for dinner, Yann and I ate an entire pack of hot dogs along with some stale bread. The next part of the stop was by far the most frustrating part of the trip. First our driver announced to us that he was exhausted and needed a few hours of sleep before driving again, fair enough. We tried to figure out how long we would be stopped for, debating whether or not we should one of the (over-priced) tea house beds. No one, including the driver seems to know. After at least an hour of sitting around and eating, we are told that the driver will be sleeping for 2-3 hours, so, since we are also exhausted we settle into dorm beds. Ten minutes later we are woken up and told that we are leaving, heading straight to Khorog (our final destination). The rest of the passengers (annoying and now drunk) have bullied the driver into continuing the drive, because they do not want to pay. Not only was this annoying because we thought we would get a rest, it was annoying because we didn't think it was very safe. We didn't even bother voicing our opinion, even the driver wasn't being listened to.
22:11 Leave the dinner stop
22:13 Stop at police check point
22:25 Leave police check point
23:15 Stop for the drunks to pee
23:18 Pee break ends
23:37 Stop to help broken down car
23:44 Leave broken down car
00:57 Stop for a break
For the next 4 hours there might have been a few stops, but most passengers were drifting in and out of sleep, including me and probably the driver. The only person who seemed to be in an uncomfortable a position was Yann, who pretty much didn't sleep a wink. During this time we picked up 2 extra passengers, we were now 18 people in a mini-bus that was designed for 11. The minibuses are transformed by reducing trunk space and bringing the benches closer together, an additional bench is added, but facing in the wrong direction. So Yann and I sat across from each other, sharing the leg space for one person (which the lady beside us decided she would crowd with two watermelons). We were sweaty and overheated, with only a few small windows, the woman beside us didn't like the wind blowing in her face and we almost came to blows over keeping the window open, not to mention her ridiculous watermelons rolling around at our feet.
05:10 Stop, possible engine trouble
05:15 Leave, problem fixed
05:23 Stop in village outside Khorog to drop off passenger, argument ensues when driver will not drive her to her home up the hill, we have almost no more gas left, the first attempt up the hill has failed
05:27 We leave the disgruntled passenger behind, rolling down hill with the engine off
05:41 Arrival in Khorog, capital of the Badakhshan region
And that, is how you average 24km/hr, we paid 40$ each for the pleasure. The 45 minute flight would have cost us 65$ each.
07:51 Leave bus station (after almost two hours of being there)
07:53 Get stopped by police for 'random checking of papers'
08:01 End of police check
08:24 Stop to buy snacks onthe side of the road
08:38 Police road block, papers checked
09:30 Get stopped by police for 'random checking of papers'
09:39 Get stopped by police for 'random checking of papers'
09:44 Construction road block
10:04 Start moving through construction site, oh no wait, false start
10:14 Start moving through construction site
10:42 Stop to eat at roadside tea house
11:17 Leave tea house
13:30 Stop to eat at tea house
13:44 Leave quickly because there isn't any food, only tea
14:54 Stop to eat at tea house
15:51 Leave tea house
16:01 Stop for gas (one tank on each side of the bus, gas is poured out of big buckets through a funnel)
16:12 Finish filling up gas
16:34 Stop at security check point
16:36 Leave security check point
16:53 A stop, possible engine trouble?
17:00 Engine seems fine, we can go
17:35 Tea break right before a mountain pass, the scenery was beautiful and Yann and I strolled around only to notice an abandoned tank left over from the civil war. As we crossed the pass a few minutes later, signs warned of landmines covering the whole area. I first thought that they were signs warning of forest fires (yes I know, we're above the tree line) until Yann pointed out the stick figure above the flames with his leg being blown off.
18:09 End of tea break in land mine territory
19:41 Stop at military check point19:48 Leave military check point
20:06 Stop in a town to make inquiries about something
20:18 Leave after making inquiries about something
So that's the first 12 hours or so, the next 12 hours are more of a blur, and our note taking was now being done in the complete darkness, so accuracy cannot be guaranteed, but we can definetely confirm that it was a way worse 12 hours than can possibly be described in this time line...
20:30 Stop at cafe for dinner, Yann and I ate an entire pack of hot dogs along with some stale bread. The next part of the stop was by far the most frustrating part of the trip. First our driver announced to us that he was exhausted and needed a few hours of sleep before driving again, fair enough. We tried to figure out how long we would be stopped for, debating whether or not we should one of the (over-priced) tea house beds. No one, including the driver seems to know. After at least an hour of sitting around and eating, we are told that the driver will be sleeping for 2-3 hours, so, since we are also exhausted we settle into dorm beds. Ten minutes later we are woken up and told that we are leaving, heading straight to Khorog (our final destination). The rest of the passengers (annoying and now drunk) have bullied the driver into continuing the drive, because they do not want to pay. Not only was this annoying because we thought we would get a rest, it was annoying because we didn't think it was very safe. We didn't even bother voicing our opinion, even the driver wasn't being listened to.
22:11 Leave the dinner stop
22:13 Stop at police check point
22:25 Leave police check point
23:15 Stop for the drunks to pee
23:18 Pee break ends
23:37 Stop to help broken down car
23:44 Leave broken down car
00:57 Stop for a break
For the next 4 hours there might have been a few stops, but most passengers were drifting in and out of sleep, including me and probably the driver. The only person who seemed to be in an uncomfortable a position was Yann, who pretty much didn't sleep a wink. During this time we picked up 2 extra passengers, we were now 18 people in a mini-bus that was designed for 11. The minibuses are transformed by reducing trunk space and bringing the benches closer together, an additional bench is added, but facing in the wrong direction. So Yann and I sat across from each other, sharing the leg space for one person (which the lady beside us decided she would crowd with two watermelons). We were sweaty and overheated, with only a few small windows, the woman beside us didn't like the wind blowing in her face and we almost came to blows over keeping the window open, not to mention her ridiculous watermelons rolling around at our feet.
