Paul and Tim Take on Tajikistan

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Boy oh boy! Tajikistan is crazy!



This email is going to run a bit on the longer side but I think you’ll enjoy the read.



First of all, I'll tell a little bit about Tajikistan’s recent history so you can get an idea about where my brother and I are. Basically, during the Soviet era, there was al-Qaeda and Taliban backed Islamic Fundamentalism simmering throughout the region. For the most part, Moscow kept a lid on the ethnic and clan-based tensions in the region. When independence came in 1991, the place disintegrated into full scale civil war, killing upwards of 60,000 and displacing over half a million refugees. To solve the problem, a Russian backed president was installed to fight the extremists. The President’s forces, led by Sanjak Safarov (who had previously spent 23 years in prison for murder), then embarked on an orgy of ethnic cleansing directed at anyone who looked even remotely Arab or Afghani. In 1996 a cease-fire was declared and some semblance of peace was achieved. This little stain on the region really hit the people hard. During the civil war Tajikistan’s GDP per capita shrank 70 percent to US$330, plunging it from part of a global superpower to one of the poorest countries in less than a decade.



Currently, there are 20,000 Russian troops protecting the border. Initially, they were there to stop the spread of Islamic Fundamentalism from Afghanistan. But when the US and its Allies Tali-BAMMED the Taliban the Russian troops stayed behind to stop the illicit flow of heroin. Thanks to a porous 1300 km border with Afghanistan, Tajikistan in one of the world’s major drug conduits. Tajikistan is the third largest seizer of heroin and opium, literally seizing tons of the stuff every month. It is estimated that up to 50 percent of the Tajik economy is linked to the heroin trade.



Welcome to Tajikistan!



The main reason my brother and I decided to come here was to travel the Pamir Highway. The highway stretches from Osh all the way to Khorog. There are about 10 mountain passes - each over 4200 meters. To put that height into perspective Mont Blanc, the highest point in Europe, is 4807 meters, Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the lower 48 States of America, is 4417 meters, and Mt. Elbert, the highest point in Colorado is 4399 meters. Basically, we drove over the highest points in America three or four times a day and drove over Mt. Blanc twice. And all this driving was done on the illustrious Pamir Highway, which isn't so much of a "highway" as it is a 200 mile long dirt trail full of potholes with intermittent stretches of asphalt.



We started in Osh (which is still in Kyrgyzstan). There isn’t much to say about Osh except that it has some similarities to Egypt. Both have Islamic radicals that get killed by the government once in a while. And both have tea houses. In Egypt everyone sits and drinks tea in Egyptian tea houses. For the most part, they are really boring. In Osh, they have Egyptian tea houses, except there are people pounding bottles of vodka and screaming and yelling at one another - or sometimes at no one at all. There are also kids sniffing glue out front. All things considered, I prefer the Osh tea houses to the Egyptian tea houses, mainly because one doesn’t have any Egyptians.



The first section of the Pamir Highway was from Osh to Stary Tash. We did this by hiring a private taxi. The first stretch wasn't so bad mainly because we had a great driver. I think the driver was so awesome because his entire top row of teeth were covered in shiny gold. Plus the car was blessed by a 3 foot high gypsy woman with a pot full of smoking herbs before we started the drive. Furthermore, as we started to climb the mountain passes it became exponentially cold, but our driver had packed a giant babushka between my brother and I for the ride. She was like a big, fat, heat generating machine and kept the whole car toasty. It was during this part of the drive that the green yurt-covered pastures full of roaming horses turned into barren yurt covered valleys full of yaks.



The next stretch was from Stary Tash to Karakol. This is the stretch where you actually cross into Tajikistan between two 7000 meter peaks. We decided to hitch-hike this stretch of the "highway." We were lucky enough to be picked up by a gigantic Russian uber-truck that was taking milk into Afghanistan. After about 10 hours of driving we arrived at our first stop in Tajikistan - Lake Karakul. It was during this part of the drive that the barren yurt covered valleys full of yaks turned into noting but dirt, rocks and more dirt and rocks.



