The Pamir Highway - Illegal Entry into Tajikistan

- Thurs 12th July - Wed 17th July 2007 -

I'd been undecided (me? - never!) about whether to go to Tajikistan since planning this trip. It sounded like a wonderfully scenic country and would be the nearest I would probably get to being in Afghanistan without actually going to Afghanistan itself.

On the other hand, I wasn't sure whether I had the time or inclination to go, especially as it seemed to be hard going and difficult to get around once in the country as there is supposedly very little public transport. Furthermore, the country was still supposedly subject to archaic rules and regulations left over from Soviet times which apparently didn’t make travelling there easy.

However, after reading more about the country and meeting other travellers who were going, I decided that while I was in the area I couldn't let the opportunity to visit slip.

Lonely Planet says of the country:

"Tajikistan offers the cutting edge of Central Asian adventure travel"

and that anyone following the Pamir Highway,

"has the added thrill of knowing that few 'foreign devils' have passed this way since Francis Younghusband, the consummate 'Great Game' player. Younghusband was expelled from the Pamir's by the Russians in 1891, marking the region's closure to the outside world for the next 100 years".

That was it, - that did it for me, my mind was made up, I was going!

After getting a Tajik visa in Bishkek which was pretty straight forward, the next thing was to sort out how to get there. To continue my trip overland I would have to travel over the Pamir Highway from Osh in Kyrgyzstan to Khorog in Tajikistan. There is no public transport over this route so travelling along the highway involved either hitching, which I wasn't too keen on doing, or hiring a four wheel drive with driver, which on your own would work out expensive. All the people I meet at Nomad's Guesthouse in Bishkek who were heading to Tajikistan were unfortunately about a week ahead of me with their timetable so getting a lift with them wasn’t an option.

I left messages on the Lonely Planet - Thorntree Online Travel Forum looking for travel partners but to no avail. (The Thorntree forum has proved invaluable on this trip around Central Asia as the Central Asian LP is so out of date - typically the new one is supposed to come out in August).

I thought about making my way down to Osh, the start of the Pamir Highway, to see if I could find anyone there to go with, but as the Tajik visa starts on a specific date and not when you enter the country, I didn't want to waste time in Osh getting nowhere.

I therefore, horrors of horrors as this is supposed to be a trip without any flights, bought a flight from Bishkek to Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan for Thursday later in the week. However, miraculously on the morning of my flight, I received an email from a guy I'd met in Nomad's Guesthouse the previous week who knew of someone who was looking to go into Tajikistan over the Pamir Highway and who was in Osh at that very moment, Aled (who was from Wales believe it or not!).

After a few rushed emails and a telephone call to Osh Guesthouse where Aled was staying, it appeared that Aled had already sorted some transport out - so all I had to do was get myself to Osh as soon as possible. It was then a frantic rush around to the travel agents to cancel my flight to Dushanbe and book an alternative flight to Osh. Fortunately I got my money back for the Bishkek to Dushanbe flight.

(Now, as I've already travelled from Osh to Bishkek via road, my thinking is that a flight from Bishkek to Osh is really backtracking and is therefore not breaking my 'no-flight' rule!!??!! A tenuous link I know, but it will do)

I arrived in Osh and met up with Aled who told me that he had managed to arrange a car and a driver for the Saturday which would cost us $75US each for a days travel from Osh to a place in Tajikistan in the middle of the Pamir’s called Murghab. Most trips seem to do this in two days but Aled was short of time, which to some extent I was, and wanted to travel the whole Pamir Highway as quickly as possible. While it was going to be a long day going from Osh to Murghab in a single day, it was possible.

Another problem both Aled and myself had was that the Pamir region of Tajikistan is a quassie autonomous region called the ‘Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous’ region (GBAO) and as a consequence you need to get a special permit to enter the region. Both Aled and myself had bought such a permit over the internet from a well known Central Asian Travel Agents based in Almati in Kazakhstan but the permit still hadn't arrived the day before we were due to set off. I had the additional problem that I had to change the place where I was to pick up the permit from Dushanbe to Murghab.

Fortunately, we both received an emailed copy on Friday night which we were told would be ok to get us to Murghab but that we would have to pick up the original permit in Murghab when we got there.

The driver didn't materialise on the Saturday due to 'mechanical' problems with his car (which he told us he couldn't fix on Friday as he and the mechanic were at Friday prayers), but he assured us that we could set off on the Sunday, which at 7O'clock on Sunday morning we did, and we started on our way along the Pamir Highway.