05:10 Stop, possible engine trouble
05:15 Leave, problem fixed
05:23 Stop in village outside Khorog to drop off passenger, argument ensues when driver will not drive her to her home up the hill, we have almost no more gas left, the first attempt up the hill has failed
05:27 We leave the disgruntled passenger behind, rolling down hill with the engine off
05:41 Arrival in Khorog, capital of the Badakhshan region
And that, is how you average 24km/hr, we paid 40$ each for the pleasure. The 45 minute flight would have cost us 65$ each.
Quiet and Peaceful Dushanbe
Our appartment in Dushanbe was such a luxury, we cooked dinner most nights in our own kitchen. After a night alone in the appartment, the second room became occupied by Myriam and Mathieu, two Parisians living in Uzbekistan, vacationing in Tajikistan. They quickly introduced us to the Central Asian vodka consumption habits. The city markets were full of fresh local produce, 1kg of tomatoes sold for about 30 cents, so we made huge pots of spaghetti a few times. Other market favourites included red pepper, eggplant, pistacchios, red basil, homemade cheese and gigantic egg-shaped cantaloupes. 
Dushanbe's city centre is very pleasant, with tree-lined streets, functioning fountains and colonial architecture. Our appartment was down the street from the Presidential Palace on a six-laned boulevard, ready for Soviet style military parades but occupied only by a handful of taxis and trolley buses. There isn't much evidence of the civil war, that ended less than a decade ago and saw Dushanbe controlled by armed street gangs. It is only in 2002 that the dawn-to dusk curfew was lifted in the city. There is a heavy police presence on the streets, hundreds of militsia standing around, stopping cars and blatantly taking money from drivers, it's a strange sight, but one that locals seem to have accepted as part of daily life (our landlady told us explictly not to let militsia into the appartment no matter what they say).
We had a week waiting for our Chinese visas and honestly there isn't too much to do in Dushanbe. We of course visited the Museum of National Antiquities (to see Central Asia's largest Buddha, miniscule in comparaison to its South East Asian counterparts) and the Bekhzod National Museum with a fine collection of stuffed animals and formaldehyde suspended creatures. Not to mention an entire floor dedicated to the greatness of President Rakhman(ov) (he removed the 'ov' to de-Russify his name).
We spent a morning in Hissar village, the site of a ruined fort, some 30km from Dushanbe. When we arrived in Hissar, a passenger in our minibus wouldn't leave our side. I made the symbol of an arch (I knew there was one at the site of the ruins), and he immediately flagged down a taxi, paid the driver and waved us goodbye. We were dropped off at the ruins on the outskirts of town. Actually they aren't so much ruins as a big pile of rocks on a hill, but the reconstructed arch is picturesque as are the two nearby medressahs across from it, and the attendants seemed happy to collect our 30 cent entrance fees. 
After a couple of days in Dushanbe, we ran into Lee, a Korean man looking to stay in the same appartment as we were. We told him that it was already full and we tried to direct him to a cheap hotel that we knew of, but he seemed utterly dejected that he wouldn't have a kitchen where he could cook his Korean noodles (he mentioned these noodles many times during our brief encounter). In sympathy, we made a deal with him that he could sleep on the floor of the bedroom in exchange for a Korean dinner, he was overjoyed and referred to me as his 'angel' for the rest of the week. Lee ended up cooking for us more than once, and buying us lots of beer and snacks. We exchanged life stories, his a bit more interesting than ours. He was a retired dentist who had quit his job in his thirties and had been travelling for 13 years with only a few month breaks in Korea in between voyages.
Myriam and Mathieu were the first to leave the comfort of the appartment, heading east into the mountains. Yann and I were heading to the same place, but were still waiting for our visas, we hoped they would be able to send us an e-mail describing the 24 hour journey, but knew that this was highly unlikely. Two days later, we hadn't heard from them, we set our alarms for 4 a.m. so that we could get to the bus station and bargain for a ride east, we didn't have much information to go on, we just knew it wasn't going to be a particularly pleasant journey.
Dushanbe's city centre is very pleasant, with tree-lined streets, functioning fountains and colonial architecture. Our appartment was down the street from the Presidential Palace on a six-laned boulevard, ready for Soviet style military parades but occupied only by a handful of taxis and trolley buses. There isn't much evidence of the civil war, that ended less than a decade ago and saw Dushanbe controlled by armed street gangs. It is only in 2002 that the dawn-to dusk curfew was lifted in the city. There is a heavy police presence on the streets, hundreds of militsia standing around, stopping cars and blatantly taking money from drivers, it's a strange sight, but one that locals seem to have accepted as part of daily life (our landlady told us explictly not to let militsia into the appartment no matter what they say).We had a week waiting for our Chinese visas and honestly there isn't too much to do in Dushanbe. We of course visited the Museum of National Antiquities (to see Central Asia's largest Buddha, miniscule in comparaison to its South East Asian counterparts) and the Bekhzod National Museum with a fine collection of stuffed animals and formaldehyde suspended creatures. Not to mention an entire floor dedicated to the greatness of President Rakhman(ov) (he removed the 'ov' to de-Russify his name).