Lake Karakul (3914 m) is a high altitude salt water lake that was formed when a meteor crashed into the mountains ten million years ago. It's a beautiful place; a large blue lake surrounded by 7000 meter peaks on all sides, and a beautiful view of the night sky. Unfortunately, we ended up getting stuck at the lake for three days. Once we hopped out of the truck we lost our ride and needed to catch another one. The problem was only about 3 cars a day would go in the direction we were going. And another problem was, more often than not, these cars were packed full of uneducated rural working class people (or a less politically correct description, courtesy of my brother, would be; Dirty Idiots) on their way to Murgab (the next stop.) The cars would stop at the truck stop and the “Dirty Idiots” would eat, refresh and ask us for money. The “Dirty Idiots” were also very impressed with shiny things that didn't belong to them, such as a camera, more specifically, my camera. The “Dirty Idiots” also like to take shiny things that don’t belong to them, such as a camera, more specifically, my camera. So, I'm sorry to say, there aren’t going to be any pictures of Afghanistan thanks to some dirty idiot. You are just going to have to come out here and see it for yourself - I suggest on a honeymoon or a 50th wedding anniversary. Both would be ideal occasions.



After about 3 days at the truck stop we finally got someone to take us on to Murgab. This was where we climbed the highest pass at 4,655 meters. It is crazy how the altitude will affect you up there. You can't think. You start to forget how to speak English let alone be able to babble things in Russian. You'll also be giddy and then really angry at something you shouldn't be angry at - like a rock, a yak, or the sun. It's kind of weird. Another interesting thing about this stretch of the highway was that it followed along the Chinese border, which you couldn’t mistake because of a long endless fence that paralleled the road. The border was so close sometimes that my brother and I took the opportunity to throw rocks at China.



Murgab (3576 m) was a pretty interesting place. It was a town placed in a valley that looked like a moonscape. There were no trees, no crops, and nothing to do. Not only did the place look like the moon, but I think the people probably came from the moon. These people just lived up in a dirt town for three months out of the year in summer and the rest of the time it is covered in 6 feet of snow. It was cold and boring, and yet again, for lack of a better word... weird. While in Murgab we took some time to bathe in a hot spring, our first cleaning in four days, and arrange transport for the last leg.



The final stretch of the highway was actually off a detour through the Wakhan Valley along the border of Afghanistan and Tajikistan. This section of "road" made the previous section seem like the autobahn. Lucky for us, we had one of the worst drivers in history. As it turns out, having a full set of sparkling gold teeth neither makes you a good driver nor very efficient as a guide. We planned to leave Murgab at nine in the morning. We left at four in the afternoon. While on our way out of Murgab there were problems at the city check point. My brother and I messed around with registration, and our intrepid driver forgot his documents. So it was back to Murgab to meet the entire Murgab police force, the entire Murgab KGB office, and the entire Murgab militia. All very fine folks and the shiniest sets of sparkling gold teeth you ever did see. If you cracked a joke all of their smiles at the same time looked like a golden keyboard. Beautiful.



So, we left again (at 5 pm) to make it to the next checkpoint in the Wakhan Valley. The problem was that the checkpoint closed at 10 pm and the drive was supposed to take 10 hours. So, our “Golden Driver” decided to throw his kid in the back on our little adventure and off we went like a group of Mujahadeen on our way to Jihad!



After a hair-raising and bone jarring blitz, we made it to the check point at about 9:45 PM to meet a unit of nice doe-eyed young recruits. They were obviously very new to the army, one young man even managed to get his Kalashnikov stuck in the door of our car. And as usual in ex-Soviet places, there were problems with everything; our stamps, our visas, and our documents. Luckily it wasn’t anything two Chinese beers given as a "gift” to the Commanding Officer couldn’t solve.



By this time it was getting very dark and we still had another couple of hours to go down the rocky, pot-holed, unlit, and generally super-duper dangerous road until we got to our first stop. At one point, as we were going along a precarious cliff, the driver mentioned to us that 20 cars had fallen off the road here. In hindsight, I think I misunderstood his Russian and he said that HE drove 20 cars off the cliff.



Regardless of our driver’s best efforts we finally got to the bottom of the pass safely and got to see our first real glimpse of Afghanistan, unfortunately, it was at night and could only see giant dark blobs of mountains. But as things turn out, we did get to see something else that most people will never get a chance to see. As we were plodding along the road next to the river that acts as a border with Afghanistan, we saw an Afghan crossing our path with his donkey. Now get this - his donkey happened to be fully laden with that most popular poppy product. That’s right ladies and gentleman; we saw a donkey hauling heroin out of Afghanistan. In about a month that donkey’s cargo is going to be on the streets of Paris. It was like something out of a movie.