The modern Pamir Highway (Pamirskii Trakt) from Osh in Kyrgyzstan to Khorog in Tajikistan was built by the Soviets in 1931 in order to facilitate troop movements in this very remote outpost of the Soviet Empire. The area has been off limits to foreigners until fairly recently and even now very few tourists are said to travel the highway although the number is said to be increasing every year.

The Pamir’s, known locally as the Bam-i-Dunya (Roof of the World), include parts of a number of the worlds highest mountain ranges, including the Karakoram, the Himalaya, the Hindu Cush and the Tian Shan ranges.

As the Russian Empire moved southwards in the 19th century, the Pamir’s became the arena for the original Cold War between the two World Super Powers of the time, the Russian and British Empires. The British call this phoney war the "Great Game" while the Russians call it "The Tournament of Shadows".

The Russians were the eventual winners of this phoney war and in 1895 the Anglo-Russian Border Treaty defined British India's (now Pakistan's) border and the Russian Empire's, then Soviet and now Tajikistan's border. The treaty left Afghanistan as a neutral buffer zone between the two Super Powers mainly it would seem because after several ill fated invasions of Afghanistan, both the Russians and British realised that they could not control the Afghan Tribesmen all of which, unfortunately, seems to be repeating itself today.

As with the rest of Kyrgyzstan, the scenery once we set off from Osh along the first part of the highway was spectacular, driving through mountains and along passes with lots of Yurts and herdsmen in the adjacent fields. As we got closer to Tajikistan, the mountains became higher and more snow covered. (Apparently more than half of Tajikistan lies over 3000m).

At around 2pm we arrived at the border which despite previously hearing lots of travellers tales about corrupt guards and so on, we crossed with minimal trouble and even got a handshake and "assalom u aleykum" with hand on heart (a greeting which literally translates as peace be with you) from all the border guards, something which was to be the norm when meeting anyone in Tajikistan for the next 10 days).

The Kyrgyz and Tajik border posts are 20km apart and in between you travel over the Kyzyl-Art pass which at 4282m offers fantastic views of the surrounding Pamir’s.

After eventually crossing both borders, we continued travelling through mountains up to a plateau which being largely barren except for the distant snow covered mountain peaks, reminded me very much of the Tibetan plateau.

The only settlement of any significance between the border posts and Murghab is the village of Karakul which is located next to a fantastically deep turquoise coloured lake called Lake Karakul which is apparently the highest lake in Central Asia. (Any readers of my previous Blogs may recognise that I've already been to a Lake Karakul in Xinjiang, China. Lake Karakul in Tajikistan is apparently the "Big Black lake", as opposed to Lake Karakul in Xinjiang which is called the "Lesser Black Lake" - Why "Black Lake" I have no idea, as both lakes are very blue!). Nevertheless, the village and Lake looked spectacular in their settings.

We reached the village in the early afternoon and stopped for something to eat at a home/ restaurant. Tajikistan is a poor country and this area particularly so. As a consequence food at times is supposedly quite hard to come by and is very basic. However, we managed to get quite a good meal of Plov, a Central Asian dish consisting of Rice with a small lump of meat and a few vegetables, along with lots of cups of tea which is drunk everywhere in Central Asia.

The home/ restaurant just consisted of a concrete two roomed house with the kitchen in one room and a raised seating/ sleeping platform in the other room with rugs where the food was placed and cushions and blankets for use during eating and sleeping. There didn't seem to be any other furniture or ornaments in the entire house.

After eating, we continued along the highway where the landscape became increasingly barren, something similar to the scenery you see from the TV in Afghanistan, which is not surprising as the area gets very little rainfall.

Just before Murghab, we drove over the Ak-Baital (White Horse) pass which at 4655m is the highest point along the whole Pamir Highway.

We arrived at Murghab around 7:30pm, roughly 12 hours after we had started. We quickly found somewhere to stay which was next to the ACTED/ MSDSP Agency office where we had to pick up our original GBAO permits and register with the KGB the following morning. (ACTED/ MSDSP are two separate NGO/ Tourist Organisations/ Programs located in the GBAO area which are responsible for aid programs and are each trying to promote Ecotourism in the area). While other Central Asian countries have done away with the KGB, or at least renamed the organisation, Tajikistan for some reason has kept the KGB name going.

The Autonomous GBAO region comprises roughly 45% of Tajikistan but only around 3% of its population. Culturally speaking, the region extends into Afghanistan where a large number of ethnic Tajik's live. In fact fewer than half the worlds Tajik's are said to live in Tajikistan with large numbers of Tajik’s living in Afghanistan and Xinjiang in China, and in all the Central Asian Republics - thanks to Stalin's gerrymandering of the borders in this part of the world.

