It was a 10 minute walk to the Tajikistan border. The two immigration officials sat in an office watching a nature program on TV. One of them pointed at a form to fill in. Then we entered the office and they stamped us in and waved us on. That was it. We walked out to the shared taxi area which only had one taxi sitting. When I asked for a ride to Dushanbe, a tall young man said $40. I laughed and walked away. He seemed to indicate that he was the only taxi. Other cars would roll up but just to drop people at the border or wait for friends & family to arrive. We sat down for a long wait. An hour passed before the driver came over and we negotiated to $15. Even then, we still had to wait for other passengers who turned out to be two chattering women.

Dushanbe was less than 50 miles away. The scenery was similar to Uzbekistan with cows being herded along the road. Each town had a large concrete ‘town sign’ as you entered it. Just before dusk, we were left on the outskirts of Dushanbe at a transport hub. Buses, minibuses and taxis came and went, though we didn’t know where we were or which bus we should catch. I asked a couple of locals who said a Number 8 minibus would take us into the centre. We flagged one down, squeezed in with our backpacks and were taken into the centre. Someone asked us (using sign language) where we wanted to go. I had the name of a hotel and an address on Shevchenko Street. There was a discussion between the passengers and the driver and they seemed to detour from the route in an attempt to find our street. They failed, but it was a nice gesture.

Dropped in the centre, we started to try and ask locals for the hotel. It was now dark, but there were a lot of youths in school uniforms as if they had just had a graduation service. Asking one local, he pointed us down one road, then another would point down another road. No-one could speak English. Lugging backpacks was slow work, so I decided to get Trev to wait on a street corner with our packs and I would hunt around. There were no street lights so it was rather dark. The roads, with a fair amount of traffic, were wide and tree lined and had at their sides, hazardous two foot deep channels with running water.

Seeing a bakery open with a big glass window, I went to enter through what I thought was the door, but walked into the window, nose first, with a big bang. I was lucky to not break my nose and also crash through the window. The owner looked as surprised as me as I found the door and entered. He wasn’t much help, just pointing down the street. I knew I was getting closer but still didn’t know the exact location. I tried a Russian bar, but none of the staff had heard of the road (though it was two blocks away when I found it). I asked another man outside a bar who was rather drunk but pointed around a corner.

Finally I found the Sino Hotel behind a wall with a small entrance. It looked nice but it was full. I had not booked up any hotels after Bukhara because we didn’t know where we would be staying for the rest of the trip. We had not seen one hotel since we had arrived, so I asked the receptionist for another hotel. She wrote down ‘Saaf’ and indicated it was two blocks away. I followed my nose and saw the Hotel Saaf on the corner of a block. The Russian receptionist was sat outside on a seat with a couple of women enjoying the warm evening. She could speak a little English. Asking if she had a room for two people, she said there was only a ‘single’ available. Indicating with body language that I could sleep on the floor, she then seemed to have a change of heart and asked me to follow her up a rather grand staircase to the third floor to a room. When she opened it, I now understood what she was trying to tell me. There was a large double bed. But there was also a second room/lounge with two couches and also a huge bathroom. It was a suite for $80 a night. Yes please. Then I indicated that I had to find my ‘friend’.

It was a fair walk back to Trev and I had probably been gone for an hour. We needed local currency so I first walked back to an ATM I had spotted earlier, before humping our packs to the Saaf Hotel. When we opened the door, the double bed had been split into two singles. Perfect. There was a supermarket across the road for water and snacks and a small shop next to the hotel that sold beer. While we were out, fireworks exploded into the sky. It was part of the 20th Anniversary of Independence celebrations. The receptionist’s boyfriend(?) John had arrived. He could speak good English. I pumped him for information about getting from Dushanbe to Khorog which was the next stage of our journey. Dinner in the room was ‘Cuppa-soup’ and beer while we watched the news in English on Iranian TV which was a strange concept. We had covered about 300 miles today between Bukhara and Dushanbe and entered our 11th country and 2nd new one on the trip. Once again, we had landed on our feet and my bowels had survived the journey.

