Kyrgyzstan Pt. 1

Kyrgyzstan. A new world?

And suddenly we were there. We arrived at the border post to be promptly ignored. Unfortunately we'd been preceded by a couple of trucks waiting to cross from the other direction, so the border personnel were busy processing these. Of course they weren't busy as such. This wasn't the M1 we were travelling on after all. I guessed that more than one vehicle per day was seen as heavy workload by the border personnel. With Bjorn and I sat chatting and filling our time by discussing the possibility of Dog 'dazing' one of the growling brutes roaming around the border post, I then noticed the truck drivers had finally climbed up into their cabs to organise themselves. They'd evidently been processed and were therefore no longer taking up any more of the border officials precious time. A few minutes thinking and reacting time later, and the nearest guard eventually opened the barrier and waved us through.

We're in! It was always with mixed feelings I crossed into another country and this border crossing was no different to any of the others in that regard. It was nice to see a bit more colour in the landscape once more, but Tajikistan had a kind of stark beauty that grew on you. The people too had been very open, and warmly hospitable too. It had not been an easy country to travel across because of the often appalling state of the roads, but it was nevertheless Tajikistan was one of the most rewarding countries I'd visited to date. And here we'd crossed into the realms of one of the other major Central Asian tribes. The Kyrgyz'. The odd but distinctly shaped hat was now the commonest chapeau to seen as we passed a plateau dotted with yurts. One other important feature of crossing into Kyrgyzstan was that there were horses. Not just one or two, but in some cases we were to pass herds either grazing or being driven along. In spotting any horses on the move it would call for more caution in passing them, as they were far more mobile than cows, goats or yaks. Things happened mostly in slow motion with cows and yaks, and the goats stuck together like glue as well as being able to flit out of the way of the front wheel with ease. But I didn't fancy being bulldozed by a panicking stallion too much, so crept by slowly watching any skittish individuals closely. Some of the bigger stallions could become aggressive too, but not having a Horse-dazer preferred to give them a wide-berth.

And from past writing you'll be aware that changes of road condition was of considerable interest for us too.

So what did the roads in Kyrgystan present us with then? And the short answer was ... a few nasty surprises. When traversing the higher passes I didn't really expect too much, but was hopeful that as we made our way towards some of the main centres of civilisation and the dots on the map became spots then eventually surrounded by brown smudges to indicate something more urbane, the quality and consistency of the roads would improve. Huh! Sad, over-optimistic, soft, soppy and ultimately spoiled Westerner that I am, was to be severely disappointed.

An hour inside the country and we were making our way across a plateau in the early afternoon sunshine. To my eyes it looked quite pretty after days in the The Pamirs rock-world. I for one had that spring in my step ... or whatever the motorbike riding equivalent is. And was looking forward to seeing what Kyrgyzstan was going to bring to our travel experiences. The only dark cloud, was for getting into and through China after the blow in finding about the Torgurat Pass closure, but at this moment didn't need to worry about that particular conundrum. In drifting down from the higher parts of the mountains the roads did indeed get better. So much so that I was able to ride along for quite some distance in top gear, which was something I'd not managed very often in Tajikistan. It was that 'new country' buzz that did it. That feeling of being in a new land where things were 'better'. Or the optimism that changing or doing something different can frequently bring.

There we were riding along an arrow-straight road with relatively few pot-holes, and because of it's improved condition were managing to sustain a speed of something like 50 Kms/hr ... an almost unheard of speed where we'd just come from. Most certainly when riding the GBAO roads away from the main centres of civilisation we found that it was simply not possible to average much more than 25Kms/hr ... even less at times, with us not able to get out of either 1st or 2nd gear for long stretches.

According to our map and with these improved speeds, we were only an hour or so away from the next town-sized habitation. To be able to make that sort of progress out here was very encouraging I thought. We continued onwards and in looking well ahead and with good visibility had plenty of warning for the few big holes in the road surface. We even got into what could be construed as a rhythm for weaving in between these pot-holes. Admittedly I missed the right line a few times, but the suspension handled things without too big a jolt as the front-wheel went down into the occasional rut. When I look back now what I was doing was beginning to throw caution to the wind, as I was on a 'high' at being able to achieve such good speed. After doing the map-check and guess-timating travel times relative to a European ride, was keen to keep this speed going for as long as I could. 'Ooh look, the next town's 50 Kms away. And I'm doing 50 Kms/hr, so it's only going to take an hour to get there'. It means we could look even further ahead, such as ... We're gonna make Osh in one day, then one more day to Bishkek, and so on, and so forth ...

