Blogs from Khorog, Tajikistan, Asia

Day 11 3rd Village Jizeu/Gizeiv, Bartang Valley to Khorog Driving Distance- 60km Sleeping altitude 2200m Woke up early, chilly out but toasty in those quilts. Such a beautiful place to sleep! Took a wander down to the river, light was pretty special. Had breakfast with the Israelis, they run an organic flower farm and are well travelled. We share rice with milk, jams, tea and bread. Mohammed and I take off for a 5km return hike to the next village and lake . It's mostly a gentle grassy uphill walk, whenever there's an uphill though I get out of breath really quickly, it's annoying. Lots of little streams, trees, flowers and bird life once again. Wander around the lake for a while before backtracking. By the time we are back at Munira's the early chill has ... read more

Chances are, if you are reading this blog, you either have an insatiable appetite for traveling in the more remote or lesser known places on this planet or you are a friend or family member. Either way, welcome to one of our more unique adventures. Introduction Until recently, any country containing the syllable “stan” would not have been high on our list of places to visit, but then we discovered that Shane Dallas, a.k.a. the Travel Camel was organizing a 14-day excursion to Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is most worthy of note that the Travel Camel goes on the road less traveled. He is the traveler’s traveler. You will not find him hobnobbing at the Cannes Film Festival or working on his tan in San Moritz. You’re more likely to find him in Iran, Afghanistan or ... read more

July 17 - Pamir Highway trip Day 6 - Khorog to Yamchun Last night I slept pretty well. I think that is the first time in three weeks. I still got up early and decided to use the internet while it was available to update the blog. Very exciting. I also ate some day old bread and repacked quickly, once it was 8:30. We left Khorog at 9am, and started our first day in the Wakhan Valley. It is supposed to have the best views of the whole trip. We are still driving alongside Afghanistan, which is always stunning, but now we can also see the snow-capped Hindu Kush mountains behind them. This is the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. First stop of the day was tiny Dasht village, 1.7 km uphill from Anderob village. It ... read more

Geo: 37.4867, 71.5498Time Check: 0625 Thursday 15th JulyLocation: The LAL Inn Khorog. The LAL Inn is a reasonably well appointed hotel run by a hard faced and humourless Russian who looks like Putins brother. We have a interesting Pigeon Loft at the end of our corridor....Highlights: Mega good Indian meal last night in the Aga Khan Foundation Building:Group Update: The Vegetarian has suddenly started to eat chicken for some reason.... No incidents to report apart from some discontent about single room allocations.We have been on the go since leaving Dushanbe on Monday. Khorog is a 1/4 Horse Town and regional centre for this area. There is a small airport/landing strip which is equipped with the latest "wind sock". There a high mountains at both ends of the Runway and apparantly the slightest cloud means NO FLIGHTS.Today ... read more

This blog comes in three parts ... Khorog to Yamchun We woke up in Khorog planning to set off after giving the car a service. It ended up taking longer than expected to tinker with the car so we left around midday. The drive was amazing, the roads were surprisingly good too. We managed to make good progress until we turned a corner only to find a lorry on it's side blocking the whole road. We were thinking of what to do because if we couldn't pass the only option was to wait for the lorry to be moved (could take days) or turn back. When we arrived a big 4x4 was struggling to drive up a verge onto the neighbouring farmers field in an attempt to drive round the lorry. Our chances of getting up ... read more