Friday August 26th

Tajikistan Background: (borrowed from the CIA website) The Tajik people came under Russian rule in the 1860s and 1870s, but Russia's hold on Central Asia weakened following the Revolution of 1917. Bolshevik control of the area was fiercely contested and not fully re-established until 1925. Tajikistan became independent in 1991 following the breakup of the Soviet Union, and experienced a civil war between regional factions from 1992-97. Tajikistan experienced several security incidents in 2010, including a mass prison-break from a Dushanbe detention facility, the country's first suicide car bombing in Khujand, and armed conflict between government forces and opposition militants in the Rasht Valley. The country remains the poorest in the former Soviet sphere. Attention by the international community since the beginning of the NATO intervention in Afghanistan has brought increased economic development and security assistance, which could create jobs and strengthen stability in the long term. Tajikistan is seeking WTO membership and has joined NATO's Partnership for Peace.

It is a landlocked; mountainous region dominated by the Trans-Alay Range in the north and the Pamirs in the southeast. The highest point, Qullai Ismoili Somoni (formerly Communism Peak), was the tallest mountain in the former USSR (7495m) while the lowest point is only 300m. The 7.6m population has Sunni Muslim 85%, Shia Muslim 5%,

Tajikistan has one of the lowest per capita GDPs among the 15 former Soviet republics with 53% below the poverty line and an average annual income of $2000. Because of a lack of employment opportunities in Tajikistan, as many as a million Tajik citizens work abroad, almost all of them in Russia, supporting families in Tajikistan through remittances. Less than 7% of the land area is arable. Cotton is the most important crop, and its production is closely monitored, and in many cases controlled, by the government. Mineral resources include silver, gold, uranium, and tungsten. Industry consists only of a large aluminium plant, hydropower facilities, and small obsolete factories mostly in light industry and food processing. The civil war (1992-97) severely damaged the already weak economic infrastructure and caused a sharp decline in industrial and agricultural production. Tajikistan's economic situation remains fragile due to uneven implementation of structural reforms, corruption, weak governance, seasonal power shortages, and the external debt burden.

Our planned route had two ‘spare’ days built in after Uzbekistan. I had read that it would take two days to reach Khorog because of the poor roads, but John had assured me last night that it could be reached in a long day’s drive. With nice accommodation and a new capital city to explore, we decided to stay a second night and have a relaxing day taking in the sights of Dushanbe. We even had our first lie in of the trip getting up at 8.30am and were able to wash some clothes.

Situated in the centre of the Hisor Valley, 800 meters above sea level, Dushanbe (pop 600,000) is a young city of tree lined avenues and pastel-hued neoclassical buildings. The Lonely Persons Guide calls it “Central Asia’s best looking capital…if just a little dull.” It felt very European. The traffic lights had ‘timers’ telling drivers how long until the green light. Likewise with pedestrian crossings. But there were policemen everywhere. They seemed to be standing at all important intersections. The Tajik word "Dushanbe" means Monday named after a weekly bazaar which was originally held here on, guess which day? The main artery was Prospeckt Rudaki just a few blocks from our hotel. Many of the major sights are based around here.

On Maydani Azadi (Freedom Park), the Statue of Ismail Somani is Dushanbe’s most visible monument. Erected in 2000 replacing a statue of Lenin, this is the historical character that the Tajik Government decided to be their national hero from the 10th Century. The crown of Somani itself weighs around ten kilograms and is made of Tajik gold. The currency is also named after him. Ironically he looks as if he is carrying a fly swotter in one hand. Behind him were sets of new fountains and a new monument (not in the guidebook), This was a white column with ornate gold decoration and the Tajikistan emblem based on top of four legs on a platform.

At the top of the stairs under the column was a soldier dressed in a chocolate box uniform. He stood to attention with his rifle, turning 90 degrees (north, east etc) every few minutes. I think this (and the fountains) had been built as part of the 20th Anniversary of Independence celebrations. Locals would climb the stairs up to the soldier to take a photo, only to have him bark at them to get off. There were no signs yet. While we were hanging around and just taking in the atmosphere, two soldiers appeared – one of which was an officer. It was the changing of the guard. The officer pulled at parts of the soldier’s colourful uniform to get it just-so. Then they goose stepped up the staircase swinging their arms which was not the easiest method of ascent. At the top, the soldier replaced the other and then the officer then did another check of the soldier’s uniform – now that his goose-stepping had messed up the original adjustments. Once he was happy, he descended with the relieved soldier and they descended in a goose step. It was very funny to see the soldier trip over his boots and stagger down the final steps.