With my mind fantasising us halfway through China I suddenly came across a series of potholes, with no obvious line through. I managed to miss the first one, tried to select a small one to ride over ... and Bang! in went the front-wheel ... missed the next. Ooh sh*t, that was a big 'un ... and Oops ... Bang! into another deeper one this time. I was going too fast to use the brakes in anger as well as to steer around the suspension-breaking crevices, so had to take a 'hit' and go into more and deeper pot-holes than would normally be advisable with such a heavily loaded bike. It was over in a few seconds, but those jolts that were jarring enough to loosen tooth-fillings had the affect of slowing things down instantly, as well as waking me up to the fact that 50 Kms/hr was just too fast for this road.

I scanned ahead and it appeared from a distance to be good roads as far as the eye could see once again. But in trying to learn my lesson eased off the throttle, to drop down to 40 Kms/hr or less. Not quite such an agreeable speed, but could just about keep it in top-gear. More importantly though it was far safer and reduced the chance of going into more pot-holes. With this reduced speed Bjorn slipped ahead, and I was glad of it as he could then act as pot-hole look-out for a while. Because of that my life suddenly became easier. In following someone else's riding line rather than having to continually concentrate to avoid every flaw in the road myself, things took on a much more relaxed feel.

But as always am not content to follow other peoples lead for too long. Or in this case tyre tracks ... and so gradually started looking ahead part of the time myself once again. Some of the time I'd play 'Follow the Leader' but on occasions would seek out another route, especially if I noticed Bjorn getting caught out and taking a hit himself, when passing a series of pot-holes as I had done earlier. This tactic goes really well for a while and am inwardly smug as my ride's now as smooth and jolt-free as it gets. I can almost hear my bike's suspension breathing a big sigh of relief underneath ...

At one point I note that Bjorn had taken a wide-line to the left but he still managed to find a few divots, and not wanting to disturb my billiard table smooth ride moved across to the middle, with thoughts of taking my own wide-line to the right when ... Oh Sh*********t! And immediately have to swing back left to avoid a truck sized ... and here the word pot-hole doesn't really apply, as it was a sink-hole of enormous proportions into which most of that side of the road had collapsed. With the road elevated up from the plateau to ensure it was kept free of floods or snow drifts, that hole must have been at the same level as the surrounding land or perhaps lower. Maybe it was the site of an underground stream or other running water feature, but whatever it was when I went screaming past it's lip, I didn't see the bottom. This was one of those holes of Enduro legend, that like 'Jaws' would swallow you whole!

Needless to say that after that I followed Bjorn's lead, pot-holes and all!

Tajikistan Pt 11

Lonely pylons cut across a rocky & deserted landscape close to our campsite ...


Last night in the Old country

One of the more important tasks before leaving Murghab was to fill up the bikes with as much fuel as we could cram into both tanks and any spare containers. I used to own a purpose designed spare petrol container, but this was thrown off the back and left on the road somewhere between Kiva and Samarqand back in Uzbekistan. My extra fuel therefore was carried in a 2-litre water-bottle wedged into the spare tyre. Petrol was sporadically available between here and Kyrgyzstan we'd been told, but we may need to ask the locals to find out if they've any spare they would be willing to sell. It seemed sensible therefore to buy as much as we could before setting off, as there sure weren't any well presented service stations selling a full range of fuels, with coffee and snacks and adjacent KFC or McDo' (thank goodness?). To highlight the sort of thing we might expect the service-station in Murghab was down a back-street. I would have ridden past and missed the place, but for another long-distance bike who'd got there before me and was refuelling a big Beemer. I watched with some interest as the petrol was hand-pumped out of a 52 gallon drum into a bucket. They took due care to pour it through a filtered funnel, but that was only going to stop the big bits getting into the tank. More importantly though research indicated the quality was likely to be fairly suspect.

Watered-down Yak's Piss?

