Avoiding medical evacuations throughout Asia
At one of the high passes between Osh and Murgab on the Pamir highway.
Welcome to Tajikistan!
Rachel and three children in Murgab, in the eastern Pamirs.
Our homestay in Murgab.
The wife and daughter of the family whose home we stayed in in Murgab.
Rachel outside the Murgab bazaar.
Children in Murgab.
View from the cave containing the neolithic paintings, near Murgab.
After witnessing the underbelly of sexual tourism in Bishkek, solving crimes in Karakol, narrowly surviving a zombie attack in Jeti Oguz, and shepherding sheep on horseback we returned back to Bishkek and from there made a 15 hour journey south to Osh. Although it’s the second biggest city in Kyrgyzstan, Osh is noticably more conservative than Bishkek. Whereas the women in Bishkek get around in leopard skin miniskirts and killer stilettos, the latest trend in Osh is lime green shapeless sacks in hideous patterns and headscarves. The ethnic make-up of Osh is also very different, with Uzbeks making up around 50% of the population. This is a legacy of Stalin’s strategic division of the region which ensured a potentially destabilizing minority population in each republic.
You know you’ve made it in a former Soviet country when your head is put on a bottle of vodka: Yulia Tymoshenko (current Prime Minister of the Ukraine)
Welcome to Kyrgyzstan where you can get vodka for $1
…and where beer is drunk with straws
Friendly crime-solving police
Learning how to build a yurt at Manjily
The women of the family in a race against time to sew our yurt together before the storm hit
One of the many Ladas we spotted in the town of Kochkor
The wide open plains of Sarala Saz
The man of the house (who was always sporting a cool hat) and our yurt at Sarala Saz
The ceiling of our yurt, the symbol on the Kyrgyz national flag.
Shep the sheep dog
Dinner
We totally failed to update the blog while we were in Kyrgyzstan, so here is what happened after Bishkek.
From Bishkek we headed towards Lake Issy-Kul, the second highest alpine lake in the world. It certainly was enormous – if it wasn’t for the line of soaring, jagged mountains party obscured by clouds on the other side, you would think that you were looking at the sea. The drive to Karakol, a large town on the east side of the lake, was our first glimpse of rural Kyrgyzstan. We passed through one-street towns lined with small cottages, abandoned railway carriages and rolling green mountains. Every town sported the inevitable monumental reminders of the Soviet era.
By the time we arrived in Karakol it was pitch black and we realised that we had no map and no idea where we were, let alone any idea about how to get where we wanted to go. We were saved from the experience of haggling with the crowd of taxi drivers who had gathered around us by a girl from the bus who offered to take us into the centre. Her dad drove us around until they had safely deposited us at a good hotel. So it was that Andriana (an American friend who travelled with us for 3 weeks) and I continued the Kyrgyzstan disco experience when we found ourselves the honoured guests of a birthday party at the restaurant at our hotel: complete with strobe lights, a smoke machine and karaoke. Owen was a bit tired from our night out on the town in Bishkek so he had gone to bed after dinner.
We decided the next day to go on a horse trek to Altyn Arashan. I had never ridden a horse before, and was a little nervous about launching my riding career in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan, but it turned out to be much easier than I thought it would be. The horses were mostly obedient, and riding allowed us to really enjoy the spectacular scenery. We stopped for a lunch of bread, salami and cheese (and of course vodka!) at a picnic spot along the way, which we shared with a couple of passing shephards. After a long day of riding we were rewarded by the stunning sight of the Arashan valley. The village that we had been expecting turned out to be little more than a few scattered houses and a flock of sheep clustered around a bubbling river that cut through the valley like a ribbon. That night, Andriana and I huddled around the fire and were serenaded with traditional Kyrgyz songs by our guides, a shepherd and a hunter.
The next day after a breakfast of semolina porridge, bread and jam we got back on the horses and rode up another valley towards a lake. Before long however, the sky darkened ominously and clouds swept through the valley. As we turned back towards Altyn Arashan the wind wept up around us and it started snowing. In the afternoon, while Owen trudged off in the snow, Andriana and I spent the rest of the day leisurely dipping in and out of the hot springs by the river, watching snow flakes float down ethereally through a crack in the roof.
…and hell is a seat in a Pajero from Khorog to Dushanbe.
We wanted to fly to Dushanbe, but bad weather in Khorog had grounded all the flights and it would be days until we could get a flight out. So – we took the only other option available: a seat in a 4wd for the 18 – 22 hour drive to Dushanbe.
The trip had a rather dark beginning with a travel agent saying, in broken English, that we’d be driving through a ‘war’, if we went by the short route to Dushanbe. Unfortunately for us this is the route that most shared taxi drivers take. So, it was with some trepidation that we left Khorog bazaar packed into two seats in a very cramped Pajero for our trip to Dushanbe.
Along the way we had stunning views into villages over the border in Afghanistan. The villages here seemed poorer than in the Wakhan valley – most of the houses didn’t have glass on their windows and all were made from unpainted mud and stone. Each village was set amidst beautiful green fields and poplar trees below giant mountains. However, it wasn’t all rural tranquility and peace… The last thing you want to see when driving toward a ‘war’, along the Afghan border are explosions..
