Iskander Kul and Fan Mountains,Tajikistan

Through our hotel in Dushanbe we organised a driver and car. Habib turned up at 8.30am in his Rav 4. First we had to pick up a permit to travel and this took quite some time as some of the roads under construction were closed and some of the offices were also closed.

As we headed north out of the city beside the Varzob river, we passed by many huge houses built into the rocks beside the river. Many of them had little outdoor seating areas overhanging the river with curtains or awnings for privacy and to block the sun. It seemed a popular feature of the riverside homes. The road was pretty narrow and winding to stop for photos.Towards the end of the river ribbon developments was the president's huge holiday complex with new buildings under construction.

We climbed up the Anzob Pass at 3372m and drove through many tunnels and solid concrete galleries protecting the road from falling rocks and scree.


Saw lots of honey trailers stacked high with bees hives on the side of the roads.

A Chinese company was rebuilding the road. Huge trucks passed us hauling coal from the mines in the hills.

Continued on the rough dusty road to Takfon and stopped at a roadside eatery for laagman (noodle soup). Habib has limited English so he took over all the discussions about food and we just chose the dishes we recognised.

We stopped briefly beside the river and saw a couple of policemen in a rubber raft trying to probe for a car that had ended up in the river. The locals drive far too fast at times.


The dusty road took us through little villages and orchards down to Iskander Kul lake. The policeman at the check point gave John a laminated sheet of charges to enter the lake area. John gave it to Habib who returned it to the policeman as it seemed to be his way of getting lunch money!


A Soviet era camping ground and cabins with a communal canteen were beside the lake where we saw tents and tourists and their bicycles camped.


Further around the lake was the President's dacha (holiday house) with its own helipad. Across from it was a small park and a clear water spring with several inlets.


 Habib spied a cup hanging from a tree branch so we sampled the cool sweet tasting water. Pipes ran from it under the road to the president's house.















We arrived at a homestay at Sarytag village a tiny rural place with one shop and about 20 houses. We had a room for eating and a bedroom. It looked like it had been used as a self contained batch with a small kitchen with modern appliances. These were all covered with dust covers and not in current use.

After the welcome tea we met Joel, from Begium but working in Luxembourg, who was on a 10 day trip with a guide and driver. He was suffering already from diarrhoea and had lost 5 kilos. He threw down some pills then had more that his guide had and set out eating and drinking beers from the villages only shop. He proudly told us he had been to all 45 European countries and travelled 103 countries in total. He was quite a character and in his early 50s.

Joel's guide informed us that Habib had divorced his first wife then remarried but also had a second wife on the go. He said he had children to all the women. We wondered how a driver could afford to look after so many people on his income.

There was an old mud brick building to house the sheep and goats beside our room and a group of men were demolishing the roof to rebuild it before winter. The dust was horrific and smelt stale. We decided to go for a walk while it was going on. There is not much to see or do in the village and we saw about three other homestay houses.

In the late afternoon we saw young girls chasing their cows home after grazing outside the village and an old man on a donkey dragging his reluctant billy goat home. He had his horns tied up and well anchored to the donkey. The goat never let up his stubbornness the whole way.


Dinner was served to us in our own place and Habib joined us. The mutton and vegetable stew was followed by fresh, peaches, grapes and apples from the family orchard.


In the morning we headed back around Iskander Kul where Habib lead  us up a trail to hike up to look down on Snake River. A local was fishing there and there were a couple of rubber rafts for paddlers. From here we continued to walk to a waterfall called Fann Niagara. You could hear the roar before you saw it. A steel platform had been built over the edge of the falls and Habib was a bit hesitant to get on it.

We continued north through a dusty narrow canyon to Ayni, a transport hub, and a lunch place for goat soup. There are loads of places to eat as there are so many huge trucks passing through.

Headed up the Zerafshan Valley through lots of irrigated cropping land, the most fertile we have seen so far. The new road from Sarvoda ended when we turned off to head up to Shing in the Fan m
Mountains and we were back in narrow dusty roads again. There are seven lakes on the Shing River and on our way to our next home stay we passed by four.

We rounded a corner near Nofin and Habib spotted our homestay owner Jumaboi sitting on an outcrop chatting with his friend. He piled in and we headed down the valley.

The home stay was on a sloping piece of land with the main house at the top and an outdoor kitchen. A new stone building was under construction nearby and below the vegetable garden was another long building stone building recently completed. We got a room in the old house. There was  mains electricity and solar power.