I think it goes something like ... a mix of petrol, water and Yak's piss. I remember reading somewhere that you could test for watered down petrol by tasting it. Though after hearing the reference to Yak's piss, I was happy to let the onboard engine management sort things out. It either worked or not, cos I sure didn't fancy swilling any yak, goat or indeed any other animals pee around my mouth just on the off-chance the petrol had been watered down. I don't recall the cost per liter locally there in Murghab, but do remember it was a good percentage more than we'd paid elsewhere in Tajikistan. With little competition and along with a long bumpy haul over rough roads for the aging fuel-trucks, we had little choice but to cough-up!

Water was taken from that puddle in front to see if it was potable ... The result? Eeeuch!

We were to have one more night out in the wilds of the Pamirs before crossing the border into our next country. Kyrgyzstan was to be our last Stan' and each kilometre brought us closer. Before that though there was the opportunity to be able to pitch our tents right next to a lake. But this time, instead of scrabbling around in the dark as we did the night before Murghab, we'd actually arrived with daylight enough to make a decent campsite. In pitching our tents it was decided we'd utilise some of the local fuel and make a dung-fire.

Dung fire ...

The Pamir summer evening chill meant a nice fire would cheer as well as warm us. And along with a last minute purchase in Murghab giving us some inner warmth to look forward to as well. Kyrgyz' vodka as our chosen tipple (mind you, not that there was much else available) would accompany the spicy tuna rice. Hmmm, come to think of it, it might have been spicy tuna pasta? I forget whether it was rice or pasta now, as these were the only two food items we only ever seemed to cook ... but what I didn't forget was that we had some good bread. Out of all the staples through our travels so far, I did like the breads in central Asia. Mostly they were simple loaves fashioned into a round shape, with a flattened and sometimes patterned or nigella seed-decorated middle section. It was always cheap, always freshly baked and always tasty. I loved it!

Clouds touching down. With Photo-biker Bjorn ...

Out of interest more than necessity we tried filtering some of the water collected from the lake, using my purpose bought Uni-dyne water-filter. It came through clear as crystal, and certainly looked potable, but upon sampling it tasted bloody awful. The dissolved mineral content imbued it with a bitter taste that could not be ignored. It was too foul tasting to drink and was of no use for anything apart from washing dishes or clothes. This was no matter though, as we intended to press on to the Kyrgyz' border that day. There were settlements shown in Kyrgyzstan on our map where we'd likely be able to buy water, and in going through more mountains were also likely to pass clean streams where we could refill if needed. We sure weren't going to be waterless for too long ...
I have no idea recollection whatsoever of what I was doing in this picture. Might've been screaming come to think of it ....

There were a few Km's between the Tajik and Kyrgyz' border posts, and found we spent some working our way through no-man's land after being stamped out at the last Tajikistan check-point. We battled a rocky track for what seemed a long time, but was probably only 40 minutes or so. The broken road went on for a number of kilometres but during that time noticed a subtle change in the surrounding landscape. It was the colour that caught my attention. After a week or more of the Pamirs monochrome, colour was bound to jump out as something different. With my eyes becoming accustomed to seeing little more than a spectrum of grey as we traversed that rock-rich land, found we'd ventured in between two mountains clothed with the greeny-yellow of a spartan species of grass. We were riding down into a valley that was increasingly colourful. Grass could only mean one thing. Soil! It was then that it struck me. That we'd ridden right across Tajikistan and apart from odd pockets of growth down by the few river-gorges, there were almost no trees or shrubs in the Pamirs. The reason was simple, no soil. There was some water, but with little soil to anchor its roots any plant bigger than knee height was a rarity. Once away from the rivers the only vegetation were mostly low-growing with furry leaves to minimise water-loss and tap roots that burrowed deep into the sparse sand and gravels. And here as a kind of paradox, at the time of leaving the country we were reminded of the absence of vegetation because of it's sudden reappearance.

Tajikistan Pt 10

The road leading out of Murghab. A road that takes us further into a world of short cold days and lots and lots of rock ...

Murghab.

Arriving at Murghab we get a surprisingly good welcome from the staging post guard. He's a really friendly sort who's more interested in us than the bikes, which makes a refreshing change. It is with some relief that I ride past the barrier, as it tells me I'm going to have a relatively warm night, safe from the wilds of the open shelterless landscape and unpredictable mountain weather.

Moody light over the marshes, as we ride into Murghab.