There are also plenty of Kyrgyz in this part of Tajikistan as can be seen by the continued appearance of Yurts in the surrounding fields and the Kyrgyz felt hat which seems to be worn by a large percentage of the Kyrgyz male population.

The Pamir Tajik’s speak a different language to the rest of Tajikistan and follow the Ismaili sect of Shiite Islam whose spiritual leader is the Aga Khan who is revered by the Pamiri's as a living god and the 49th Iman.

The GBAO nominally declared independence in 1992 from the rest of Tajikistan and chose the rebel side in the civil war that engulfed Tajikistan after the break up of the Soviet Union. As a consequence the area didn't receive much aid from the central government. Tajikistan was always the poorest Soviet republic in the old Soviet Union but the civil war is said to have plunged the country from part of a World Super Power to one of the 30 poorest countries within a decade with over 60% of the population during the 90's said to live in abject poverty.

Throughout most of the 1990's, humanitarian aid convoys, including those from the Aga Khan Foundation are said to have kept the GBAO region from staving. (I must at some stage find out a bit more about the Aga Khan and how he (or his predecessors) became so rich and known as 'living' gods - If anyone knows, please let me know!)

While getting food in the area now doesn't seem to be a problem, although it remains very basic, running water has yet to arrive in homes in Murghab and has to be obtained from a water pump in the middle of the village. The following morning the kids took great delight in getting me to take their photograph while they were using the pump to get the morning's water.

After a good nights sleep at the guesthouse, first thing in the morning we ventured out to try and locate our permits and to register with the police and KGB (by law you have to register within 72 hours of arriving in the country). We now also needed to try and find a lift on towards Khorog, the administrative 'capital' town of the ‘Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous’ region.

We quickly located the ACTED/ MSDSP representative who told us that the copy of the GAOB permit that we already had was all we needed and he then took us to find the KGB representative so we could register. Now, I have always had visions of the KGB being hard cruel nasty henchmen who you wouldn't ever want to meet. However, when we arrived at the KGB offices we were greeted by the ‘head’ of the KGB in Murghab who turned out to be a friendly old women dressed in headscarf and Muslim dress who greeted us with a handshake and an “assalom u aleykum”. She very politely informed us that she couldn't register us as we had to do this in Khorog and that the copies of our permits were indeed all we needed. (BIG, BIG mistake - but when the ‘head’ of the KGB tells you something, you tend to believe them!!)

These two tasks done (or not as the case was) we then tried to find some transport out of the village. This again didn't prove to be difficult as a guy with a Mashuter (mini bus) was making the trip to Khorog at 10 O'clock that morning. So we quickly packed our belongings and checked out of the Guesthouse and jumped into the bus.

To begin with there were only three of us in the mini bus but the bus soon filled up with some passengers paying their way by giving the driver bread and/ or cheese. Apparently the area during the worst times of the Civil war and its aftermath abandoned money for some services altogether and things were paid for with food and other goods. As I spent more time in the country it became more and more unbelievable that Tajikistan was once a part of a so called ‘World Super Power’, with Tajikistan probably being one of the poorest countries I have ever visited.

The 310km drive to Khorog took us around 8 hours and was again through the usual scenery, barren mountains punctuated with the occasional green valley with a river running through. There are supposed to be plenty of ruined forts and caravanserais just off the main highway along the route but due to our timetable we didn't have time to stop and look.

We reached Khorog about 7:00pm in the evening and found a 'home stay' to stay the night. ‘Home Stay’s’ are quite popular in Central Asia and are basically what the name says, homes where the owners let you stay for the night. Some are more official than others and are in reality more like Bed and Breakfasts, while others are literally just someone's home where depending on how well off they are, you either stay in the spare room or you take their beds while they find somewhere else to stay/ sleep.

In this particular home stay, we stayed in what looked like the main living room sleeping on thin mattresses with blankets and quilts to cover us. The room was of a traditional Ismailli design being quite big with four columns in the middle part of the room and being reasonably empty apart from the obligatory picture of the Aga Khan hanging on the wall.

Khorag is located on the Afghan / Tajik border in a steep narrow valley within which the Daryoi Pani River runs through. The town looked like it would be quite interesting to stay for a day and so this is where I took leave of Aled who wanted to get to Dushanbe as quickly as possible. The following day, Aled caught a plane to Dushanbe while I intended to stay in Khorog for a day before then catching a bus to Dushanbe. This, as events materialised was a big mistake!

Being now on my own, I decided check into a proper guesthouse, the only one in town. By chance I bumped into three guys, (Neil an American, Jason an Australian, and an Irish guy whose name I can’t remember right at this moment) who I had previously met in Nomad's Guesthouse in Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan a couple of weeks previously and who I'd had the night out with at the "Russian Karaoke".