The 20th Anniversary of Independence celebrations were a big deal. Along with the numerous billboards publicising the Anniversary, numerous electricians were attempting to set up decorative street lights. Inevitably, their electrical skills were rather substandard, evidenced by a loud bang of the electrical supply exploding and the lights all going out! There were lots of empty tables where plates, glasses and rubbish were still being cleared up from last night – another celebration for dignitaries as they watched the fireworks? It also probably explained all the well-dressed students last night.

Behind a tall metal fence, the new Presidential Palace also stood nearby. I assume it was, because the Lonely Person’s Guidebook to Central Asia was hopelessly out of date about this city’s recent developments. Rudaki was the first famous Persian poet in history and the Tajikistanis are very proud of the fact that he was born in Tajikistan. An impressive monument has been built to him near the Presidential Palace. There were occasional billboards publicising the President and a lot of ‘20th Anniversary’ placards. Further north on Rudaki, we passed the Parliament Building that lay behind decorative metal railings and fountains. Dushanbe had a lot of fountains.

We wandered around, enjoying the laid back atmosphere and found a bank that distributed US Dollars just as it was closing for lunch. So we popped back to the hotel for a cold beer and then back to the bank as it opened at 2pm. Running low of US Dollars, we withdrew $500 each on our credit cards. Some ATMs will distribute US Dollars as well as Soms, but we tried six and none of them did which is why we hunted for the bank.

Before entering the Museum of National Antiquities, we had to put little blue plastic ‘booties’ over our shoes or socks so that we looked like surgeons. This museum is apparently the best in the country and yet it is still run like as if the Communists were in charge. A woman attendant followed us around, turning on a light as we entered a room and then turning it off as soon as possible. There were a few lovely exhibits in mostly non English labelled historical tat. The highlight was the 13m long sleeping Buddha excavated in 1966. It dates from 1500 years ago and is said to be the largest Buddha figure in Central Asia. We saw the only western tourists in Dushanbe in this museum.

Noticing that there seemed to be dozens of policemen on a street, we wondered what was going on, so we got another cold beer and hung around finding it funny to see an old fat policeman yelling at a younger one to take his job seriously. He looked very bored. The traffic had also been stopped. Eventually, a couple of black Range Rovers with tinted windows and a police escort came hurtling down the street on their way to somewhere important. It was probably the President. The whole area had been shut down for them to pass. Keep the officials away from the riff-raff voters seemed to be the message they were giving out. Then the policemen all disappeared back to the street corners they usually stood around. Finding an internet café, we caught up with emails and returned to the hotel for more beer in our comfy suite. It had been a lovely relaxing day in a pleasant city.

Saturday August 27th

The night before, we had seen John and arranged for him to pick us up at 5.45am to find a shared taxi to Khorog. After a 4.45am start, and with newly packed backpacks, we waited in the lobby. John arrived at 6am, having already driven to the transport area to check it out. The police were already out on the streets and there was a small army of woman cleaners sweeping the streets and washing down the pavements. When we arrived at the ‘bus station’ the gates were locked and John found a back way in. He found a driver with a huge 4 wheel drive vehicle going to Khorog and negotiated an excellent price of 200 Som (about £26 each). We had to wait with the driver’s 12 year old smiling daughter for another hour for other passengers to arrive, haggle a price and then have their extensive luggage secured on the roof rack. Eventually we had 1 man, two women and a kid that looked like he’d stepped out of the ‘Deliverance’ movie (think bucked teeth and duelling banjos on the patio) squeezed in with us.

