Blogs from Tajikistan, Asia - page 8

Day 81 Friday 8th April 2016 – Dushanbe to Penjikent Moving day and we have nothing booked so asked reception for some advice on getting to the city of Penjikent. The hotel has its own driver who could take us to the shared taxi rank and negotiate our fare, we paid him more than a normal taxi but he sure did earn his money. All the shared taxis leave from an area called the “cement factory” (because it is next to one) and it is located about 15 minutes from the centre of town. As soon as we stopped the car we were besieged by dozens of men trying to get our fare. The driver indicated for us to stay in the car as he battled, fought and screamed at them all, before calling ... read more

Onward to Dushanbe, and again it's going to be a shared taxi for the 13+ hour trip. Luckily there were two Swiss girls in the same homestay who were also going, one of them had been in Tajikistan for three months on an internship so her host family were able to arrange a driver to pick us up and by paying for an extra seat we were able to avoid some of the regular joys of travel here. Strangely by avoiding the normal negotiating, waiting, detours, and overcrowding it felt like we'd cheated a bit – we need to have some strong words with ourselves !!! Dushanbe is a bit of an odd place that seems to be trying to ignore the rest of the country and reality. It has wide tree lined boulevards, big new ... read more

We're nearly there! We left Khorog early and planned on a quick stop off in the Jizeu valley before making more progress towards the final destination, Qurgonteppa. The roads were good so we got to the Jizeu bridge at midday. It's just "the bridge" because the actual village is a 2 hour hike up the valley. We walked along the crystal clear water until we got to the most surreal village I've ever seen. It was like walking into the Shire from Lord of the Rings. Everything was so lush and green with bright blue ponds/lakes dotted about and white peaks on the horizon. With 14 houses making up the whole village, I can understand the confused looks we were getting as we walked through. We were offered tea in a few of the houses but ... 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

Geo: 38.1702, 73.9667Spent the day driving through the Pamirs high altitudevalleys looking at Marmots, Yaks and Yurts… and finally managed to find a placeto camp south of Murgab at 3500mtrs…. Hum we like the smell of thicker air.... read more