Around the edge of the property were four tea beds where groups would hang out and have their meals. Habib slept in ours at night. Jumaboi had an English menu and we could chose from three dishes what we wanted. His is a popular homestay place and a small group from German speaking European countries arrived just on dark. They were starting their tour here and then going onto the Pamirs.

After breakfast we were given a packed lunch and hiked along the road through the local villages from the fourth lake to the sixth lake. The local kids wave and say hello as we pass. The women stare and carry on washing clothes in the river and the bathing children play. It's not unlike every small village we have seen so far. Apricots brown up as they dry on the hot rocks or dusty roofs. All family members cut grass with their sickles and leaving bunches to dry up before gathering them up to carry home to store for the animals' winter feed.


In a curve on the main street and set out on plastic sheeting was a display of new shoes and clothing for sale and locals came and went with their purchases. The women love the long heavy velvet dresses with matching pants under. There also seems to be a trend for mothers and daughters to wear the same clothes.

We had our lunch beside the sixth lake on the grounds of a tourist camp with cabins. A woman called to us and when we said we just wanted to eat our lunch she said OK all in sign language. We watched the local birds but had trouble trying to photograph them as they were so fast. We had so much lunch of fried potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, apples and apricots that we gave all the leftovers to the woman and her large family and she was most grateful.


On the walk home we met a young Israeli couple heading up in the afternoon heat without any food or water and with no idea that their planned walk to the seventh lake would take 4 or 5 hours each way.

The weather was a pleasant 25  DegC in the late afternoon with a gentle breeze so all the dusty clothes got a wash and were dry after dinner. A large local family group had arrived while we were out and they had hung a whole sheep up from the tea bed and proceeded to eat their way through it with pots on the boil and the charcoal brazier smoking up a storm. They gave us grilled liver, salads, watermelon, cucumber in soured cream, and then our plov (rice) dinner arrived. They cleaned up, packed up and headed back to the city of Panjakent two hours away.

As they left a father and son from Belarus arrived with a local driver and guide. They ate some fish from the lake and then partied on into the night on their beer and cognac.

We drove out of the valley the next day to Panjikent where Habib took us to look at two hotels and we chose one to stay at.



Dushanbe, Tajikistan

Found a nice hotel in Dushanbe and were given a huge room called the family suite, not because we wanted it, but because it was the only room left when we applied online. However it was a great place to catch up on laundry, make future bookings, contact the family, and firm up our plans for Turkmenistan, and catch up the blog on our Pamir Highway trip.

The hotel


The decorative ceiling in the room.

We farewelled Mark who flew off to Almaty and was headed for Nepal and India before  going back  to the UK in November.

The hotel is near several hostels and it has been fun talking to the cyclists and motorcyclists who come through the place. Guests go back and forth through the hostels looking for fellow travellers to join them on tours. We saw more cyclists than motorcyclists on the Pamir Highway so there are some pretty fit travellers.

A Swiss couple on two motor bikes lost one of their number plates in Uzbekistan and it took them a week of visiting their embassy and talking to Switzerland to sort out how to get a replacement one. In the end they found a guy who printed a new plate with computer cut graphics and mounted it onto hard plastic. They were getting so much trouble from the police that they had to sort it before leaving for the Pamirs. Just before they headed off they realised their licence for their bikes in Tajikistan was due to expire before their visas so they would have to hurry.

We met a couple of English guys who had entered the Mongol Rally. They had a VW Polo and other than clutch problems they were doing OK. We saw several cars near the hostels nearby also from the rally. When we looked on the website to see where the teams were it was a mass of lines with cars all over Russia, Central Asia and Europe. I looked at the website and it said there are three rules for the event. The vehicle had to be under 1000cc. The entrants had to fund raise and donate half to a charity of their choice and the other half to the rally's chosen charity. The third rule seemed to say they needed to stay alive and manage everything by themselves, visas, breakdowns etc. Originally cars were left in Mongolia but I am not sure what they do with them now. Poor Mongolia must look like a wrecker's yard.

Also met a couple of Brit Kiwis from Wellington who spent a couple of days getting over their jetlag before heading to the Pamirs. Luckily for them a driver was staying in the hotel and had been waiting for a couple of clients to arrive. The clients never showed so the women were able to go with him to Osh. .These are the only Kiwis we have met so far in Central Asia.

We have also spent the time eating up all the extra supplies we are carrying that are left from the Pamir. We have been able to fire up our MSR stove and use it in the kitchen where their gas cooker does not work. The staff and guests use the outdoor gas stove that leaves the pots looking like it has been on an outdoor wood fire.