Trev sat shotgun to the driver for the start of the journey. Outside the bus station around 8am, the traffic was gridlocked. A road construction crew had decided to shut down a road to dig it up without either providing advanced notice or a marked ‘detour’ to get around them. Consequently, locals were driving anywhere they could to get through (alleyways, parks) and blocking up all the other roads. We sat there and waited…and waited until we finally got a break. After a fuel stop (the driver got our fares to pay for it), we finally left Dushanbe on a good road past farmlands and tomatoes, grapes and brooms being sold by the side of the road. It was the first and only decent road we saw all day.

As we entered a hilly river valley with a fast flowing milky white river to our right, the road deteriorated into an often muddy track. It was twisty and very bumpy though we had great views of the river valley despite the overcast skies and eventual rain. I had read about the road to Khorog and expected it to be the worst road of the journey. It certainly set a bad standard. Although it was only 116 miles between Dushanbe and Khorog, it could take up to 2 days and some drivers broke the journey. Our driver was doing it in one leg. His vehicle had dual fuel supplies of both gas and petrol. To switch between the two, he had a switch mechanism which turned out to be faulty and sometimes the vehicle would stall. He would pull it apart with a knife, fiddle around, try the ignition again, get the engine going and then it would stall again after a few more miles. “This could be a long journey” Trev said to me when we got out to stretch our legs and swop seats. The driver would stop a dozen times during the journey to get his dual fuel switch going. Along with the dodgy electrics, we had to pass through seven police checks en route where our passports were inspected. At the 6th checkpoint later on in the day, the driver had to bribe the policemen to get through.

Passing though the Obigam area that had a really rough track and smashed us around the vehicle, we passed herds of sheep on the ‘road’ and wooden suspension bridges. We stopped for lunch at 2pm just before the village of Ezgand. Kneeling on a carpeted platform, the driver ordered for us. A meat and vegetable broth was produced with a dish of noodles, thick bread and a pot of tea. Bread is very precious to Tajikistanis and they never throw it away. They eat it until it has all gone or serve the remainder at the next meal. Outside was an outhouse built of home made bricks and a ‘slit’ toilet in the floorboards.

During the journey we passed four western cyclists (one couple, two solo men) who were cycling to the Pamir Highway on over-laden mountain bikes. On the terrible track, in the mud and rain, they all looked pretty miserable. It would probably take them 4 days to do what we were doing in one and it didn’t look like much fun. Their bikes would take a hammering. We passed groups of donkeys grazing, donkeys carrying hay or locals riding horses and donkeys, and crossed over wooden bridges over tributaries. There was impressive scenery, hairpin bends up and down and around the side of the river valley but the track never improved. It was a very slow journey.

At Kalaikhum, early in the evening, we reached the Afghan border on the other side of the Pyani River and took a left heading south east. We would follow this border all the way to Khorog. The Afghan side was mostly steep yellow mountains trailing down to the river with the occasional low lying scruffy village near the river and a few oases of irrigated greenery. Darkness gradually fell. The driver stopped to help someone with their faulty headlights for twenty minutes. It was just one delay after another.

There were occasional short stretches of ‘sealed’ road, but mostly it was bumpy and in the dark, some seriously dodgy off-roading with a sheer-sided cliff on our left and dramatic drops to the river on our right. We had no idea where we were or how far we had to go to reach Khorog.

By the time our driver arrived in Khorog at 11.30pm, he was exhausted but he stopped at the Parinen Lodge on the main (only) road through town and signalled for us to follow him. No one was awake, but he managed to wake someone up and explained that we had just arrived and needed a bed. The youth that got up could speak a little English. He told us that the driver had said that if we wanted a ride to Murgab tomorrow, then he would be available and would turn up around 10am.The 116 miles had taken a devastatingly slow 16 hours of travelling. That is just over 7 miles an hour! Maybe we could have cycled it in the same time. Our lodge was family run and spotless. We had a nice first floor bedroom with a clean, shared bathroom but never saw anyone else. Exhausted, our heads were asleep as soon as they hit the pillows.