We spent a morning in Hissar village, the site of a ruined fort, some 30km from Dushanbe. When we arrived in Hissar, a passenger in our minibus wouldn't leave our side. I made the symbol of an arch (I knew there was one at the site of the ruins), and he immediately flagged down a taxi, paid the driver and waved us goodbye. We were dropped off at the ruins on the outskirts of town. Actually they aren't so much ruins as a big pile of rocks on a hill, but the reconstructed arch is picturesque as are the two nearby medressahs across from it, and the attendants seemed happy to collect our 30 cent entrance fees. After a couple of days in Dushanbe, we ran into Lee, a Korean man looking to stay in the same appartment as we were. We told him that it was already full and we tried to direct him to a cheap hotel that we knew of, but he seemed utterly dejected that he wouldn't have a kitchen where he could cook his Korean noodles (he mentioned these noodles many times during our brief encounter). In sympathy, we made a deal with him that he could sleep on the floor of the bedroom in exchange for a Korean dinner, he was overjoyed and referred to me as his 'angel' for the rest of the week. Lee ended up cooking for us more than once, and buying us lots of beer and snacks. We exchanged life stories, his a bit more interesting than ours. He was a retired dentist who had quit his job in his thirties and had been travelling for 13 years with only a few month breaks in Korea in between voyages.Myriam and Mathieu were the first to leave the comfort of the appartment, heading east into the mountains. Yann and I were heading to the same place, but were still waiting for our visas, we hoped they would be able to send us an e-mail describing the 24 hour journey, but knew that this was highly unlikely. Two days later, we hadn't heard from them, we set our alarms for 4 a.m. so that we could get to the bus station and bargain for a ride east, we didn't have much information to go on, we just knew it wasn't going to be a particularly pleasant journey.
The M34 Highway
From Istaravshan, we had a 5-6 hour drive planned along the main highway towards Dushanbe (the country's capital). We planned to be dropped off at the intersection with a small mountain road leading up to an alpine lake, where we would be able to stay in a former Soviet holiday camp. As most dealings for transportation go, we were quoted wildly high prices for the drive, three or four times the local price. It was quite unexpected, considering the relatively light volume of tourists passing through the country, we aren't safe anywhere it seems. We finally agreed to take spots in a mini-van who would drop us off, then continue all the way to Dushanbe with the other passengers. We found out later that we paid the same price as that of the whole trip to Dushanbe.
We drive started with about three kilometers of what could generously be described as 'paved' road. The rest of the highway was pretty much a pile of loose rocks. Sometimes it wasn't even clear where the road actually was, we had to turn around after following the wrong rock pile a few times, and we drove on a river bed (not a dry one). The road was terrible, but it could have been a tolerable drive, if we hadn't been trapped in a vehicle with the most reckless asshole of a driver in Tajikistan. The minivan was fairly new and could not possibly have belonged to the driver because he didn't seem to care if it arrived to Dushanbe in pieces. He didn't slow down for anything, even the large rocks that were ripping through the bottom of the van. Despite obviously not being familiar with the road he drove faster than the rest of the traffic, including all-terrain vehicles. After the van took a particularly bad hit (despite paying more than everyone else, we had been relegated to the back of the van, and were feeling the pain of the drive more than others), I asked our driver to slow down, he thought I was very funny.
The problem with our driver was that the minute there was a patch of 'good' road he would accelerate like crazy, only to slam on the breaks 30 seconds later when the road sharply curved, or we met a giant pile of rocks, or a 3 foot 'speed bump'. On one of his speed binges, we hit an unexpected curve and we didn't have time to slow down, the driver struggled to keep the car from flipping and as we rounded the curve we met a huge dip in the road, the van went plunging down the pile of rocks and came to a stop, miraculously still standing. During the incident I was screaming at the driver to slow down (very useful for his steering, but I was so angry it was out of my control), everyone else in the car let out a collective gasp as we tumbled down the rocks.
Yann and I then demanded exit from the car. We were seriously in the middle of nowhere, but we hadn't even gotten to the mountain passes yet. I had actually yelled out "I don't want to die in Tajikistan", the other passengers seemed very interested to know what I had said (they had recognized their country's name), I wonder what the driver told them. The driver didn't find the situation funny anymore, I told him he was the "worst driver I had every seen in my life" and that he was "crazy" oh yes, and that "I would rather sleep on the side of the highway than get back in his car". He begged us to get back in the minivan, promising to drive "normal" this time, AHA! you admit it you were NOT driving normally! He finally managed to get us back in the van with the promise of not exceeding 20km/h.
We tackled the first pass extremely slowly, which was good, the road was dusty and visibility was poor. We got to the top of the pass at about 1:30PM, we had been on the road for about three hours. There was a small makeshift barrier blocking the road, and a little Chinese worker sitting beside it surrounded by angry Tajiks. The road was blocked for dynamiting, it wouldn't open until 7pm. I got out my Chinese phrasebook, and confirmed the great news, 5 hour wait at the top of a pass. I was actually not too unhappy about the situation, because it gave me a break from the driver from hell. Ridiculously I became the 'Chinese' expert, and as the cars started accumulating behind us, people were approaching me asking me to convince the driver to let us through. Even our own driver made a bid to get Yann and I to help:
A-I don't speak Chinese
B-I don't want to drive on a mountain road when DYNAMITING is going on
C-I hate you
The locals didn't seem to comprehend why they couldn't bribe their way through the road. To make matters worse, traffic was coming through from the other direction, totally undermining the Chinese man's statement that the road was unsafe (which I am quite convinced was, we could hear, and feel, the dynamiting at one point). He cursed the Tajik corruption but held his ground, for almost five hours. He was eager to discuss with me in Mandarin, but I only managed to tell him that I liked Chinese food, and to list off the names of Chinese places I had visited. He seemed happy enough with that. A few minutes later we watched him as he ran away from a raging Tajik woman (huge) who was chasing him down, probably the most physical activity she had done in years. The ridiculous thing about the situation was that the road closure had been announced, people just show up expecting to be able to get through, because that's the way it works in the country. But when the Chinese are controlling the construction site things are different.