We have visited the Green Bazaar to buy fresh vegetables and fruit and are slowly getting our digestive systems sorted out after on and off bouts of diarrhoea and I have had to dose up on pretty strong antibiotics we are carrying to get mine under control. I carry a flowchart of symptoms and it helps me sort out what treatments I need to use which is very helpful. The last bout I had left me with a urine infection as well so I hope the antibiotics can sort that too.


The musical fountain which is crowded in the evenings with families, couples and ice cream sellers.

A chameleon we think.

We have had to look at flights for our return home and have taken India and Sri Lanka off our plan to visit as we have still a bit to see in Central Asia. We will now fly to Dubai from Ashbagat and then onto visit a cousin and a Couch surfing friend in Singapore.

The hotel cooked a meal for all its guests one night which was really great. It seems they do it once a month so we were lucky to be there on that night.

Our grandchildren, Tyler 3 and Charlotte 1, had a joint birthday celebration so we were able to chat on Whatsapp with them and find out how it all went. Tyler insisted that he was only one and did not want any presents , just cake. He was adamant about it too.


It gets into the mid to high 30 DegsC here so when we go visiting any sights we try to head out before it gets too hot and then retreat to our air conditioned haven. The parks in this city are leafy and well set out. There are loads of fountains and trees and gardens. They love roses which grow really big and tall in this weather. They also love statues of their heroes, poets and old leaders.


They claim the world's tallest flagpole at 165 metres.

The National Museum is a relatively new building with a lot of archaeological displays. There was a huge section dedicated to the gifts the president has received from other world leaders as well as archaeological discoveries.


We tried a local Tajik restaurant near the hotel a couple of times for dinner and it was hit and miss as to what was on the menu and what was in the kitchen. The restaurant was set out in three parts. It had tables at street level, then a middle section of private padded booths, and finally a courtyard setting with a waterfall and  caged parrots, and quails. Pigeons flew in and out to their nesting boxes above the waterfalls. We have not enjoyed the Tajik food and find it fatty and oily and it has caused us to chew through too many loperimide tablets.

A couple of times we visited the Delhi Darbar Indian restaurant across the other side of town and also brought takeaways back to reheat and enjoy some flavoursome vegetarian food. If only Tajik food could flavour their dishes with anything other than dill.

Tajik people love to sweep. Everyday they sweep the streets even if they are dirty and potholed. The footpaths run in front of the houses and then there is a berm area where people plant grape vines or apricot, apple or cherry trees. They water these from the deep open drains beside the road. One local near the hotel grew eggplants, chillies, capsicums, zucchinis, and cucumbers on her berm and they were doing really well. We spotted her one evening watering and checking her produce by phone torchlight.
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There is a lot of renovating of old buildings and many cranes on new buildings in the city. They are working on repaving walkways and upgrading old roads and drains in the city and we have seen them work from early morning into the night seven days a week.

We have a few days before our Uzbekistan visa can start so John has been pricing a driver and car to tour the Fan Mountains in the north west of Tajikistan. After trying some online companies the hotel offered to find us a driver and as the price suited us we took up the offer.






Kalai Kum, Tajikistan

Headed off from the Jizeu valley and stopped at Bushan bazaar to buy some bottled water and fresh bread. Managed to connect to Whatsapp and send our daughter Kerri birthday wishes for her 33rd.

The road from Khorog to Kalai Kum wss very rough, having been built by the Soviets in 1930s. There were dozens of heavy Chinese freight trucks on the road and several pieces of wrecked trucks on the edge of the roads.

The houses we passed seemed more substantial with coloured steel rooves and more permanent stone walls.



It was interesting to view the Afghanistan side of the river where a road was being constructed. Turat said sometimes he would get a fright from them blasting the rocks to fit the road in the cliffs. There were several sections of the road through the rock being dug out. It was difficult to imagine how they got the people, supplies and machinery to some parts. The cliffs were high and the river was torrential in some places and there were no flat places to land a helicopter.

The green line where fields are irrigated above the villages and the dry rock looms above.


This section of road is lined with Tajik soldiers strolling up and down in their brand new uniforms and carrying arms. There were no visible soldiers on the Afghani side. There is only one border crossing to Afghanistan open on the Pamirs at present. Turat takes tourists to Afghanistan and speaks Farsi.

Stopped at the huge modern glass fronted supermarket in Kalai Kum. It had hostesses dressed in red to help customers find what they wanted. As it was such a hot day we decided to buy some cold beers to have before dinner. There was a chiller with all kinds of wines including some from Kim Crawford wineries in NZ and some Aussie labels. Quite a culture shock for us!