The explosions were signaled by a man running down the path on the Afghan side of the river jumping up and down and waving frantically. We stopped. Then suddenly patches of ground on the Afghan side seemed to puff up into smoke, half a second later there was a tremendous bang that I felt in my chest. The driver freaked out a little bit (as we all did) and slowly started reversing the car. Then some men on the Afghan side came out from behind a boulder and started looking at the explosion site. After a short while they returned behind the boulder and then there were more explosions. Following these the jumping man motioned for us to continue driving. It took me a while to figure out what was going on – my first reaction was that this was some attack or something equally horrible. As we drove past I peered over the river and worked out that the men were clearing boulders that had fallen down over the Afghan path. It seems that in Afghanistan dynamite, rather than heavy machinery, is the tool of choice (or availability) for road building. At least we missed the ‘war’ because our driver took the slightly longer route to Dushanbe. Neither Rachel or I complained.
It’s worth mentioning at this point how horrible the road was. It was incredibly pot holed and at times we had to cross rivers without bridges (the bridges had long since collapsed). Our average speed was about 30 km/h. The bumpiness and cramped interior (Landcruisers are much roomier than Pajeros) made sleeping all but impossible.
Our sleep was further denied by the abundance of awful police and military checkpoints. Tajikistan certainly seems more stuck in the Soviet past than Kyrgyzstan. We had to produce our passports countless times to the cue of ‘Documents! Registracia!’ by armed soldiers or police. There were also several longer checks where everyone in the car (us included) had to empty out our bags for the police or military to poke through. At each of these stops our driver had to pay a bribe. It’s interesting because we’ve been to a few countries where the police don’t have the best reputation (e.g. Myanmar, China, Vietnam) but this is the first time the police have given us serious hassle, in most countries they long since been told to not bother the tourists. Tajikistan is very beautiful and Tajik people are wonderful, but all the Soviet registration and permit requirements puts a bit of a dampener on things. Worse for us, the registration laws seem to be in a state of flux at the moment and we continue to receive contradictory advice on the need for an OVIR stamp in our passport – something we’ve been unable to actually get.
Anyway. When we finally arrived we caught a taxi into town and went to the only hotel that the guidebook says is half-decent, only to find that not only had the price doubled but the lady at the reception desk was just about the most unhelpful, rude person I have ever met (and she was clearly not a morning person either). She also wanted to take our passports and basically told us to get lost if we didn’t want to, so we left. Then we caught another taxi to another hotel, but that was boarded up and who knows if it’s even open. We finally found a room at Hotel Dushanbe which gets really bad reviews in the guidebook but is actually really cool – it’s this old Soviet hotel with endless hallways, an elevator (aka death trap) and a bowling alley, which we’re going to check out later!
We also now have no sympathy for anyone who complains about catching an 18 hour plane flight. By comparison: The seats recline, you can stretch your legs out, it’s quiet, it’s not bumpy, there are movies, you get food, police don’t go through your dirty underwear and most importantly: THERE IS A FRIGGIN BUTTON YOU CAN PRESS TO GET FREE WINE WHENEVER YOU WANT.
Rachel and I just got back from a night in Shokh Dara Valley, west of Khorog. We spent our time around the large village of Roshtqala, where we ended up spending the night in the house of a Doctor.
Finding a place to stay was a huge stress due to a complete lack of hotels or tourist infrastructure. We caught a shared taxi to Roshtqala and started just to walk around the village in hope of seeing a house with a ‘homestay’ sign out front. No such luck. Eventually this man came up to us and motioned for us to follow him – which we did. He introduced to us to another man who seemed to indicate that we could stay somewhere. The first man then turned out to be a policeman who said we had to ‘register’ which I interpreted as ‘being shaken down for twenty bucks a piece’. So, we trundled off to the police station but miraculously weren’t shaken down at all.
Back to the second man. He then took us to what I thought would be a house for us to stay the night in, but turned out to be his office that took up most of a run down old house. On the way he stopped to shake hands and kiss on the cheek all the men he passed, it took us about twenty minutes to go one hundred metres. Anyway, he made a phone call and this old Russian car appeared, which we were bundled into. This third guy then drove us to a fourth guy’s house, where we ended up spending the night! The whole thing took about two hours from when we got out of the taxi.
After this process we were a bit tired but managed to spend the rest of the afternoon walking down a valley surrounded by four to five thousand metre mountains. We realised pretty soon that hardly any foreigners come here: Small children playing in the fields or walking on the road would stop dead still and just stare at us until we passed. It was a little bit disconcerting at times.
The house we stayed in was a bit weird – they had this huge mounted Marco Polo sheep’s head (a horribly endangered species of giant mountain sheep with huge horns) that had light bulbs in its eyes. Fortunately they didn’t turn it on or it would have given me a lifetime of nightmares.
Rachel and I recently left Osh, in Kyrgyzstan and travelled up, over the Pamir mountains into Tajikistan.