After passing the check-point and before riding into the town, we stopped for a photo-shoot and paused to take in the local scenery. The road forms an arc around a low lying marshy area, the drier parts of which are grazing for live-stock. With the sun creeping towards the horizon of craggy mountaintops its low angle lit up the land bathing it in high contrast brightness. Without the wind-chill from riding it was providing some meagre warmth too. Raising my camera to compose my first shot can hear the buzz of a mozzy, and detect a small flying thing homing in on my face. Cheeky git! Most other places I've been, they try the old 'sneak-attack' on the neck or behind the legs. This one was going for a full frontal assault. A wave of the open-hand and closed on the proximity of the annoying insect. Gottim! A quick post-mortem, to establish that it is in fact Anopholes or close-relative. And yup, right size, colour and number of legs and wings. Although I needed a bit of imagination due to it's somewhat splattered disposition. A timely reminder that nature has a way of mesmerising with the beauty of its landscape, to bait you as prey for it's many pesky inhabitants.

Not put off, go on to take a few record shots, one of which is .... 'this un!

Murgab we'd been warned doesn't have much in the way of 'towny' things, so therefore kept an open-mind for what to expect. We weren't disappointed, as indeed it appeared to be little more than a gathering of a few hundred dwellings, made from whatever materials came to hand. The one sealed road was that which we'd come in on and within a Kilometre or so could clearly see leading it's way out of town and back into the shattered landscape once more. The roads and alleys in between the houses were dirt and gravel. Looking down from the high part of town we saw the remnants of a market, with a few stall-holders in the process of packing up and taking their unsold wares away.

I took a panorama of Murgaab that showed the town nestling in a plateau surrounded by mountains. But to give a flavour, these two shots show it looking first in one direction ...

After the usual routine of riding about looking for a land-mark on a town map (in this case the tourist office), we were unable to locate it in amongst the jumble of ramshackle buildings that comprised the main town. There was no 'centre' as such. We stopped to ask a 'local' who looked like he might be able to help, and in asking where the Eco-Tourist office was located lovely chap that he was promptly jumped into his car and drove, with us following to deliver us right outside of the door. The Eco-Tourist office turned out to be a purpose built yurt made of rock and mortar and appeared to be the very last building in town.

Then the other ...

One of the first impressions of Murghab was of the number of dogs roaming around. Some of which gave a cursory bark in our direction, as we followed the Eco-tourist offices 4wd vehicle back into the town and to the Home-Stay that was to be our accommodation. After a few problems with dogs running out to attack us as we went through some of the local villages over recent days, Bjorn was keen to try out a device called a 'Dog-Dazer' that I'd brought along with me. Now what you might ask, is a Dog-Dazer when it's at home? Well, a Dog-Dazer is a pretty neat little device made in The States, that emits a high-frequency noise that dogs evidently find disturbing. It works I believe on the same principal as the so-called silent dog-whistle, in that it gets their attention. Standing outside the home-stay, we 'whistled-in' a couple of nearby mutt's who started coming towards us one of which gave out a slightly menacing growl. Before either of them got too close Bjorn hit the button. There was no sound to be heard, but In both cases they immediately changed direction and walked the other way. Bjorn was delighted with the apparent effectiveness of this little 'gun'. And to some extent so was I, as it was one of those things I bought early on while planning this trip after hearing about the big nasty dogs in Eastern Turkey, as kept by shepherds to guard their flocks. Rumour has it, that some less than friendly locals actually trained their dogs to attack anyone who wasn't from those parts. These reports were confirmed by a lady travel writer who'd cycled this region a couple of times and had problems with these intimidating canines. Her solution was to take one of these devices with her for a return trip, and found it worked a treat by keeping the nastiest of beasties at bay. As I was intending to go through the same area myself, visualised myself wandering one of the local villages and getting set-upon. The vision went something like Clint Eastwood in 'A Fistful of Dollars'. Cue 'Good, bad and Ugly music. Ooh eeh oohey ooh, wah, wah, wah ....Whipping out my Dog-Dazer from it's holster, a quick zappo! To continue on my way unmolested and with the seat of my pants still intact.

Me sat outside the home-stay. Note I'm sat in the sun and that I'm wearing a long-sleeved top.

Of course many things in life don't work out as you think. And this was just one of many, that had proven that much of my fantasizing on what the trip would be like, was frankly way wrong! So apart from this one try-out, the Dog-Dazer was to date a redundant waste of time, money and space. At a suitable juncture in time, it will be left along the wayside, giving me storage space for more important things such as ... bottles of Kyrgyz' vodka!