An hour early, the gate opened and we were able to continue the trip. Despite the 5 hour wait, our driver felt that it was time to take a break at a tea house at the bottom of the pass (about 10km from where we had been waiting all day). He knew that Yann and I were attempting to get to the lake, and that it would be difficult to do so in the dark, but he sat himself down and ordered a plate of food, while most of the passengers sat perplexed in the van.
Two cars pulled over across the street from the tea house and when I saw that there was room in one of the cars, I ran across the street to beg for a ride to the lake. Yann described the driver as big and scary but I just loathed our driver too much. The new driver, Ashraf, didn't speak any English, but his friend Azziz, driving the other car, did. They were heading all the way to Dushanbe, so obviously didn't want to do a 50km detour to the lake, but were happy to drop us off at the road to the lake. We quickly transfered our things from the van into the car and drove away (we did pay our other driver, despite his shittiness).
We realised quickly that Ashraf was a much better driver than the last one (not that that was very difficult). It turns out, he and his partner Azziz (who was following in the car behind us) drive the awful road every week. They fly to Khojand, buy two used cars, drive them back to Dushanbe and sell them at a profit. By the time we got to the mining town where the road branches off to Iskander Kul Lake it was dark and there was exactly one taxi around willing to do the drive. He wanted the same price for the 48km trip (return) as a place in a taxi from Khojand to Dushanbe (12 hours on horrible road, including two 3000m+ passes). We felt tired, and ripped-off. When Ashraf and Azziz offered to take us all the way to Dushanbe we accepted.
We stopped soon after to have dinner, of course Yann and I were treated. Ashraf is Uzbek and was frustrated to be the only person at the table who couldn't understand a bit of English. At one point we talked about Ottawa being the capital of Canada and he eagerly jumped in, frowning "ooooooh... capitalisma!" (when we had passed a Lenin statue earlier he had given us the "ooooooh...Leneen, commoonisma, socialisma"). We ate a road side tea house, Azziz had two other passengers in his car, his friends, who also ate with us. A giant Tajik matriarch and her beautiful daughter for whom she had already turned down many suitors. The three of us went to the bathroom later, Asian styles, all right next to each other, a bonding experience. The big momma was apparently retaining alot of water, it was like witnessing an elephant (and yes, I've seen many peeing elephants).
It was almost 11pm by the time we finished dinner and we still had one mountain pass separating us from Dushanbe. We were given the choice of arriving in Dushanbe at 2am "if we took the too-nelle" or at 5am if we didn't. We didn't exactly know what we were being asked, so we left the choice up to our drivers. This led us to a security checkpoint, where we were told to stay in the car as Ashraf and Azziz went to speak to the police/military. Money was paid, and we blazed through the security gates into the mountains. After crisscrossing the mountain on switchbacks we arrived at a construction site, where a few other cars were waiting amidst the huge piles of dirt and rock. We didn't wait very long before getting the wave-through from a worker. We drove into a dark, damp worksite and a few minutes later we arrived at the 'too-nelle', the unfinished tunnel being built to bypass the snowy mountain pass and allow winter travel.
What was the number one indicator that the tunnel was not quite finished? Possibly the fact that it was submerged in three feet of water. As we entered the tunnel, water actually came rolling over the windshield. Further along, enormous jets of water crashed out of the tunnel wall and water dripped onto the top of the car. Ashraf began eating his sunflower seeds at a furious pace and I calculated how many minutes we would be in the tunnel. Six kilometers, rolling at under 15km/hr we had almost half an hour in the pitch black, flooded, claustorphobics nightmare. Meanwhile Yann thought the whole thing was awesome. Tajik road safety can pretty much be summed up by the phrase 'insha Allah' (if it is God's will)... wonderful. I was happy when we spotted workers, it was a possible indication of the tunnel's structural integrity, then again, they were probably just happily inshaallah-ing away. It took 26 minutes to get to the end of the tunnel.
We arrived in Dushanbe at 2am, as precited, with very few incidents (aside the tunnel), other than Ashraf falling asleep and Yann and I trying to keep him awake with our riveting conversation "sleep, nyet nyet nyet, no good". Ashraf had us stay at his appartment for the night. When we arrived, his adorable (and young) wife Sitora was waiting for us. She had prepared a large tub of hot water for washing up (by boiling water kettle by kettle) and she had a full dinner waiting: chicken lentil soup, bread, salad, nuts, dried fruits, tea, apples. You know the feeling when you are so exhausted that you feel like you are going to throw up? Well, that's pretty much how we felt. Ashraf and Sitora didn't eat with us, but they sat and watched us eat, as we attempted to finish our second dinner of the evening, at three o'clock in the morning.