The drive from Osh, starting at 7:00am was long and difficult. We climbed quite steeply up to Sary Tash, a town halfway to the border. Arriving at about midday we (Rachel, and a strange French / Korean pair we were sharing the car with) were starving, but the driver refused to stop, muttering something about the border.. So, we drove off and up, up and up. We arrived at the Kyrgyz border, high up in the Pamirs and the combination of hunger (I had eaten nothing all day) and the altitude put me to sleep during the whole, long exiting process (the driver took our passports and the border guards stamped them without looking at us). After leaving Kyrgyzstan we drove up further to the Tajik side – through about 20km of no-mans-land. At this time we were kicking about well over 4000m and I started to get a dry cough, my head was throbbing and I had difficulty walking. After entering Tajikistan we begged the Tajik border guards for some food and they threw us a crusty, stale piece of bread which we all tore apart and devoured like wild animals. Leaving the border somewhat less hungry we were in the Pamirs!
The eastern Pamirs are incredible: A huge flat, brown series of wide mountain valleys, devoid of any vegetation with only the occasional hardy yak striding against the wind. The snow-covered mountains are stunning and the sights of little villages of white-washed Pamir houses huddled beneath them almost terrifying. We dropped the French / Korean pair off at Karakul – a frozen lake at about 4000m surrounded by a bleak Pamir village. Rachel and I then continued on to Murgab, arriving at about 6pm. We found a homestay and we finally ate our first meal of the day (stuffed potatoes and cabbage) at 7pm..
Murgab is the very definition of bleak: A village of a few hundred houses spread along a valley between two imposing mountains – there are no trees or even visible grass around the town. The bazaar was particularly depressing, consisting of two dozen shipping containers with their doors open and sad looking Kyrgyz and Tajik shop keepers sitting inside. A typical shop would sell some biscuits, instant noodles, vodka and a few unappealing vegetables.
Rachel and I spent a day in Murgab sorting out transport to Khorog. We found a driver (the husband at our homestay) to take us to Khorog via the Wakhan valley. We left early the next morning, taking a detour to see some neolithic cave paintings – which were amazing. We then spent the rest of the day and the whole of the following day driving through the Wakhan valley.
The Wakhan valley consists of the most beautiful and stunning mountain scenery I have ever seen. It’s incredible. The valley is about 5 – 10km wide – with a river running down the centre, marking the border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan. The Wakhan and Pamir mountains rise up a thousand to two thousand metres on either side with the Hindu Kush pushing up even further on the Afghan side, behind the Wakhan mountains. The valley is wonderfully green, dotted with little Pamiri villages of squat, white-washed houses set amidst lovely fields, irrigated with snow melt. We stopped at a few ruined Kushan-era forts and an ancient Buddhist temple complex of stupas atop a meditation-cave studded mountain.
On the second day we had a short break in a hot spring complex, next to a two thousand year old fortress. Rachel and I wanted to take turns in the spring, with one of us holding the passports and wallets whilst the other bathed. However after Rachel went in I was ushered into another small bathing room and told to take all my clothes by this old Tajik man. Actually ‘telling’ is the wrong word – he just pointed at my trousers and made this pulling down motion. So, I stripped off and had to leave our passports under my clothes. I stepped into the bathing pool – admist all these naked dudes and stayed for about twenty seconds. Getting naked with Tajik strangers and not having a line of sight to our passports was not my idea of a good time.. So I got out and waited for Rachel. She emerged sometime later arm in arm with a couple of Tajik girls surrounded by a couple of old grannies. She’d had a great time and made all these friends and been given a bracelet and a ring.. Which is very typical.
We continued on, up through the valley to Ishkashim, the last point in the valley. After this the river turns north and runs through to Khorog, where we are now staying. The road often came very close to the river and at times the river was extremely narrow. If it wasn’t for the armed Tajik border guards, landmines and – most effectively – Rachel’s crossness, I could have waded across to a village on the opposite side. Looking out over the river it was hard to see any difference between villages in Tajikistan and Afghanistan, however those in Afghanistan lacked electricity.
I don’t know what’s going to happen now. We have two weeks left in Tajikistan. I want to do some hiking in a village around here. We’ll visit Dushanbe, the capital and some towns further north. On the 16th we’ll cross into Uzbekistan – probably at a border crossing near Samarkand.
I don’t think there’s much to see between Khorog and Dushanbe. It’s a 21 hour car ride. The other transport option is flying, which at $80 a seat is only about double the cost of the car and 1/30th of the travel time. Yet – this involves flying in an old Russian Tajik Air aircraft……. what to do?
Rachel and I are in Osh, in the Ferghana valley in southern Kyrgyzstan. We’ll be heading south to Tajikistan tomorrow on our first leg of our travels over the Pamir highway. Two days ago a bomb exploded in Andijan – a nearby town in Uzbekistan – in which one person was killed and several people were injured. Rachel and I are not in Uzbekistan and we will not be travelling to the Uzbek part of the Ferghana valley. Our American friend Andriana, who’s Kyrgyz visa expires tomorrow, is somewhat stuck because she was planning on crossing into Uzbekistan today, but now can’t and it looks like she’ll overstay her visa – but there’s nothing she can do.