Murghab'ians (sic) ...
Their town was rather ramshackle in places and their environment harsh, but overall they seemed to be pretty happy people to me ...

'Michael' I do so like this photograph. This guy reminded me of Michael in the film Ryan's Daughter. Y'know the one ... as played by John Mills and who Trevor Howard as the local priest, told off for tearing the claw off of a lobster while it was still alive. "Michael! Dat's one of God's creatures!" Anyway, while I was taking a picture of the kids sat on my bike he came up and insisted that I take his picture too ...

The Eco-tourist organisation for this part of the Pamirs (META) seemed to have a good thing going, by arranging tours as well as Home and Yurt-Stays. It was not really cheap in terms of good value for money if compared against the general cost of living in Tajikistan, though having made that comment it sure wasn't prohibitively expensive at something like $9 (US) each per night. This was one of the poorest regions of Tajikistan, in itself a country short on resource and wealth, so it would take a real 'Meanie' to begrudge the locals the chance of earning a few bucks from us relatively rich Western Touro's ...

I liked these two kids as they were pretty respectful, up against so many others we met. I liked them so much I let 'em sit on my bike (normally I 'savage' anyone who tries sitting on it uninvited).

Gulnamo our hostess had a young family, and as such would have her work cut-out to have enough money for the necessities in life almost anywhere in the world. Her Hubbie was she told us working away in Moscow, though other sources of income were not obvious. She worked hard on our behalf, in serving adequate meals in her sun-warmed conservatory. The *toilet while basic was as clean as it could be managed, but the bathroom was the real highlight of this home-stay.

Stepping into this modestly designed ablutions space you'd encounter a couple of concrete steps that created a raised area for sitting and washing, with two containers for water storage contained therein. The cold water was in an appropriately coloured blue plastic water-butt and was stood in one corner, but it was the hot-water that gave the bath-house it's real character. A large oblong tray full of steaming water could be seen sat on top of an oven full of hot-stones. The stones had been heated by a fire-box underneath, that was fed with fuel from a small latched door on the outside. In first entering the bathroom, chill mountain air would be replaced by a pleasant sensation of humid warmth. A quick splash of water onto the stones ... and the room was suddenly transformed into a suana of heat. How delightful!

* 'See Toilets and other Matters' (http://toiletsandothermatters.blogspot.com/)

Our room was spartan, but bedding clean and plenty of it. We needed it all too as it was cold at night even in high summer. It didn't take too long before we were speculating what it could be like here in the depths of mid-winter. And were told 30/40 below was not uncommon. Ouch!!! That sort of cold hurts! Kills even ... And these were not well constructed energy efficient dwellings with central heating. Their fuel source was yak dung and what looked like dried-out ground hugging shrubs. Again, a reminder that these were tough resilient people who lived up here. No room for wimps who call out the doctor or take to their beds whinging each time they get a bit of sniffle. As if I needed a further reminder Gulnamo went on to tell me her eldest daughter had a 'problem' which sounded like epilepsy. Past treatments meant she had a 2 day journey to Khorag to consult a doctor. As well as the fact the medication was expensive, difficult to obtain and being of either Russian or Chinese origin not always very effective. The National Health of the UK and Medicare system of Australia may have their faults, but both are infinitely better than this ...

A couple of mountain-toughened youngsters who live in Murghab ...

Tajikistan Pt 9

Yakkety Yak ...

The riding in the Pamirs was tough, but in amongst the difficulties of negotiating our way through that rough terrain were some genuine highlights. In riding ahead of Bjorn who kept pulling over not unnaturally (being a photographer) for frequent photo-stops, I met up with a group of Italian bikers. They had stopped off at a yurt for food and drink and it was kind of fun to exchange notes on who they were and what their story was. It turns out they'd taken the relatively soft option and had flown into the region with their bikes, were touring around some of the better bits, then heading off out by plane at the end of their trip. I will make mention of one of their number, so as not to risk belittling their non-purist method of touring. Salvatore Pizzo http://nuke.adventurer.it/ was an 'Adventurer' who'd done many long-distance trips that had been filmed, including the daunting task of riding around Borneo of all places. Now, I thought it was solid jungle, but evidently there are (difficult) bush-tracks interlaced throughout the forests. The incongruity of that conversation was soon lost directly they left, in a cloud of smoke from their enormous 8-wheel drive support vehicle. I watched them go for something like 10 minutes or more. Their dust-trailing across the plateau for many kilometres as they headed towards Khorag, a days ride back the way I'd come. In watching their progress the silence settled back over this sparse land and I looked about the scene now devoid of motorbikes, wagons and the chatter of people. All that could be seen was this one yurt, a ramshackle hut nearby and a herd of yaks and goats in the distance.

