As mentioned earlier in a post we managed to get our Uzbek visa in Dushanbe. The embassy was as busy as last time when we had gone there to apply for the visa. We came inside and said "visa, visa". The man answered "ruski, ruski" or something but he took our passports into another room. We considered this as a good sign and waited outside. Two hours later a name was called and everybody starred at us. We were the only foreigners. Our passports were ready. They charged us 75 USD per person and we were happy to leave the embassy with the Uzbek visa in our hands. Things could have been more difficult as reported by other travellers trying to get an Uzbek visa in Dushanbe.
For the trip to Samarkand we wanted to get some dried fruit. While we were strolling through the busy bazaar, I ran into a scam. A guy behind me showed me that I would have some slime - whatever it was - on my left shoulder. I turned my face to have a look and there was something slimy indeed. I didn't pay more attention to the slime because I felt that the zipper of my right pocket with my wallet was being opened. I don't know how the other guy did it but the zipper was opened with such an easiness. Luckily I did notice it and turned away quickly, so both went away with nothing. Still it kept us annoyed for a while.
For the last day we planned to go to a restaurant. The French group that we met here and there again recommended a good restaurant. The place was great. A big terrace with a great view on water fountains. The menu did not offer any vegetarian dish for Sarah. So the waiter suggested to take "fried potatoes with mushrooms". What was brought to the table was a big surprise. Indeed, it was french fries with mushrooms ... off the can and all that without any sauce or spices. Anybody could have done better! Chers amis de Paris, si vous lisez ca, le resto n'était pas exactement ce que nous avons attendé :-) But no blame on you, you didn't know that Sarah is vegetarian.
We woke up at 5 am the next morning to watch the milking of the yaks. Afterwards we went back to bed until breakfast was ready. We had rice porridge with fresh milk from the yaks. Then we took a last photo of the family and left. We hadn't gone far, the ground was pretty wet and muddy, when we got stuck with the jeep. One wheel was completely stuck in the mud. So we all got out and collected stones. Altynbek was kneeling in the mud and tried to lift the car. When we got the car out, about one hour later, we were all completely covered in mud. Great start for the day :)
We brought Ueli and Roger to the start of their hike and said goodbye. Peter and I wanted to go back to Khorog that day. Once in Khorog we went to the place behind the bazaar where the shared minibuses usually leave for Khorog. We were pretty late and many cars had already left. There was only one minibus left that was still looking for 2 passengers to fill up the car (they usually wait until the car is full, otherwise the drivers cancel the trip). However two of the passengers had arranged a detour to Bulunkul, where we had already been a few days ago, with the driver. We didn't have much choice as this was the only car left and we wanted to get to Khorog as fast as possible. So finally we left. Luckily the minibus couldn't get to Bulunkul in the end because the road was flooded and only a 4-wheel-drive could have managed the road. One hour before Khorog the two guys, that had arranged the detour to Bulunkul, suddenly had the idea to stop for a bath in the hot springs that were on the way. Peter and I however were not fond of this idea. It was getting dark, we were sitting in the car for hours already and all we wanted was just to arrive in Khorog, have dinner and sleep. Also we had heard nothing good about the place. After some discussions we luckily continued straight to Khorog. When we arrived there, it was already dark. We tried to get some cash at the ATMs to pay for the flight back to Dushanbe, but the ATMs were all inside the banks that were already closed at that time. So we just walked to the homestay, where Altynbek had already announced our arrival. There we had dinner (soup with meatballs, for a change) together with a nice couple from the Netherlands. They were heading back to Dushanbe the next day as well and had two seats left in their car. They offered us a lift, but when their driver heard that he made a quite a scene and claimed that he would get problems at the police checkpoints. Yeah sure, that guy just knew that he would get his money anyways, so better to have the car not too full. Anyways, we were still planning to catch the flight to Dushanbe the next day. So we didn't care too much.