Sunday August 28th

It felt a bit special to wake up to see the Afghan border across the river a few hundred metres from our Lodge. There was glorious sunshine over the mountains in clear blue skies. After an 8am breakfast of omelette, yoghurt, bread, jam and tea , we had a walk into the centre of Khorog (pop 28,000). We were now at 2100m. Khorog is a small mountain-valley town and capital of the autonomous Gorno-Badakhshan (GBAO) region. The dashing Gunt River runs through it, penned in by semi-vertical mountain slopes. Originally a Russian garrison town before the Afghan border was legalised in 1896 (based on the Pyani River). It’s new university campus, currently being built on a mountain side is one of the three comprising the University of Central Asia

We walked from the Lodge into town on the main/only road. A narrow suspension bridge led over a tributary to low level residential housing. There was a park with an imposing memorial commemorating World War Two. The few buildings including the OVIR registration office were closed. Theoretically, foreigners staying in Tajikistan for longer than three days have to register with OVIR (the old secret police) within 72 hours of arriving in Tajikistan. This was an old hangover from the Communist days. Today, our 72 hours would expire, but we couldn’t do much about it until we arrived in Murgab. There was also a statue of a goat type animal with huge horns and a town emblem built of coloured stones half way up a very steep cliff. Not a lot really. My bowels were still ‘tender’ and I made it back to the lodge just in time before there was another explosion!

Our driver from yesterday turned up around 10am while we were watching the Lodge owner’s son co-ordinating the removal of a large wooden building from their grounds by crane onto a truck. He spoke a little English and translated the driver’s words, which were that we would be hiring him privately and that he would need to charge 1 $US per kilometre. Murgab was around 310 kms away. We looked at each other and thought I don’t think so. He reduced it to 80 cents a kilometre but it was still too much. The driver also reminded us that it was a Sunday and that there were no shared taxis running. This reinforced the Lonely Person’s note that “the town largely closes down on a Sunday.”

Thanking the driver for his services yesterday, we bade him farewell, grabbed our packs and headed for the shared taxi area in town. We told the Lodge owner’s son, that we would try and get a lift and at worst come back and spend a second night and get out on Monday. Unsure of our chances, it was still better than sitting around all day. At the taxi rank, a taxi offered 80 cents a kilometre as before which was refused.

After only 10 minutes, a man was messing around with his 4-wheel drive vehicle and asked if we were heading for Murgab. Yes we were. We could get a ride with him and agreed on a price of 200 Som (about £26 for the pair of us and the going rate of a shared taxi). He fussed around some more with a trailer connected to the back of his vehicle waiting for his three friends to arrive. We all got in (Trev and me in the back section on parallel benches) and set off. Well, we didn’t exactly set off. Firstly, we went to pick up a tarpaulin. Then they stopped at a shop for sausage, bread and bottles of beer. Dilovar turned round and passed us a bottle of beer each and offered the food. He spoke some English, not much but enough to communicate. He was 29 years old which he had learnt in school. The four of them were off to the Chinese border south of Murgab to pick up a car engine or parts for his car. It was a boys’ trip. They all worked together in construction. It was a bit like ‘Auf Wiedersehen Pet’ with the oldest, Bobish, 53 driving. His sidekick was Aziz, 53 and the other, Kurbonasen 48, was a Eric Cantona lookalike, Then they stopped at the small market to buy a couple of toilet rolls and then to pick up a jumper. As we waited, we spotted local women in lovely traditional ankle length costumes selling fruit and vegetables.

Our destination today was the Pamir Highway and mountains which is a network of high, wide valleys amid mountain peaks in excess of 23,000ft. The Pamir Highway from Khorog to Osh (in Kyrgyzstan) was built by Soviet military engineers between 1931and 1934, “in order to facilitate troops, transport and provisioning to this very remote outpost of the Soviet empire. Off-limits to travellers until recently, the extreme remote high- altitude road takes you through Tibetan-style high plateau scenery” (Lonely Person’s Guide). Along with the £60 visa to enter Tajikistan, we had also had to pay £50 for a permit to cross the Pamir Highway. As we left town, we passed a policeman sitting in a chair. His job was obviously to check foreigner passports for the permit. Sat in the back of the van, he never spotted us. Eventually we left town and Dilovar pointed out the area that had been flattened to build the new University. We didn’t mind how long it took. Against all odds we had a ride and these guys looked good fun.