We slept well with piles of blankets and mattresses set up for us on the floor. When we woke up, breakfast was waiting. Sitora proudly showed us the package of Maple Lodge 100% Canadian chicken wieners purchased especially for us. Ashraf spent a good part of the morning driving us around the city looking for a cheap hotel. After a ticket from a crooked Dushanbe policeman he seemed to be a bit exasperated and we insisted that we could continue the search on foot. We parted with us promising to call him if we had any problems.
After a walk across the city centre we struck gold: a fully-furnished, air-conditioned apartment for less than the cheapest dorm beds we could find. The little Russian landlady ran off the rules, in Russian, while her son translated them to English as best he could. A few minutes later we had the keys and were on our own. For dinner we cooked boiled potatoes and carrots and covered them in butter, savouring our quiet Dushanbe apartment.
We drive started with about three kilometers of what could generously be described as 'paved' road. The rest of the highway was pretty much a pile of loose rocks. Sometimes it wasn't even clear where the road actually was, we had to turn around after following the wrong rock pile a few times, and we drove on a river bed (not a dry one). The road was terrible, but it could have been a tolerable drive, if we hadn't been trapped in a vehicle with the most reckless asshole of a driver in Tajikistan. The minivan was fairly new and could not possibly have belonged to the driver because he didn't seem to care if it arrived to Dushanbe in pieces. He didn't slow down for anything, even the large rocks that were ripping through the bottom of the van. Despite obviously not being familiar with the road he drove faster than the rest of the traffic, including all-terrain vehicles. After the van took a particularly bad hit (despite paying more than everyone else, we had been relegated to the back of the van, and were feeling the pain of the drive more than others), I asked our driver to slow down, he thought I was very funny.
The problem with our driver was that the minute there was a patch of 'good' road he would accelerate like crazy, only to slam on the breaks 30 seconds later when the road sharply curved, or we met a giant pile of rocks, or a 3 foot 'speed bump'. On one of his speed binges, we hit an unexpected curve and we didn't have time to slow down, the driver struggled to keep the car from flipping and as we rounded the curve we met a huge dip in the road, the van went plunging down the pile of rocks and came to a stop, miraculously still standing. During the incident I was screaming at the driver to slow down (very useful for his steering, but I was so angry it was out of my control), everyone else in the car let out a collective gasp as we tumbled down the rocks.
Yann and I then demanded exit from the car. We were seriously in the middle of nowhere, but we hadn't even gotten to the mountain passes yet. I had actually yelled out "I don't want to die in Tajikistan", the other passengers seemed very interested to know what I had said (they had recognized their country's name), I wonder what the driver told them. The driver didn't find the situation funny anymore, I told him he was the "worst driver I had every seen in my life" and that he was "crazy" oh yes, and that "I would rather sleep on the side of the highway than get back in his car". He begged us to get back in the minivan, promising to drive "normal" this time, AHA! you admit it you were NOT driving normally! He finally managed to get us back in the van with the promise of not exceeding 20km/h.
We tackled the first pass extremely slowly, which was good, the road was dusty and visibility was poor. We got to the top of the pass at about 1:30PM, we had been on the road for about three hours. There was a small makeshift barrier blocking the road, and a little Chinese worker sitting beside it surrounded by angry Tajiks. The road was blocked for dynamiting, it wouldn't open until 7pm. I got out my Chinese phrasebook, and confirmed the great news, 5 hour wait at the top of a pass. I was actually not too unhappy about the situation, because it gave me a break from the driver from hell. Ridiculously I became the 'Chinese' expert, and as the cars started accumulating behind us, people were approaching me asking me to convince the driver to let us through. Even our own driver made a bid to get Yann and I to help:
A-I don't speak Chinese
B-I don't want to drive on a mountain road when DYNAMITING is going on
C-I hate you
The locals didn't seem to comprehend why they couldn't bribe their way through the road. To make matters worse, traffic was coming through from the other direction, totally undermining the Chinese man's statement that the road was unsafe (which I am quite convinced was, we could hear, and feel, the dynamiting at one point). He cursed the Tajik corruption but held his ground, for almost five hours. He was eager to discuss with me in Mandarin, but I only managed to tell him that I liked Chinese food, and to list off the names of Chinese places I had visited. He seemed happy enough with that. A few minutes later we watched him as he ran away from a raging Tajik woman (huge) who was chasing him down, probably the most physical activity she had done in years. The ridiculous thing about the situation was that the road closure had been announced, people just show up expecting to be able to get through, because that's the way it works in the country. But when the Chinese are controlling the construction site things are different.
An hour early, the gate opened and we were able to continue the trip. Despite the 5 hour wait, our driver felt that it was time to take a break at a tea house at the bottom of the pass (about 10km from where we had been waiting all day). He knew that Yann and I were attempting to get to the lake, and that it would be difficult to do so in the dark, but he sat himself down and ordered a plate of food, while most of the passengers sat perplexed in the van.
Two cars pulled over across the street from the tea house and when I saw that there was room in one of the cars, I ran across the street to beg for a ride to the lake. Yann described the driver as big and scary but I just loathed our driver too much. The new driver, Ashraf, didn't speak any English, but his friend Azziz, driving the other car, did. They were heading all the way to Dushanbe, so obviously didn't want to do a 50km detour to the lake, but were happy to drop us off at the road to the lake. We quickly transfered our things from the van into the car and drove away (we did pay our other driver, despite his shittiness).
