Fan Mountains

On Tuesday, 10.8.2010, we were back on our bicycles after a 3-week bicycle-break. We left Dushanbe very early to avoid the rush hour and to get as far as we could before it got too hot. It felt so good to be back on the bicycles. Suddenly, 6 km away from the homestay, we noticed that we had forgotten some clothes in the homestay. After the photo camera in Khorog, it happened again! Luckily we were still in Dushanbe, so I hopped on a bus and went back to the homestay.

While cycling out of Dushanbe, we probably passed 40 police officers on the road (every 300 m one officer). Surprisingly nobody stopped us. Obviously a tourist on a bicycle makes a difference from a tourist in a jeep.

The road to Ayni was in perfect conditions. Cycling was easy but it was permanent climbing. During a descend I nearly had my first accident. A crazy cat ran with full speed across the road into my front wheel. Luckily I did not fall.

On the way there were several dark tunnels. We didn't dare to cycle through (we had read too many horror stories about these tunnels before), so we pushed the bicycles on the 'pedestrian' lane. There was never light and too many trucks were on the road. Behind one of the tunnels we decided to stay overnight.

The next morning it was time to tackle the Anzob pass (3000 m and something) that was on the way to Ayni. There were two options. Either we could have taken the famous Anzob tunnel or the high Anzob pass. We had read a lot about the the Anzob tunnel, that is between 4 and 6 km long. Although opened only some years ago it is supposed to be in very bad conditions, a no-go for cyclists. So we decided to take the pass. At the junction to the Anzob pass we were turning towards the road to the pass, when the police officer stopped us. He wanted us to go through the tunnel. We tried to explain that the tunnel was too dangerous for us but he didn't understand or didn't want to. When we pointed on our bicycles and said 'no tunnel, pass', he looked at the bicycles and said that they were good enough for the tunnel. We pedaled away some meters and stopped again to discuss what to do. A Russian truck passed by, stopped and the two men offered to take us through the tunnel. There was no long discussion. This was the only way to get through the tunnel.

The two Russian truck drivers didn't speak English. Conversation was difficult but very funny. Sarah - not knowing the Russian word for Chinese - explained my origin like this 'papa, mama, Jackie Chan'. They did understand! We didn't know how many kilometers were between the junction with the police checkpoint and the Anzob tunnel. While we were driving to the tunnel, we only then noticed that it would have been a long, hard climb with many short tunnels and a lot of truck traffic. We were happy with the truck solution. Especially when we saw the tunnel, we were even happier. The tunnel was pure horror! Long, dark, deep potholes, flooded, no ventilation system, too dangerous! I would have loved to see that police officer cycling through the tunnel.

Right after the tunnel we said good-bye to the nice truck drivers. When the truck was gone, I suddenly noticed that I had left my helmet in the truck. Again! I started the long descend without any helmet. Several kilometers later my hope became true. We saw the truck and I got my helmet back. Camera, clothes and helmet! We got them all back.

Our destination for Wednesday was Iskander Kul lake, 24 km off the main road to Ayni. During our climb to the lake, we met three Brits on their bicycles. They kicked off in Tashkent and were on the way to India. Basically they came from Tashkent via Samarkand where we want to go to. We exchanged some valuable information about the road conditions, hostels and border crossing. Iskander Kul was a great place. We could camp right at the lake. It was the best place to relax from the tiring climb, so we stayed two nights in the end and visited an impressive waterfall on our rest day. The place didn't have any shower though. On the second day we ran out of food. The 'restaurant' at the lake was a joke (so did other cyclists confirm who we met in Samarkand). It took them 2 hours to prepare simple fried potatoes with onions, which weren't even good at the end.

On Friday we cycled from Iskander Kul to Ayni. We stayed in the hotel of the 'Deutsche Welthungerhilfe' and hoped to meet some German speaking people who could have told us about the organisation and what exactly they do in the region. Unfortunately nobody spoke German or English. What a pity. We stocked up in Ayni before we continued to Pendjikent on Saturday.