The three of them had bought a jeep in Bishkek and therefore having their own transport had been to all manor of places in ‘Gorno-Badakhshan’ and had taken a couple of weeks to get to Khorog instead of going more or less straight there in a matter of days like Aled and myself.

Spending a day in Khorog meant that I had to register in Khorog instead of being able to register in Dushanbe (as Aled was going to) as my 72 hours in which you have to register from entering the country was nearly up. Although having already registered in Murghab, the three other guys had to also re-register in Khorog, Khorog being the main administrative town in the GBAO area. I wanted to do this straight away so while the other two were still in bed, Neil decided to come along with me to see where they had to register.

I thought that this registration business would be a simple matter of procedure and would take about 10 minutes which would then leave me with the rest of the day to look around the town - little did I know!!

Once we had managed to get into the police station where we had to register, we got taken to a small room where the 'Registration Lady' resided. After looking at our documents it became clear that everything was not going to be as straight forward as I had hoped. A translator was called for and after arriving, it was explained to us that a simple copy of the GBOA permit that I, and Neil, had been told was acceptable in Murghab, was not acceptable at all and that without the original copy, we had entered the country illegally and would be subject to a very heavy fine!!

Still at this stage, I was confident that all it would take was a simple phone call to clear everything up. Unfortunately, no one seemed to be answering the phone at the ACTED/ MSDSP office in Murghab where the original copy of my permit was supposed to be.

Neil on the other hand, had got his permit over the internet from a Travel Agent actually based in Khorog and was supposed to pick it up that morning. However, he had also been told in Murghab that a photocopy was good enough and had come along with me without picking the original permit up. However, despite explaining that he would go straight away and get the original from the travel agents, the ‘Registration’ lady and translator would not let him out of the room and were determined to fine him as well.

After a couple of hours of arguments and Neil raging at the ‘Registration’ woman and interpreter, we finally managed to get out of the police station promising to come back in the afternoon with news of our permits, (it was lunch time so I think they just wanted to get rid of us for a couple of hours and get some lunch).

Neil went straight to the travel agent to get his 'original' copy of the permit while I went to try and make a few phone calls. Unfortunately, I couldn't get through to any of the contact numbers in Tajikistan that the travel agents that I had bought the permit from over the internet had given me. The internet was down, as it apparently had been for the last three days, so there was no way to get hold of any one via email. So I was struggling.

When I returned to the police station after several hours trying to get hold of people who should have been able to confirm to the police where the original copy of my permit was but without any luck, the local travel agent who Neil had got his permit from was sitting in the 'Registration' woman's office along with Neil and the two other guys.

We tried again to get hold of the ACTED/ MSDSP office in Murghab by telephone but still no luck. I was then told again what a serious matter it was that I hadn't got the original copy of my permit and that I would have to pay a fine of $300US plus the price of another permit, $24. After another hour where we went over everything again and again and again, and everyone had argued on my behalf, the 'Registration’ lady agreed to give me until the end of the working day to get proof of where my original permit was.

But no luck, Now ALL the communication systems in town seemed to be down, the Internet and now the Telephone system! After several hours getting nowhere, I returned to the police station looking very sorry for myself along with the local travel agent being resigned to paying the fine. However, after several long conversations between the local travel agent and the ‘Registration’ lady, with the two continuously glancing over towards me, the local travel agent finally spoke - "As you don’t look like a rich man (Ahh the benefits of travelling with only a few clothes for 4 months!!), we will let you go if you agree to pay $100 instead of $300, and I will issue you with a new permit and back date it, but you must promise not tell anyone that we have done this"!!

So a planned day of sight seeing in Khorog turned into a day at the police office and a $124 fine. When I'd paid the fine and we were all departing the office, I inadvertedly noticed the local travel agent casually putting $50 of my $100 fine into his back pocket when he thought I wasn’t looking!!

So was it a scam or not? The three lads back at the guesthouse certainly thought so and were ready to confront the local travel agent the next day and leave messages on the LP Thorntree Travel Forum saying what a crook he was and that people shouldn’t give him any more business so on. For me, I'm not so sure. As far as I see it, although the local travel agent got $50 in his pocket out of my predicament, I could have ended up paying a $300 fine instead of $100 without his help - or am I just being naive?

The following day, Neil and the other lads were heading down into an area of Tajikistan called the ‘Wakhan Valley’ which runs along the Afghanistan border and is supposedly 'very' Afghan. They wanted me to go with them, but the area is still in the GBAO region and after the day I had had, all I wanted to do was get right out of here and head towards Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, which was outside the ‘Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous’ region.

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