Blogs from Tajikistan, Asia - page 15

The trip south into the Pamirs was the real definitation of a road journey. The total trip, virtually non-stop was 20 hours along very scenic but often quite frightening mountain scenary. My day started early leaving the Adventureer's Inn at 6am following by a taxi ride across town towards the airport and shared taxi stop for the Pamirs. I met a guy who looked like a 'good' driver and we decided on 170 somoni for a seat in his land crusier. The custom is that drivers car rent out single seats to whoever wants to make the trip. After sitting around for a couple of hours waiting for the other seats to fill I was getting a little concerned that he wasn't being very persistent with his attempts to lure more passengers. However, I ended up ... read more

A little of the journey follows. With Katherine (an english historian I met in the hostel) I caught a shared taxi from nearby the hostel. This was a first mistake of a couple made which clearly just adds to experience without all that much danger. He drove us literatly 800 metres and stopped at a share taxi station. The problem was it was the wrong taxi station and then after heavy price negiation we finally were on our way to the right station about 6kms from the centre. There were as usual at these types of places 10s of people crowded around for our chat with the driver to figure out the cost. After about 20 mins or so we settled on 30,000 som each (per seat) for the trip from Samarqand to Dacau in the ... read more

Big day of tasting, today. 31 wines in two caves (before and after lunch - a day of two caves, as you might say), and the lesson is that the French are not going to let just any geek off the street taste their best wine. We learned that the 2000 reds are in decline, and the Burgundians are trying to get rid of them, The 2004 reds were mostly no good. We tasted one worthwhile red, and one worthwhile white and the rest was OK or corked, or just no good. Also, the metal dimpled, saucer-shaped tastevin they issue you with at the door is an excellent way to limit consumption and keep the punters sober, but it is an appalling way to try to judge the aroma of a wine. Also, it imparts an ... read more

TAJIKISTAN - (July 2007) Thurs 12th - Wed 17th July - (The Pamir Highway) 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 in the country easy. However, after reading more about the country and meeting other travellers who were ... read more

Safely arrived in Dushanbe, I took my time to relax and regain strength for the next step of my journey... The city itself is very nice, though unexciting and not very interesting. You’ll find tree-lined avenues filled with Russian cars, big Land rovers of development aid workers and the occasional Mercedes of a Tajik who made his fortune with his contacts or by selling out the country's resources to mainly Russian, Chinese or British companies. You'll find Russian style stucco houses in pale colors, preferably light pink or fading green with huge white balustrades overlooking the shaded pave walk. Down there, the leftover of the Russian population tries not to blend in the Tajik majority. You can even treat yourself to a good meal of international cuisine from Georgian to Indian, you can find a restaurant ... read more