This is Lalbekov Azitchan. He was a delightful Kyrgyz' who's hospitality allowed me to discover what yak tastes like. We're showing off the skull of one the famed Argali or Marco Polo mountain goats

The guy who's yurt it was, was a Kyrgyz' as evidenced by the distinctive Kyrgyz' hat he was wearing. He was a quiet introvert man. Until that is, he'd had a few vodka's after which he became much more talkative.

Me having a larf with Lalbekov ...

In waiting for Bjorn to catch up I'd taken up the offer and the opportunity of going into his Yurt to try some food items I'd not the chance of tasting before. Briefly it was yak everything! Yak yoghurt, yak cream, yak butter and of course, not forgetting yak meat itself. All served with some local and beautifully fresh bread. And have gotta say that even though it had a certain 'tang', and was pretty rich, I liked it a lot. In being given a pot of locally sourced honey with it too, it was kind of like a Pamir version of the Devonshire cream tea. Most things are there for the asking in the UK, but try asking for clotted yak-cream in Honiton high-street!

Onwards into the Pamirs ...

Mini Yak's - Big landscape ...

In getting to that particular spot I had ridden across an enormous valley up a rise and onto what appeared to be a vast plateau surrounded by mountains. After working my way up the rise I remember encountering two things. One was a particularly testing patch of rough track. The other was what looked like an old Suzuki GS from the late 70's. In passing was sure I'd seen that the rider was wearing plastic bags for gloves. Dismissing this as my imagination or first stages of altitude sickness struggled past the pot-holes and rocks and rode on to the yurt.

After eating my yak biased lunch I went back outside to watch for Bjorn. As I peered into the distance I managed to spot a small dust-trail that was slowly working it's way towards me from the far horizon. Over the course of a few minutes the dust trail got nearer and was finally close enough for me judge it was way too fast to be a local motorcycle. It therefore had to be Bjorn doing his best to catch up with me. When I thought he was close enough I started waving frantically to make sure he didn't go hurtling by. As I watched he turned off the road and followed the track down towards the yurt to pull up alongside of me. In turning off the engine, the first thing he said was “Did you see that Suzuki GS1000 with two Iranians on it?”

“What, the one with the rider wearing plastic bags as gloves?” I replied.

It turns out that I hadn't been seeing things and these intrepid Iranians had ridden all the way across Central Asia, got to China and been refused entry (as we now know is almost impossible to blag entry into), and were now riding all the way back. Bjorn had stopped to ava'chat and got the low-down. And have gotta say, that I do wished that I had stopped to meet them myself, as they must've been a couple of real adventuresome guys. For one their bike is illegal in Iran as far as I know and therefore they can't ride it in their home country (there is a maximum size for bike engines in Iran of something like 125cc, so their 1000cc was way over the legal-limit). And it got better! Where we had purpose built panniers and racks and some good riding kit. They had almost nothing. Evidently their luggage was contained in one back-pack as worn by the pillion passenger. And of course plastic bags that served as gloves, gives you some idea of how prepared they were for the Pamirs. In a word ... Not! Maybe one day there will a book and film, as a kind of Central Asian equivalent of the 'Motorcycle Diaries' that recorded Che Guevara's journey's down through South America as a young man. Who knows ... Maybe Bjorn met the future leader of Iran? Whatever, I hope whoever he is, that his destiny is a little less iconic, more politically effective and just as importantly perhaps enjoys a longer life than Che.

It would have been so easy to dismiss this kind old Kyrgyz' who opened his home to us, gave us food and showed us around his meagre dwelling as being illiterate or uneducated. But it turned out that Lalbekov Azitchan was a teacher. He spoke Russian, Kyrgyz' & Uzbek' and went to some lengths to tell us he was a published poet too, proudly showing us an article in a local paper illustrated by Dhali'esque sketches. Again was to make a mistake in offering him money in the belief that part of his hospitality was economically driven. But he point blank refused to take anything from us. I ingested another small portion of humble pie, taking with me a valuable lesson from this teacher who lived a simple life with his family in an isolated community in one of the poorest regions, of a country itself sadly short on resources.