The distance between Ayni and Pendjikent was 93 km and our hope was to get there in one long day. However, the road during the first 45 km was so bad that we had to stop in Kistutdak for one night. I asked for a hotel in a shop but there was no hotel in Kistutdak. The shop filled up quickly with locals who wanted to see us tourists. A boy led us from that shop to a different shop that had an empty room in the backyard where we could sleep. The shop was owned by Nacia's family. We didn't know what to think of him. On the one hand he was a friendly host, but on the other hand he ignored us when we tried to buy water and food in his shop and got quite annoyed when we didn't understand his Russian. His wife prepared dinner (Plov of course) and we had dinner altogether. They had 7 children, although his wife was only 32 years old! He asked us how many children we had. We will never forget his surprised face when he heard that we had none. Awesome!

The people in the Fan Mountains were very friendly. Kids started running like crazy when they saw us. We heard 'hello' from everywhere. We have never heard so many 'hellos' in such a short time in our life.

After breakfast we continued to Pendjikent. The road was so much better and we cycled the remaining 48 km in about 3 hours time.We rolled into Pendjikent before noon and the heat. From Pendjikent it is only about 20 km to the Uzbek border. In the bazaar we exchanged our remaining Tajik Somoni against Uzbek Sum. For 500 Tajik Somoni (about 112 USD) we got 238000 Uzbek Sum. The amount of Sum bills was overwhelming. The biggest bill is 1000 Sum. You can imagine how many bills we had in our hands.

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Last days in Dushanbe

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.

Pamir Tour: Back to Dushanbe

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.

Pamir Tour Day 8 & 9: Around Murghab

From Bulunkul it was only a short drive to the Yashil Kul lake and its natural dam. The lake was calm and mirrored the surrounding mountains. Over bad, dusty and very bumpy roads we got back on the Pamir Highway and arrived in Murghab in the late afternoon. Murghab itself did not have any attraction. The bazaar, however, was quite interesting: Chinese containers being used as shops.

Though Murghab is still in Tajikistan, more Kyrgyz than Tajiks live there. The Kyrgyz people look more Chinese than the Tajik people. So it happened often that people thought I would be Kyrgyz. Also Chinese people do a lot of business in Tajikistan. When kids saw me they rather shouted 'ni hao' instead of 'hello'. We also noticed that sometimes people understand more Chinese than English.

The next day we drove to Rang Kul that is very close to the Chinese border. Close to Rang Kul there was a jailoo and a yurt where we planned to stay overnight. We got off the car and walked the remaining kilometers to the jailoo. It was hot and totally calm: no other noise apart from the wind and the little river. Before it got completely dark, the goats and yaks returned from the side valleys to the jailoo.

Pamir Tour Day 5 - 7: Wakhan Valley

When we woke up on Saturday, 31.7.2010, ready to go to Ishkashim, we suddenly noticed that Sarah had left my photo camera in the Indian restaurant where we had had dinner the day before. It was 6 am and my only hope was that someone would be there because the restaurant was part of a hotel. We drove to the restaurant, knocked at the doors and windows and indeed a man came out. After a while the person with the keys to the restaurant arrived and opened the door. We had my photo camera back! We were so happy!

Following the road in southern direction from Khorog we entered the Wakhan Valley. Still on the right-hand side was Afghanistan. We could see Afghan people walking with their donkeys along the little trail. The Hindu Kush and its 6000 m summits appeared. We stopped in Ishkashim where people can cross the Pyanj river to the Afghan Saturday market without holding an Afghan visa. I still didn't feel good. Altynbek dropped the others at the Afghan market and took me to a homestay where I could rest. Some hours later the others came back from the market. The Afghan market wasn't really interesting as far as the offered goods are concerned. A lot of stuff was for sale: carpets, clothes, shoes, soap, sweets ... nothing useful except for the soft Chinese toilet paper for myself (the toilet paper on the Tajik side was rather like wallpaper)! However the people on the market were interesting. The Afghans in their typical dresses could be easily recognized. Everybody was very friendly and many people were very fond of being photographed. Have a look at the pictures!