The town ran at right angles to the river and the towering Serena Hotel stood out like a sore thumb. It is the hotel the president stays at when he passes through. We headed a wee way out of town to a guesthouse that has recently been converted and renovated.

We sat outside under some pomegranate trees to have our beers and chat with the owner. They had a cafe but it was not running as they had not found a chef so we headed into town along a dusty dark road.

The only restaurant open was jutting out over the noisy raging river and we managed to find something to eat from the limited range they had.

The rooms looked out over a huge rocky hill so they made the rooms very hot. Luckily we arrived early enough to score a fan to help cool us.


The next day after breakfast we started the last stretch of our Pamir adventure. We headed off along the shortest route to Dushanbe and after about three hours said goodbye to the Afghani river valley and its road building projects.

The first part of our sealed road was built by the Turkish, then we drove on a part built by the Iranians. The next part built by the Chinese and still getting its finishing touches was the widest and smoothest. It had signs and lines painted to show the different lanes.

We headed up the Shurabad Pass at 2300m just before the town of Kulab. We could see the Nurek Reservoir in the hazy distance.


We drove smoothly through Dangara which is where the president comes from so the place is well presented if not a bit chaotic.

The final section down into Dushanbe was a Soviet road in need of repair interspersed with original parts of the old Silk Road.


A short stop for lunch and a cuppa and a vehicle wash down by the crew waiting on the street and we were on our way through a couple of tunnels and past the fields of wheat, corn, and cotton and into Dushanbe the end of our time with Mark and Turat.




Jizeu, Tajikistan

We woke to a great breakfast with fresh apricots and grapes, vegetable omelette and yoghurt. What a treat!

The next stop was the ATM but they were still switched off but managed to change some US dollars for somoni inside the bank before heading off to a supermarket at the far end of town. The road to get there was jammed with vehicles going to the bazaar with people and produce so Turat did not want to try the bazaar as there would be no parking. It didn't help that we were quite late leaving town as Turat had to pick up his new number plates from the police. Having new plates will make no difference to him being stopped as they always stop all land cruisers regardless and make them pay a bribe.

We drove about an hour with Afghanistan only a stone's throw across the river from our road. Turned into Bartang Valley where we had a picnic in the shade near a creek.


We headed off with a change of clothes and sleeping bags in our day bags to walk to Jizeu village and the lakes there. Turat was going to sleep in the car and be ready to pick us up in the morning. The river used to have a cage on a cable to get across the river but now has a footbridge.


We headed up the valley but it was stinking hot as we had left so late and the sun had heated up the rocks on the trail and was still blazing overhead.


Mountain water meets river water.


I had to wet my hat to cool down but still fell hot and Mark headed back to see if Turat was still about.

John was worried I couldn't make the last hour and a half of the walk. Turat had left, so we decided to stay by the river and sleep out and let Mark go on to the village.

There was a lot of clean water and we had enough nibbles with us to eat. I found a spot under a huge poplar tree where there was a pile of dead leaves. We moved the rocks and picked some grass bushes that the donkey's obviously don't eat as they were quite big and fresh. This made a place big enough for our two sleeping bags.


The locals use the donkeys to carry supplies up the valley to the villages and we could see where they had made fires and cooked up and where their favourite vodka drinking spots were from all the litter left behind. There were even a couple of old steel radiators lying about but we couldn't work out if they floated down in a storm or if they were carried here for some other purpose.

The river was warm enough on the edges to wash in before bed. This all kept us busy enough until the sun went down. We covered up from the mosquitoes and soon the warm air from the rocks blew the mossies away and kept us warm in the night and free from any damp air. We did not have to worry about being eaten by snow leopards or any other creatures and had a surprisingly comfortable sleep. The mattresses in some places have been harder. It was very peaceful next to the stream.

We spotted Turat across the river and packed up and headed back to the car for breakfast. He was most surprised to hear that we had camped out. Another driver told him not to camp overnight by the river as it often rose above the road over night so he headed into the nearby village to a home stay there.

Mark had a great night in the valley at a home stay. He said the people were very friendly. One of the home stay owner's came down the valley to meet a taxi he had called for his home stay guests. The driver had come from the far end of the river road. Turat asked the home stay owner where he went during the winter. He said they stayed in the village. Turat then asked him what he did when they were snowed in. He said the valley had electricity so they smoked, watched television, and slept all winter. What a life!

Singapore

The Singapore Airlines flight was quite bumpy and after seven and a half hours we arrived in Singapore surprisingly earlier than expected. ...