The next morning we got up early, had breakfast, went to the bank, got enough cash and went to the airport to buy the tickets. Our hope was to fly out on the same day. When we arrived at the ticket office a guy who was walking by said 'No tickets today' and just disappeared without further comment behind a door. There we stood and felt pretty stupid. What should that mean now? Was there no flight today? Or no seats left? And what about the tickets for the flight tomorrow? Well, we went outside where some other men sent us back and forth. Finally we found out that everybody was waiting for the flight from Dushanbe to arrive, which was not certain to come because of the weather conditions. Only once the flight would have arrived, we could have got tickets for the other day. All that was too uncertain for us as we wanted to get back to our bicycles as fast as possible (we told the hotel that we would come back in 10 days time). So we went to the bazaar where the jeeps to Dushanbe usually left and found a jeep very quickly that was about to leave to Dushanbe. Only two more passengers were missing. There was not much of a choice as it was late again, so we jumped in, the locals said a prayer and off we went.
I don't even want to think about this jeep trip again. This was definitely one of the most horrible 17 hours that I have ever spent in my life. We were 9 people in the jeep, Peter and me squeezed with another girl on the rear bench, without the possibility to get out unless the people on the middle bench in front of us got out. They didn't do that very often. The girl next to us threw up into a plastic bag during the whole journey. It was dusty, hot and we couldn't open the window. Leg room was so little that we could hardly move our legs. We ran out of water and we didn't dare to drink the water from the rivers like the locals did. Moreover the soldiers at a military checkpoint made some trouble because of our passports. They wanted to see our original passports (we only gave them the copies) and asked for the OVIR registration (that we did have).
We left Khorog around 10 am, stopped for lunch and dinner and arrived in Dushanbe at around 5 am. Getting off the jeep was such a relief! We had called the homestay before that was recommended by Altynbek and they were waiting for us. We just had a shower and then fell into our beds.
Later in Samarkand we heard other stories from travellers. A driver fell asleep and the jeep crashed into one of the concrete blocks. It prevented the jeep from falling 20 m into the river.
On Saturday, 24th July, we left Noora's place in Klaukalla at 10 am. Our flight was scheduled for 3 pm. We wanted to arrive at the airport as early as possible in order to have sufficient time to pack the bicycles. We had had wonderful weather in Finland but on our last day it was grey and it rained while we were cycling to the Helsinki airport.
The day before we had gone to the hardware store in Klaukalla and had looked for something to wrap around the bicycles for the transport in the aircraft. The store was too small and did not offer much but we had come out with the best solution: cable ties to secure the panniers from falling off the bicycles, 10 m of cloth that is used to protect furniture during house move and scotch.
We arrived at the airport at 11:30 am and started packing. We didn't have much choice in terms of packaging as we had to cycle to the airport. A bicycle box was too difficult to get to the airport. We were told by the Air Baltic staff that the panniers could remain on the bicycles. The cable ties were used to lock the panniers to the bicycles. We actually thought that the panniers were good padding. The cloth was wrapped around the bicycles. People could still see that those things were bicycles and we hoped that they would also be treated as bicycles.
We were observing our bicylces until the check-in counter staff rolled them into a special room. Would they make it to Dushanbe in one piece? Or would the custom take out the fuel bottle for security reasons?
In Riga we had to change air-crafts: another serious point in the bicycle transportation process where they could be damaged. The flight from Riga to Dushanbe was about 5:30 hours. Our neighbour was an Afghan guy from Romania on the way to Kabul to his wedding. He offered us a cheese specialty that is very common in Central Asia. It had the form of a ball, was white, solid and tasted like feta cheese, just much stronger. He said it was called 'Grud'. The other thing that he offered was dried fish from Greece. So as there was no dinner provided by Air Baltic, we were fed by our neighbour.
We landed in Dushanbe around 3:30 am local time. It was still dark and surprisingly cool. When we entered the airport building we encountered the first problem. We had to fill some registration form that was in Russian only. The other tourists had taken away all the English ones. After a while we managed to get some new English forms. We were excited when the first pieces of luggage arrived. Big surprise! The front panniers had been removed and attached to the frames with "security checked" scotch. The rear panniers were untouched. The bicycles looked horrible, but one checking we found that only our front mudguards were broken. The shock was big but it could have been worse. Everything else was ok. It took us some time to mount the pedals, straighten the handlebar and pack the bicycles. By the time we finished it was no longer dark. The baggage check was another problem. I had removed the baggage stickers from the bags and one of the papers to claim the baggage was missing. We found it in one of my pockets after two minutes and could exit the airport - finally.