We stopped at several old Silk Road fortresses (the Kakaha is still in used by Tajik border guards), visited several shrines and Buddha's stupa. During these days we couldn't take any shower. The homestays did not have any. To wash ourselves we went to one of the hot springs in the Wakhan Valley where local people go for a bath. The water in the cave was so hot that a 10-minute bath was more than enough. Interestingly enough the entry fee varied from tourist to tourist. While we had to pay 10 Somoni we heard from others that they paid 5 Somoni. Did we look so much dirtier?

In Langar on Monday morning, 2.8.2010, we set off very early and climbed 500 m with the help of a local guide to see some petroglyphs. The 500 m climb was tiring. We passed the 3000 m level. Every step became more and more difficult. The view on the Hindu Kush range was spectacular. We could see the Afghan mountains as well as the ones in Pakistan just behind the Afghan ones. Actually we did shoot more photographs of Afghanistan instead of Tajikistan that week.We continued and left the Wakhan valley behind us. The road led over a 4300 m Khargush Pass and joined the Pamir Highway. The Khargush Pass was quite a disappointment. We expected a great view but there was nothing to see. That night we stayed at a homestay in Bulunkul. At an altitude of more than 3500 m we envied the locals playing volleyball. Though altitude sickness wasn't a problem for us, we did feel the high altitude.

Route change in Central Asia

We are back from the 10-day Pamir Tour since last Saturday, 7th August. During these 10 days we had no internet access, so we are trying to catch up the with the blog.

Due to the situation in South Kyrgyzstan around Osh we decided to drop that part from our itinerary. At the same time this meant that couldn't cycle the Pamir Highway any more. The Pamir Highway ends in South Kyrgyzstan and leads to Osh. So we would have gone through Osh and its surroundings. As we still wanted to see the Pamirs, we opted for the a jeep tour and return to Dushanbe.

Our plan B, that we already worked out at home, looks like that: from Dushanbe we cycle through the Fan Mountains. We'll cross the Tajik-Uzbek border at Penjikent and continue to Samarkand. From Samarkand we'll go to Tashkent and enter Kazakhstan there. In Almaty we'll apply for the Chinese visa. Meanwhile we could enter North Kyrgyzstan if the situation is ok.

Before we started the Pamir Tour we had applied for the Uzbek visa in Dushanbe. Today we have got the visa in our passports! Lonely Planet Thorntree forum considers the Uzbek embassy in Dushanbe as one of the worst, but luckily it worked out quite well for us.

Tomorrow we'll be back on our bicycles ... finally! You'll probably hear more from the Pamir Tour and the Fan Mountains when we are in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, if there is internet - inshalla!

Pamir Tour Day 2 - 4: Kalaikhum - Khorog

When we woke up Wednesday morning in Kalaikhum the weather wasn't that nice anymore, the sky was cloudy and grey. We left early as usual. Today the tour should lead us into the Bartang Valley where we wanted to go for a hike. But the road got worse as we advanced into the valley. The river had flooded part of the road and finally we had to turn around because the road was blocked by a landslide. But as the weather was still not very nice we were not too sad to not be able to hike. So finally we stayed in a homestay in Yemts. This was our first night in a typical Pamiri house, which consists mainly of one big all-purpose room, with carpets all over, even at the walls. In the middle of the room in the ceiling there is a hole to let in some light. We went with the locals to the shrine of the village - called Mazor - a pre-islamic tradition, decorated with Marco-Polo-sheep horns. Afterwards we had dinner and the English teacher of the village came and was sitting with us for the whole evening. This was nice as it was a chance for us to ask many questions and find out about life of the people in the village. He had been to the US and Canada and told us how hard life was in comparison to the small village there. However, if you imagine the village like a European village some hundred years ago that's not completely right either. They have computers, TV, DVD players etc. At the beginning we thought this to be strange priorities, considering that they shared an outside toilet with the neighbourhood, because - as they said - they didn't have enough money to build an inside toilet. But then we thought about how winter would be in such a village, being isolated from the rest of the world for more than half a year, just sitting in your house with your family all day long. Suddenly we could understand why they had invested the little money they have in a TV instead of a new toilet.