We realised quickly that Ashraf was a much better driver than the last one (not that that was very difficult). It turns out, he and his partner Azziz (who was following in the car behind us) drive the awful road every week. They fly to Khojand, buy two used cars, drive them back to Dushanbe and sell them at a profit. By the time we got to the mining town where the road branches off to Iskander Kul Lake it was dark and there was exactly one taxi around willing to do the drive. He wanted the same price for the 48km trip (return) as a place in a taxi from Khojand to Dushanbe (12 hours on horrible road, including two 3000m+ passes). We felt tired, and ripped-off. When Ashraf and Azziz offered to take us all the way to Dushanbe we accepted.
We stopped soon after to have dinner, of course Yann and I were treated. Ashraf is Uzbek and was frustrated to be the only person at the table who couldn't understand a bit of English. At one point we talked about Ottawa being the capital of Canada and he eagerly jumped in, frowning "ooooooh... capitalisma!" (when we had passed a Lenin statue earlier he had given us the "ooooooh...Leneen, commoonisma, socialisma"). We ate a road side tea house, Azziz had two other passengers in his car, his friends, who also ate with us. A giant Tajik matriarch and her beautiful daughter for whom she had already turned down many suitors. The three of us went to the bathroom later, Asian styles, all right next to each other, a bonding experience. The big momma was apparently retaining alot of water, it was like witnessing an elephant (and yes, I've seen many peeing elephants).
It was almost 11pm by the time we finished dinner and we still had one mountain pass separating us from Dushanbe. We were given the choice of arriving in Dushanbe at 2am "if we took the too-nelle" or at 5am if we didn't. We didn't exactly know what we were being asked, so we left the choice up to our drivers. This led us to a security checkpoint, where we were told to stay in the car as Ashraf and Azziz went to speak to the police/military. Money was paid, and we blazed through the security gates into the mountains. After crisscrossing the mountain on switchbacks we arrived at a construction site, where a few other cars were waiting amidst the huge piles of dirt and rock. We didn't wait very long before getting the wave-through from a worker. We drove into a dark, damp worksite and a few minutes later we arrived at the 'too-nelle', the unfinished tunnel being built to bypass the snowy mountain pass and allow winter travel. What was the number one indicator that the tunnel was not quite finished? Possibly the fact that it was submerged in three feet of water. As we entered the tunnel, water actually came rolling over the windshield. Further along, enormous jets of water crashed out of the tunnel wall and water dripped onto the top of the car. Ashraf began eating his sunflower seeds at a furious pace and I calculated how many minutes we would be in the tunnel. Six kilometers, rolling at under 15km/hr we had almost half an hour in the pitch black, flooded, claustorphobics nightmare. Meanwhile Yann thought the whole thing was awesome. Tajik road safety can pretty much be summed up by the phrase 'insha Allah' (if it is God's will)... wonderful. I was happy when we spotted workers, it was a possible indication of the tunnel's structural integrity, then again, they were probably just happily inshaallah-ing away. It took 26 minutes to get to the end of the tunnel.
We arrived in Dushanbe at 2am, as precited, with very few incidents (aside the tunnel), other than Ashraf falling asleep and Yann and I trying to keep him awake with our riveting conversation "sleep, nyet nyet nyet, no good". Ashraf had us stay at his appartment for the night. When we arrived, his adorable (and young) wife Sitora was waiting for us. She had prepared a large tub of hot water for washing up (by boiling water kettle by kettle) and she had a full dinner waiting: chicken lentil soup, bread, salad, nuts, dried fruits, tea, apples. You know the feeling when you are so exhausted that you feel like you are going to throw up? Well, that's pretty much how we felt. Ashraf and Sitora didn't eat with us, but they sat and watched us eat, as we attempted to finish our second dinner of the evening, at three o'clock in the morning.
We slept well with piles of blankets and mattresses set up for us on the floor. When we woke up, breakfast was waiting. Sitora proudly showed us the package of Maple Lodge 100% Canadian chicken wieners purchased especially for us. Ashraf spent a good part of the morning driving us around the city looking for a cheap hotel. After a ticket from a crooked Dushanbe policeman he seemed to be a bit exasperated and we insisted that we could continue the search on foot. We parted with us promising to call him if we had any problems.
After a walk across the city centre we struck gold: a fully-furnished, air-conditioned apartment for less than the cheapest dorm beds we could find. The little Russian landlady ran off the rules, in Russian, while her son translated them to English as best he could. A few minutes later we had the keys and were on our own. For dinner we cooked boiled potatoes and carrots and covered them in butter, savouring our quiet Dushanbe apartment.
Signing Autographs in Tajikistan
From Khojand we travelled a few hours south to the town of Istaravshan. Its 'Old Town' is purported to be one of the best preserved in the country. Under normal circumstances we would have found our room at Hotel Istarvshan pretty grotty, but after Hotel Leninabad most of its grotesqueness went by somewhat unnoticed. After check in we set out to find Istaravshan's 'famed' alleys of mud-walled homes and its turquoise domed medressah. It didn't take us very long to find, pretty much everything west of the main street seemed to qualify as old town. The beginning of our walk was peaceful, with people peeping out of their doorways to watch us walk by. All hell broke loose when we arrived at a small water tank. Our cameras were spotted and we were immediately stormed by a crowd of wet, extremely excited young boys.
They began wrestling with each other to get as close to the cameras as possible, I couldn't get them to stand back so that I could get them in a photo. I would place my camera down, set the boys in place, but the minute I pulled up the camera to take a shot the race was on and the boys would come toppling towards me at full speed. I finally managed to get a relatively organized photo when a fearsome band of moo-moo clad, gold-toothed, unibrowed Tajik mamas yelled the boys into place. The ladies then hugged me and attempted, unsuccessfully to dialogue with me in Tajik, then Russian.
