Blogs from Murgab, Tajikistan, Asia

Day 16 Marjanay Jailoo (Summer Pasture Spot) to Alichur, via The Hot Springs Near Bulunkul Lake Sleeping altitude 3881m A big day- you've got 76 photos to look at! And a lot to read! The Four Egg Day We sat down after the morning's walk from our pasture land campsite of the night before to our lunch time picnic of 4 boiled eggs. Four cracked, seen better days, boiled eggs. What preceded the 4 boiled eggs? I'll backtrack... Getting up with the sun this morning the cows were out and eating the sparse grass, Pharlap and Mustang were also eating the sparse grass. The stream nearby was running to wash last nights dinner dishes (although I suspect the cows, Pharlap and Mustang may have provided a pre-wash) and a cloud lay over the mountains- the first ... read more

July 22 - Pamir Highway trip Day 11 - Murgab to Karakul Today we had breakfast at 8am and our new driver, Baatr, arrived in a flashy red jeep. We paid Dish and he took off home. He couldn't come with us because his passport expired. It will only take him six hours to get back to Khorog, while it's taken us about a week to get here from there. We had to wait for our new driver to come back, as he had gone home for something, I think. He picked us up around 9:15am and then we hit the road. We drove first on a slight detour to Pshart Valley, just outside of Mugrab. We drove in for about an hour, and it was quite beautiful. It was a dirt track, but it was ... read more

PAMIR x 2! THE RETURN! Riding on the Pamir Highway from Alichur, Tajikistan, to Sary Tash, Kyrgyzstan. To make it short for those of you who don’t want to read the whole thing... I ended up riding on the Pamir Highway again, this time with a nice tail wind (except the last day to the border) and as you can imagine, it was fantastic, with blue sky, snow capped-mountains, clear streams, turquoise lakes, peaceful camping at high altitude and serenity all over! Loved the Pamir! I had been riding with Sacha (young man from Geneva) through the Wakhan Corridor and the area around Bulunkul for 6 days when we reached Alichur. Sacha’s friends were waiting for us in a yurt outside town. When we got there, the 2 girls (Maria and Manon, both from Switzerland) informed ... read more

THE PAMIR HIGHWAY IN TAJIKISTAN Bienvenue au Tajikistan! (Francais en bas de la page) The second-highest altitude international highway in the world (4,655 m). THE PHYSICAL CHALLENGE: From Sary Tash, Kyrgyzstan, I climbed up to 4285m of altitude to reach the Tajik border. It was very tough. Of course I was on a dirt road, alone, and carrying heavy bags (more than 50kg) with 7 liters of water (too much since I realized I could drink the water from streams coming down from the surrounding snow-capped mountains). I had to stop every minute or so to catch my breath. I didn’t have any headache but it took me a long time to get to the summit. Many people had told me that once on the top, on the plateau, riding on Pamir Highway would be easy. ... read more

Here we are setting out from Khorog again on our second attempt to get to Murghab. This time we're taking the Pamir Highway, built by the Soviets in 1931-1934 to facilitate troop transport into the remote region. It was off-limits to travellers until recently and its still a pretty remote road mostly used by Chinese trucks. We pass a couple of large truck compounds on our way. The first 70 miles or so is through the green Gunt Valley (sorry - no photos, they have gone missing) and then we start slowly and steadily climbing upto the Koi-Tezek Pass (4272m) and the Pamir plateau. At the top there's lots of the snow and the temperatures drop right down. But its nothing like the 'muddy pass' the other day, the road surface is good and we manage ... read more