The next day was Peter's 30th birthday! We had planned another hike, but the weather hadn't improved over night and so we just continued directly to Khorog, one of the biggest villages in the Pamirs. After making ourselves at home at the homestay we went to the city center, where Peter and me went to the OVIR office to get registered. As mentioned earlier this was necessary because our visa had a different type than those of all other tourists. Even at the OVIR the officers had never seen such a visa and didn't really know what to do. So he was on the phone for some time and finally told us, that - of course - we had to register and the first step - of course - was to pay 250 Somoni, which is about 50 Euros, at the bank next door. Then he told us to come back later to pick up our registration paper. We used the time to go to the regional museum, which was a strange collection of mainly photos of important people, with the description in Russian only. It seemed we were the only visitors and only after we had walked for something like half an hour in the dark, trying to see the exhibition, a lady came to switch on the light, the switches of course hidden behind some huge pictures, so we couldn't have found them ourselves. We went back to the OVIR and got our paper quite quickly. Peter had stomach problems and so we didn't eat much that day, just some soup with pasta at the homestay at night.

The next day we made a trip to Rushtkala where we finally wanted to go for a hike after sitting in the car for so long. But first of all we had to pass the checkpoint. This wasn't easy - of course. For the whole GBAO region (basically the Pamirs) you need a special GBAO permit, which lists all districts that you are allowed to visit and that you get with your visa application. We had the permit and on the application we had marked all districts, but apparently Rushtkala was missing in the list. Great! In the end, Roger - one of the Swiss guys traveling with us - asked the officer for his registration number and said he would complain. Suddenly we got a 'special permission' to go. Peter felt still weak from his stomach problems and so Roger, Ueli and I set off for the hike to Drum Kul (Lake Drum). The path however crossed a river, but the bridge was broken and it was impossible to cross the river without bridge. So we tried to reach the lake without crossing the river, but as there was no path, we finally had to turn around after 2 hours walking without even seeing the lake. When we came back to the car, our driver told us that the locals which lived in the house next to which we parked, had prepared food for us. So of course we could not refuse and actually we were quite hungry after walking for so long. It was quite yummy: macaroni, potatoes and onions all fried together. In any case the best food you can get here in Tajikistan. Afterwards we went back to Khorog where we had dinner in an Indian restaurant before going back to the homestay.

Pamir Tour Day 1: Dushanbe - Kalaikhum

Tuesday 27.7.2010: shortly after 6 am we left Dushanbe in the Mitsubishi Pajero. The woman from the Vaksh hotel, who spoke some German, confirmed that the jeep was in a good condition for a tour in the Pamirs. We were relieved to hear that. There is probably nothing worse than a half-broken jeep for that kind of tour.

On the way out of Dushanbe we got a first impression on what we could expect with regards to the police. In the first few hours we were stopped 5 times and had to show our passports ... well, we only handed over our photocopies. First lesson learnt: never show your original passport! It worked in all but two cases. Some Tajik military checkpoints insisted on the originals. Our driver, Altynbek, explained that such stops would be daily business. Whenever a car - preferably a car with tourists - is stopped, the driver gets out, shows his documents and very often hands over a bribe. He said that this was the Tajik Polices way to earn money. These checkpoints accompanied us throughout the whole trip in the Pamirs. After a while it was getting really annoying.

Rolling hills and dusty roads surrounded Dushanbe. The further we got out of the city, the more donkeys could be seen and the worse became the road conditions. Many Chinese workers were doing road construction here and there. Donkeys and cows were standing on the roads. We passed them with more than 50 km/h but they didn't care at all.

Very soon did Afghanistan appear on the right-hand side and accompanied us for almost the whole trip. The difference between Tajikistan and Afghanistan was immense. While there were cars, heavily loaded trucks and roads on the Tajik side, only little trails for people and donkeys were on the Afghan side across the Pyanj river. The Pyanj river forms the border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan.

We stopped at a restaurant for lunch and we had our first Plov, a traditional rice dish in Central Asia. Leaving Dushanbe also meant leaving western toilets behind us. From now on pit toilets were common.

We stopped for the night in a homestay in Kalaikhum, which even had a hot shower. Our first hot shower in Tajikistan! Luxury!