Within 30 minutes of leaving Khorog climbing the attractive and well watered Gunt Valley, we got a puncture. We had already entered spectacular towering mountains on either side with the fast flowing river on our left and then right. The scenery was just awesome under the clear blue sky. The men switched tyres and off we went again, but not for long. In a small village, we stopped by a one storey house set back from the road. We were led up the path to the house where their friend welcomed them/us. While we sat on a carpeted platform, his wife and daughter brought us bowls of salty tea (with butter instead of milk) and plates of bread to dunk into them. I think they got a kick out of presenting us to their mate. We smiled and sipped the unusual tea. He could not speak English, and he had eyebrows that joined together. As we were leaving he gave one of the men a huge bundle of some kind of vegetable which was dumped in the rickety trailer. We felt privileged to have been invited into a Tajikistan house. This was a first. Despite the ‘delays’ I was already enjoying the experience.

We were still in the ‘valley’ at this point, but started to climb. I could bore you with descriptions of the spectacular mountains with snow on the peaks, the light aqua blue river roaring past with white cascades that eventually widened into a wide stony riverbed. There were the green irrigated areas of trees off to the side, the deep blue skies full of fluffy clouds. The sealed road had potholes and the lack of traffic was replaced by locals herding cows on it. You just have to flick through the photos on this web page. It was one of the most spectacular roads I have ever travelled on. It would have been nice to have driven it in Monty, but at least we weren’t cycling it. At one point, small children stopped us at a checkpoint selling fermented milk which one of the guys bought.

As the valley opened up, we pulled in at a walled building. Nearby was a large greenhouse full of courgettes (at 4000 metres?). “Bath” was mentioned and we were ushered out. I followed, while Trev walked around and took photos of the scenery. The five of us entered a small wooden changing area, stripped off naked and then waded into a steaming waist high thermal bath in a small bricked area. It had a roof but there were skylights to let natural light in. I couldn’t believe that these existed here, but soaked in the lovely steaming warm water which poured in from a tap. We were given towels to dry off and change back into our clothes. Finding Trev, we followed them into an eating area where they ordered bread and tea. Outside was a wooden slit toilet. I hadn’t expected this experience in the Pamirs.

Setting off again, the trailer started to fall apart. It lost it a mud guard which was collected and thrown in the back. Then there were ‘numerous’ stops while they tried to secure the two flimsy metal sides that would flap about in the wind. Dilovar made us laugh when he uttered “Fucking trailer!” every time we had to stop. They tried trying rope in different ways but it would always eventually fall off the metal flaps. The stops gave us a chance to pop out of the back and take photos of the wonderful scenery. The sealed road would disappear into rough stony/sandy track and then reappear later. At the speed we were moving, the trailer would bounce across this terrain in a disturbing manner leaving a long trail of dust behind. The day seemed to just pass in a lovely way. There were no towns or even villages. We passed a few westerners cycling the route which would be an awesome experience, but you needed to be pretty self sufficient to do it.

Small deep blue lakes began to appear. Our driver pulled off to a small white one story building with ‘CTOAOBAR’ on the side. “Fish” he said. It was a ‘restaurant’ where many truckers stopped. They told us to walk to the nearby lake to see how clear it was. The owner’s two sons followed us back with their wheelbarrow in which they were carting water back to the house. We were ushered in and sat by a low lying table. Dilovar ordered us fried fish which was excellent, with guess what, more bread and tea. By now, we had been with our four hosts for around 6 hours and felt very comfortable. I pumped them for information with Dilovar trying to understand and translate. They told me that I looked like Elton John. I indicated that I was not ‘gay’. “Galiborg” one of the men laughed. This meant gay in Tajikistan and translated as ‘Blue Man’. After all their hospitality, the least we could do was pay for the meal. They tried to resist, but we insisted.