The rest of our visit we were escorted by our army of tiny boys, begging to be photographed. Even older men and women stopped with requests to be photographed. We didn't exactly get to view the daily activities of the quiet old town, we just generated too much excitement among the locals. We had to cut our visit short, it was just too draining to deal with so many people around us. The town elders managed to pry away the children for our brief visit inside the medressah, but they were all waiting for us right outside the door. And, in a Tajik original request, a group of girls got us to autograph the back of handfulls of family photos. 
For our second activity of the afternoon, we hiked up to the top of a hill over-looking the city, here once stood a Sogdian fortress, destroyed by the armies of the one and only Alexander the Great (this is about as far as they got, Khojand was founded by Alexander, his eastern-most outpost). There is nothing left of the fortress, but we got nice views of the town and a statue and gate have been constructed on the hill. There seems to be pride over the former presence of Macedonians in the region.
Our dinner felt very Tajik (not that we really know what a Tajik dinner is), we settled at a chaikhana (a traditional tea house). Usually you eat on a tea bed, lounging on a pile of pillows without any shoes on. We opted for a small table shaded by grape vines. Locals bring their own food, including raw meat for kebabs, and pay a small fee for the use of the tea beds and of course tea and bread. We ordered tea, bread, kebabs and salad. Shortly after we began eating, the men at the table next to us brought us a huge plate of palov a plate of watermelon and a plate of honeymelon. This melon is really extraordinary, it actually tastes like it's been injected with honey. We had been warned of Tajik hospitality, and we savoured it until our bellies were full.
They began wrestling with each other to get as close to the cameras as possible, I couldn't get them to stand back so that I could get them in a photo. I would place my camera down, set the boys in place, but the minute I pulled up the camera to take a shot the race was on and the boys would come toppling towards me at full speed. I finally managed to get a relatively organized photo when a fearsome band of moo-moo clad, gold-toothed, unibrowed Tajik mamas yelled the boys into place. The ladies then hugged me and attempted, unsuccessfully to dialogue with me in Tajik, then Russian.
The rest of our visit we were escorted by our army of tiny boys, begging to be photographed. Even older men and women stopped with requests to be photographed. We didn't exactly get to view the daily activities of the quiet old town, we just generated too much excitement among the locals. We had to cut our visit short, it was just too draining to deal with so many people around us. The town elders managed to pry away the children for our brief visit inside the medressah, but they were all waiting for us right outside the door. And, in a Tajik original request, a group of girls got us to autograph the back of handfulls of family photos. For our second activity of the afternoon, we hiked up to the top of a hill over-looking the city, here once stood a Sogdian fortress, destroyed by the armies of the one and only Alexander the Great (this is about as far as they got, Khojand was founded by Alexander, his eastern-most outpost). There is nothing left of the fortress, but we got nice views of the town and a statue and gate have been constructed on the hill. There seems to be pride over the former presence of Macedonians in the region.Our dinner felt very Tajik (not that we really know what a Tajik dinner is), we settled at a chaikhana (a traditional tea house). Usually you eat on a tea bed, lounging on a pile of pillows without any shoes on. We opted for a small table shaded by grape vines. Locals bring their own food, including raw meat for kebabs, and pay a small fee for the use of the tea beds and of course tea and bread. We ordered tea, bread, kebabs and salad. Shortly after we began eating, the men at the table next to us brought us a huge plate of palov a plate of watermelon and a plate of honeymelon. This melon is really extraordinary, it actually tastes like it's been injected with honey. We had been warned of Tajik hospitality, and we savoured it until our bellies were full.
Into Tajikistan
Since we dragged out our time in Bishkek to 12 days, we had only 4 days left on our Kyrgyz visa. We had to get to Osh in Southern Kyrgyzstan and cross the border into Tajikistan. The main route used by travellers into Tajikistan, is via a remote highway in Eastern Tajikistan, through the Pamir mountain range. Since there isn't alot of local traffic (because not alot of people live there), the tour companies have really exploited this area, and the only local transport seems to be well hidden from non-Russian speaking tourists. With more time in Osh, we might have teamed up with other travellers and shared transport costs, instead we made plans to take an alternate route.
The information in our guidebook is about 5 years old, and there are exactly 34 pages about Tajikistan. We had very little information to go on, other than the name of the border town that we had to get to. To make matters even more complicated, the main highway to the border town runs through Uzbekistan on two separate occasions. Two small Uzbek 'Islands' sit completely surrounded by Kyrgyz territory. Since Kyrgyz locals don't need a visa to travel through Uzbekistan, we had to pay for a private taxi to take the longer 'detour' road, a large portion of it a dirt track around the Uzbek territory. We got to the town of Batken five hours later, with only the address and name of a woman who runs a guesthouse in town, luckily our driver knew where she lived (he didn't recognize the street name, but he knew where to go when we mentioned the family name). The guest house was spotless and extremely well-equipped (and consequently expensive), which seemed strange, considering the town isn't listed in any guestbook and probably only receives a handful of travellers a month (we guessed that it was probably set up to house NGO workers in the past). We watched about five hours straight of Russian music videos (on Yann's insistence), played cards and ate the last of our meager supplies, the guest house had cost us the last of our Kyrgyz money, save our taxi fare for the next day.