So, we finally got to our next stop, Langar. When we awoke the next day we got a chance to see what Afghanistan really looks like. It turns out it is quite beautiful. There are the giant mountains of the Hindu Kush (Killer of Hindus) on the Afghan side and gigantic 7000 meter peaks on the Tajik side. Generally the mountains are barren and rocky, as a matter of fact, we hadn’t seen a tree much less any vegetation for the whole trip thus far. But on the valley floor there are people living in a remarkable lush environment. The valley people had carved numerous irrigation canals into the mountain sides allowing them to irrigate and farm the otherwise desolate land. It was really nice and made me think of what the Hanging Gardens of Babylon must have looked like… minus huge mountains. Furthermore, the people of the valley were much nicer than the people back in Murgab and they also didn't insist on asking you for money or taking things that didn't belong to them.



From Langar it was on to Ishkashim, an Afghan/Tajik border town. The trip down the valley was interesting enough; we did a bit of hiking, saw some abandoned forts that used to protect the “Silk Road,” and swam in some mineral springs. All very pleasant. Then we arrived in Ishkashim. Generally, border towns are sketchy. I’ll go so far to say that an Afghan/Tajik border town is the mother off all border towns. First of all, when we arrived everyone in the town was drunk; the kids, their parents, the police, the animals, EVERYONE! As we got out of the car to let some local children ogle at the tourists, we tried to make friends with a friendly looking dog. Just as we started to make some progress with the overly skittish dog, a drunken police detective stumbles up and kicks the dog in the face then yells at us to go register at the police station. YES SIR!



Not surprisingly, everyone at the police station was totally hammered. We went to the proper office to sit down and talk with a totally inebriated customs official. He was a nice enough guy, at least when he wasn’t banging into file cabinets, talking about how much he got laid, or was pouring vodka down our throats. (Vodka, by the way, that we bought him because our golden-teethed driver insisted on bribing everyone.) He did something with our passports, slapped us on the back, and asked if we’d like any prostitutes. We politely declined and scampered off to sleep… and forget.



Next stop was Khorog. Khorog is the region’s capital. A nice enough place. Very beautiful in the summer. But in the winter it is a place to be reckoned with. Freezing temperatures and nine months of snow is the norm. Everything in this region is designed to survive in a totally inhospitable environment. All things need to be rough and durable, this includes: the buildings, the toilet paper, and the women! One of the Tajik woman that caught my fancy was the cousin of the woman whose home-stay we were at. (There are no hotels so you stay in people’s houses for five bucks a day.) The cousin wasn’t particularly attractive (or unattractive), but she did gain my attention when I saw her catch a goat on her own. Instead of using lawn mowers the people just tie goats up in parts of their yards to cut/eat the grass. This particular lawn-mowing goat got loose and was jumping around on top of a rock wall. This girl just went up and grabbed the goat as it was jumping around and kicking like crazy, then threw a rope around its neck without thinking twice about it. I was thoroughly impressed… and infatuated. Another woman that was real peach was the clerk at the Khorog KGB office. She was nice enough to try and stick my brother and I each with a two hundred dollar fine because, as she said, “She was trying to protect the tourist industry.” Ahhhh, Soviet holdovers, you gotta love em’!



Overall, Khorog was a great place. We ended up spending a week there just to hike around and mellow out after the journey. The home-stay we were at was fantastic. The whole family just took us in like we were supposed to be there. My brother and I got to play "mountain farmer" for a while. We learned how to push farm animals around and make them do what we want. We also became very acclimated with outhouses and the "Oriental squat." As long as you avoided the KGB hell-cats and the numerous offers to settle down and marry a local girl, the place was very pleasant.



From Khorog it was a final trip to the Dushanbe, the capital. The bone-jarring 22-hour cab ride was, for the most part, uneventful; with the exception of driving through a river, seeing an overturned bus, passing numerous destroyed tanks, avoiding women fighting one another over a blanket, and being pestered by the occasional bribe minded policeman.



All things considered, our little trip along the Pamir Highway was quite an adventure. To follow along a dangerous river bordering two worn torn nations on an even more dangerous road was both thrilling and frightening, depending on your confidence in the driver. And to see the gigantic peaks of Afghanistan as well as the people that are basically Afghans, only being separated by a river, was an experience I won’t soon forget… or be willing to repeat. It was Travel with a capital “T.”



From here we still have to get our visas for Uzbekistan, which I’m sure will be more trouble than it needs to be, and then carry on to our next destination.



Stay in touch! I really, really need contact with the West.



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Marco Paulo

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Photos

Tajikistan
Middle of fucking no where.