Time was marching on. The trailer was still a problem. Finally one of the men had an idea and pointed to one of the telegraph poles that were in a long line strung out along the valley. Someone grabbed some tools from the back and they walked to the pole. We were told to watch out for cars. The idea was to cut one of the supporting metal cables and use that instead of rope. To do this, one of them had to climb up and stand on the shoulders of the other three and then try and ‘saw’ the cable. They spent at least 30 minutes doing this, before one of them had a better idea. Why not drive the vehicle to the telegraph pole and stand on that, which they did and finally cut the cable at both ends. In the time that we were stationary, which was probably an hour by the time they had tied up the trailer, we had seen no other vehicle. This was a pretty remote place.

It was getting darker. We wondered how far Murgab was and how much night driving would be needed. These guys just seemed to be having ‘fun’ and were in no hurry to get there. The mountains became silhouettes in the fading light. Then black darkness fell and only our headlights revealed the track. There was a gradual descent. A few lights were spotted and Murgab appeared, virtually in darkness since there is virtually no electricity here.

With no idea where to stay, the men drove us to a ‘home stay’. It was 9.30pm. We were led into a large spacious cosy communal room which had a row of duvets on a carpeted platform around two sides. There was a large battery that powered a light bulb. Assuming that the four guys would be staying as well, we were surprised when they bade farewell. They probably had friends in town. It had been my favourite day of the trip so far. It was just one of those spontaneous occasions whereby we were lucky to meet some great people who went out of their way to show us a good time and gave us a ‘proper’ experience of Tajikistan. I would never forget them or that day. Our home stay hosts bought us noodle soup, tomatoes/cucumber, bread and tea though we weren’t hungry with everything we had consumed earlier. We were still at 3576m and we had common signs of altitude – coughing, dry lips and a slight headache. But we were glad to have covered the 193 miles today and see the Pamir Highway in its glory.

Monday August 29th

We hadn’t found a toilet last night and just peed outside in the darkness. Now it was light at 6.30am and we could see where we were. There was a slit toilet in a wooden hut and our washing facilities were a sink outside where a bucket of hot water had been poured into a container and you could release it like a soap dispenser. We were ushered up some stairs to a traditional room and a breakfast of omelette, bread and tea. We sat across from a non-talkative French couple who looked fed up.

Our initial concern was registering with the OVID. We were now well beyond our 72 hours. The friendly couple who ran the place gave us directions to the Lenin statue. The OVID office would open at 8am. The sign said “Migration Servise of the Internol Cufairs of Murgab Chitric”. Arriving there at 7.45am, we were told by a policeman pointing at my watch that it was actually 6.45am. We had gained another hour at Murgab and didn’t even realise it. So we sat and read and hung around for another hour and watched Murgab come to life.

With a half-Tajik/half Kyrgyz population of just 6500, the wild-east town of Murgab was a former Tasrist’s garrison like Khorog. It was a scruffy windswept dusty place surrounded by spectacular landscapes. The 7546m high Chinese peak of Muztagh Ata was visible this morning in the clear blue sky.

Policemen arrived for their 8am shift and they were given a ‘Hill Street Blues’ pep talk in the police station lobby before they disbanded. The door to the Migration Office still hadn’t opened, so I walked into the police station, flashed my passport and was pointed down a corridor where a woman was setting herself up. She ushered me in and wrote our details in a scruffy exercise book. “No problem in Tajikistan” she concluded. ‘OVIR?’ I asked. No. “Stamp?” No and there was no cost. It looked as if we just registered but our guidebook had stated that we would get a stamp in our passport which would be inspected when we left the country.

Osh was our destination today 175 miles away in Kyrgyzstan. Walking back to the home stay, we collected our packs and followed instructions to the ‘Bazaar’ where shared taxis hung out. The Bazaar was the usual Central Asian affair of old rusty railroad containers that were lined up and from which stores operated from. A 4 wheel drive Chinese pickup was waiting and it was going to Osh. We negotiated a price of 150 Som, about £20 each with a couple of fixers. Local women walked around in warm colourful clothing and headscarves. Some of the men wore strange tall white felt hats. There was even a large felt ger (Nomadic tent) near the market.