Crossing the border into Tajikistan wasn't any trouble the next morning, other than the grumpy old man occupying a space in our shared taxi. He was really angry with Yann and I for holding up the taxi, as if it had anything to do with us. Kyrgyz and Tajiks move freely across the border but Yann and I had our passports scrutinized by both border guards and our bags checked on the Tajik side. I had some trouble convincing the Tajik border guard to stamp us in, because our visas didn't have the mandatory embassy stamp on them (we assume this was an accident). I managed to convince him that the stamp on the next page of our passports, accompanying our permit for travel to restricted Tajik zones, was the official stamp. A crisis averted by Emilie's unbelievable charm.
We stopped briefly in the town of Isfara, the time to notice the distinct change from Kyrgyzstan to Tajikistan, including Pepsi and Coca-Cola replaced by RC Cola. We then took another taxi to prosperous Khojand (formerly Leninabad), Tajikistan's second largest city (140,000 people). We got dropped off at the beastly Hotel Leninabad (later that day a tour operator we met, joked that the Hotel Leninabad was a zero-star hotel, we couldn't agree more). The thought that we paid more than 10$ for our room is traumatizing. The sheets were filthy and had holes in them, a absolutly ghastly bathroom, which, once used, filled the room with the smell of a 30 year old outhouse (there probably hasn't been running water there for that long). We were covered in flies, mosquitoes and what we think were bed bugs all night, probably all attracted by the smell.
Other than the sheer disgustingness of the room, the hotel was fine, the staff extremely friendly and it had a central location, with a view of the giant Lenin statue across the river. Being in Khojand was like stepping back in time, from the buildings and the statues, to the bank where we made our official registration payment to the Tajik government, scarily resembling an unfinished basement. We visited the city's two museums, one brand new (inaugurated by President Emomali Rahmonov less than a year ago with special guest Amadhjinehad from Iran) and one not so new. Tajikistan's president's face scarily/hilariously adorns huge billboards and posters all over town (he's is from Khojand, but something told us that we wouldn't only be seeing his face here). We had our first taste of delicious palov (rice pilaf) served from a huge vat at an outdoor cafe and even risked the local ice cream, also delicious. We loved the tree-lined streets and the outdoor restaurants, we might have stayed longer in Khojand had it not been for our hotel room. 
The information in our guidebook is about 5 years old, and there are exactly 34 pages about Tajikistan. We had very little information to go on, other than the name of the border town that we had to get to. To make matters even more complicated, the main highway to the border town runs through Uzbekistan on two separate occasions. Two small Uzbek 'Islands' sit completely surrounded by Kyrgyz territory. Since Kyrgyz locals don't need a visa to travel through Uzbekistan, we had to pay for a private taxi to take the longer 'detour' road, a large portion of it a dirt track around the Uzbek territory. We got to the town of Batken five hours later, with only the address and name of a woman who runs a guesthouse in town, luckily our driver knew where she lived (he didn't recognize the street name, but he knew where to go when we mentioned the family name). The guest house was spotless and extremely well-equipped (and consequently expensive), which seemed strange, considering the town isn't listed in any guestbook and probably only receives a handful of travellers a month (we guessed that it was probably set up to house NGO workers in the past). We watched about five hours straight of Russian music videos (on Yann's insistence), played cards and ate the last of our meager supplies, the guest house had cost us the last of our Kyrgyz money, save our taxi fare for the next day.
Crossing the border into Tajikistan wasn't any trouble the next morning, other than the grumpy old man occupying a space in our shared taxi. He was really angry with Yann and I for holding up the taxi, as if it had anything to do with us. Kyrgyz and Tajiks move freely across the border but Yann and I had our passports scrutinized by both border guards and our bags checked on the Tajik side. I had some trouble convincing the Tajik border guard to stamp us in, because our visas didn't have the mandatory embassy stamp on them (we assume this was an accident). I managed to convince him that the stamp on the next page of our passports, accompanying our permit for travel to restricted Tajik zones, was the official stamp. A crisis averted by Emilie's unbelievable charm.We stopped briefly in the town of Isfara, the time to notice the distinct change from Kyrgyzstan to Tajikistan, including Pepsi and Coca-Cola replaced by RC Cola. We then took another taxi to prosperous Khojand (formerly Leninabad), Tajikistan's second largest city (140,000 people). We got dropped off at the beastly Hotel Leninabad (later that day a tour operator we met, joked that the Hotel Leninabad was a zero-star hotel, we couldn't agree more). The thought that we paid more than 10$ for our room is traumatizing. The sheets were filthy and had holes in them, a absolutly ghastly bathroom, which, once used, filled the room with the smell of a 30 year old outhouse (there probably hasn't been running water there for that long). We were covered in flies, mosquitoes and what we think were bed bugs all night, probably all attracted by the smell.
Other than the sheer disgustingness of the room, the hotel was fine, the staff extremely friendly and it had a central location, with a view of the giant Lenin statue across the river. Being in Khojand was like stepping back in time, from the buildings and the statues, to the bank where we made our official registration payment to the Tajik government, scarily resembling an unfinished basement. We visited the city's two museums, one brand new (inaugurated by President Emomali Rahmonov less than a year ago with special guest Amadhjinehad from Iran) and one not so new. Tajikistan's president's face scarily/hilariously adorns huge billboards and posters all over town (he's is from Khojand, but something told us that we wouldn't only be seeing his face here). We had our first taste of delicious palov (rice pilaf) served from a huge vat at an outdoor cafe and even risked the local ice cream, also delicious. We loved the tree-lined streets and the outdoor restaurants, we might have stayed longer in Khojand had it not been for our hotel room.
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