Outside the airport many Tajik men were waiting. Our bicycles were a real attraction. A taxi driver showed us the way to the city center. The wide streets - rather alleys - were empty. There were many huge building from the Soviet time The temperature was perfect for cycling. It wasn't difficult to find the hotel Vaksh in the city center. It was 6 am when I entered the hotel's lobby and asked for a room. The woman did not speak English but I understood that we should come back at 12 am. That was the time when people checked-out and rooms were freed. We waited until 7:30 am when we met Roger and Ueli from Switzerland. Some days before we had found their enquiry in the Lonely Planet Thorntree Forum looking for companions for a jeep tour in the Pamirs. We left our bicycles in a special room and went with them further into the city center. Roger, who has been travelling since more than 5 years in a row, gave us some advice how to handle the corrupt police officers in Central Asia. It didn't take a long time when the first police officers showed up. Roger kindly shook their hands, made jokes and the officers went away. It's really surprising how many police officers there are. Almost every intersection has one or more officers. We read a lot about police officers looking for bribes. As we didn't have any experience with them, we felt a bit uncomfortable with the massive police presence.
In a cafe we discussed the Pamir jeep tour. Ueli and Roger had arrived in Dushanbe two days ago and had worked out a detailed itinerary with stops at many places of interest. During these two days they had also talked to several jeep drivers and negotiate the conditions. We just had to say yes and manage to collect some cash within one day. There aren't many ATMs on the way to and in the Pamirs. The daily limit with our French bank cards was 800 Somoni, about 180 EUR. That caused some trouble. Ueli was joking and suggested to open a bank account in Swtzerland. Our money would always be welcomed and the daily limit would be higher or would not even exist. We brought some USD in cash into Tajikistan and found some other means to get more money.
When we told Ueli and Roger that we would be ok, they arranged a meeting with the driver Altynbek. We should meet him and make our own opinion about him and his car and its condition. Altynbek was a Kyrghyz from Murghab in the Pamirs. Our first impression of Altynbek and his jeep was quite positive. So we made the deal and decided to leave Dushanbe on Tuesday morning.
Monday morning was a busy day. We woke up early and went to the Uzbek embassy to apply for a visa. At 8 am we were pushed by the crowd through the small door. People were waving with their passports, pushing and shouting. We didn't know what to do and what the procedure was. Obviously the rule was the survival of the fittest. After 30 minutes we went out of the embassy and were told that our visa would be ready for next Saturday. The timing was good. Our jeep tour in the Pamirs should take about 10 days. When we are back, the visa will be ready to be picked-up.
Another annoying and time-consuming administration point was the OVIR registration. In the past tourists were obliged to register within 3 days of arrival in Tajikistan. Although abolished several months ago, we were told that we still had to register because our visa showed type 'XC' instead of 'T' (for tourist). Would the Tajik embassy in Berlin have issued the visa type 'T' like any other Tajik embassy does, we wouldn't have had all this registration hassle and cost. Very annoying was the lack of information. Neither the German nor the Tajik official websites mentioned this visa type 'XC'.
After all administration was done, we discovered Dushanbe's Shah Mansur Bazaar, visited the Hajik Yakoub Mosque, met up with Roger, Ueli and Altynbek to stock up with water and snacks for the jeep tour.
Finding a safe place for our bicycles in Dushanbe caused some headache. We managed to explain the hotel staff that we would like to leave the bicycles in Dushanbe for 10 days. They accepted but we were still not 100% sure that they understood our message. Anyway, we had no other option and just hoped that our bicycles and bags would still be there in 10 days time.
That night we couldn't sleep much. The awful hotel room (no warm water, no toilet flush, dripping water) was too hot. When the alarm clock went off for the jeep tour, we had not slept a minute, but we were happy to leave the city, even if it meant that we would be separated from our bikes for a few days.