It was 8.45am. There then followed a frustrating two hour continual drive around while the young driver went on errands. He drove here to pick up this and there to pick up that and even back to his house to get something and lock up. He kept going back to the fixers, who were obviously the vehicle owners to get further instructions. We kept circling the narrow market lanes and then to a group of houses on the outskirts, then back to the market. I think they were still waiting for other passengers. Two men in army uniforms stopped him to chat.

While rushing around the outskirts, a policeman flagged our driver down and told him to report to the police station with his papers. He drove there and angrily entered, did whatever he had to do and then screeched off. While he was in there, I took the opportunity to double check with the OVID woman about a stamp. “No stamp” she repeated. “OK”. Trev said “Will we never get away from this police station?”

A large couple and their young son (wearing an Arsenal shirt) were collected by the tall fence/gate to their property and their whole extended family were there with them to say good bye. We circled the market a few more times. Trev was squashed in the back with the family and rather non-plussed. The two army men arrived and the fixers attempted to squeeze them into the vehicle. One tried to squeeze in-between me and the driver’s seat and try and sit on either side of the gear- stick. He was either too big or thought better of it.

Finally at 11am, we were off. Well, not really. We had to stop at a garage. Well, not really a garage. It was an oil tank. Petrol was siphoned into our vehicle. Then we were off, heading east away from town on a smooth straight, mostly sealed road. The vast mountainous ranges continued on either side like yesterday with snow on the peaks and herds of goats grazing in the valley. The road deteriorated into a climbing, twisting rough track as we climbed over the 4655m Akhaytal Pass. It looked like a strange kind of lunar landscape as we descended back down. If you were cycling this, it would take a terrible toll on your tyres and Monty would have struggled.

The buckled, twisting track continued down to the wide valley floor and the huge dark blue Lake Karakul appeared on the horizon. This was originally created by a meteorite. The village of Karakul was a dust blown ruin of mud houses behind mud walls. Our driver attempted to get fuel here and entered a homestead which had straw under the two trucks parked behind the walls. The wind was howling and the whole scene was very reminiscent of Mongolia. If I had been cycling the Pamir Highway, I would have been very disappointed by this final settlement before the border.

Continuing through the mountains on the terrible track, the magnificent but desolate scenery continued topped with ice caps. It was endless. There was another final climb up a pass (4282m) to the Tajikistan border. The border was composed of two wooden huts, some dirt hills, a couple of barriers and some soldiers who looked seriously miserable. No wonder they were pissed off. It was the arsehole of the world. It was the kind of place where you wondered what they had done wrong to get posted here. No one would volunteer.

Our driver grabbed all our passports and headed into ‘passport control’ or hut one. I felt a terrible rumble in my stomach and knew I was about to explode. I grabbed some toilet roll and climbed up a hill right outside passport control, removed my shorts and removed half my stomach. My shit was a creepy and shocking illumining bright yellow. Returning to the jeep, I tried to muster as much dignity as possible and say to Trev “Well, its not often you get to take a crap close enough to see an official looking at your passport at the same time”, followed by “If they find what I just left, we may get arrested. I’ve never seen bright yellow shit before”. Trev burst out laughing. He had been the one with stomach problems on our 2008 trip.

Expecting to be called in for an explanation why we had no OVID stamps, it was a surprise when the driver climbed back in with stamped passports. The official hadn’t even bothered to leave the hut to check our faces against the photos. Parking outside the second hut, the driver walked in with the passports. Some official pulled back a white curtain for a quick glance and a miserable guard at the barrier blowing hot breath into his hands while smoking, did a final check, raised the barrier and let us through. It was goodbye to Tajikistan.

I was pleasantly surprised by Tajikistan. If you ignored the policemen, the capital Dushanbe was a lovely laid back place with a lot of potential. The ride to Khorog was an adventure and if they ever seal the road will become a major tourist route. The Pamir Highway was well worth the £50 permit. It has awe-inspiring scenery. Best of all were the people. We found them kind and helpful. Very few spoke English, but they always tried to help. Tajikistan is a hidden secret waiting to be discovered.

Postscript: A few days later, we saw a TV report from Tajikistan claiming that Tajikistan was erecting the tallest flagpole in the world. This was finished in September 2011, 165m (540ft) tall so Turkmenistan will have to work on their next model.