One of the Chinese trucks that plied the Tajik' roads ...

We saddled up and rode on as I felt the time was ticking away. With altitudes up to 4000 metres in the high passes, on this stretch of the M41 we weren't far enough below that to get any real benefit from the seasonal warmth of lower-levels. I'd put on my waterproof jacket to minimise heat loss from the chill-winds that gusted up there. Mid-afternoon and it was already starting to get cold, so the switch on my heated handlebar grips was flicked to 'on' in an effort to maintain some feeling in my fingers.

Lowering clouds, impending darkness. The Pamirs region is an unforgiving place. This bit of road was better than most and allowed us to fast-track our way on to Murghab ...

It would soon get much colder, so was concerned to get to our next destination before the sun dropped much further towards the mountain tops that surrounded us. I found this to be an ominous time of the day because once the long shadows appeared then darkness would soon follow.

A typical scene in the Pamirs. The road disappears into the mountains ... Sun, cold air, clouds and rocks ... This is harsh land, and is no place for wimps!

Tajikistan Pt 8

Bjorn on the M41 The Pamir Highway ... He's lovin it!

And on into the GBAO ... This is the Pamirs

One result of finding out the shock-absorber was dodgy, was that we'd made the decision to forego riding the Wakhan corridor, a gorge that cut it's way south following a river that acts as frontier to Afghanistan until rejoining the Pamir highway something like 120 Kms later. I was in two minds then, and remain so to this day about this decision. I was glad to miss the more difficult riding conditions, but at the same time saddened to miss out on what we were told was one of the highlights of the Pamirs. There was spectacular scenery as well as hot springs and we never got to see either. But what we did have was lots of rough roads. It seemed to go on forever and my memory now is a blur. Literally a blur ... as the terrain tested both our bikes and bodies as it pummeled us relentlessly with us scarcely able to reach 10 or 20 Kms per hour on some short stretches. There was little else out there apart from rocks. Lots and lots of rocks ... and mountains ... and hills ... and on occasions white tips of snow topped peaks to remind us how high we were. We had more high-passes to cross, but because we were already over 2000 metres were partially acclimatised. We sure didn't go flying over the top though, as the road conditions were typically bad on the upper stretches.

Because of the ferocity of the weather up there, the road or what remained of it had little resemblance to anything that had ever seen tarmac during its construction. Parts of it were one big pot-hole with loose rocks strewn about. It wasn't pretty, nor was it spectacular. If you could ride on the moon, my guess is that bits would look just like this. There was some evidence of habitation in the form of the odd dilapidated building. There were even a few people living up there, I guessed who's task it was to try and keep these passes clear of either landslide debris or maybe snow-clearing when feasible. But there was nothing cheering up there. It was a place for tough people, with tough minds. I'm glad to had the chance to see what it's like, but have no real wish to go this way again. I find that spending time in places like this that have such a powerful feeling of desolation, can soul sap the soul ...

This is the Pamirs. Me getting in on the action ...

The first nights camping was a very cold one. The ride from Khorag to the first high-pass started out late (after 2.30pm), so we ended up at 4000 metres in darkness. With what I felt was fast becoming a dangerous situation it triggered another sense of humour loss as I wanted to stop, and soon. I'd reasoned that it was madness to continue any further in the darkness on such poor roads. From that, once we'd dropped around 500 metres things levelled out and according to the map there should have been a small lake on our left. We could just about make it out when we'd topped the last high-pass and begun making our way back down. But it was fully dark now and the only things to be seen were in the somewhat feeble illumination our headlights. In following a promising looking track away from the road we found a likely looking spot, but before we pitched out tents Bjorn went further off down the track for a foray in the hope of finding something better. I waited before unpacking my kit, but he was gone for some time. I was getting concerned, so headed off into the darkness to look for him. By the time I found him he'd just picked himself and his bike up after he'd taken a fall on some loose gravel. Ironically he was now enjoying his own momentary sense of humour loss.

But as with me back up on the high-pass he soon came back down to earth again. We both picked our way slowly back to the first spot in the shelter of some dunes and proceeded to pitch our tents. I was shivering and remember raiding my clothes-bag for more layers. With the chill of the evening fast turning into full-on cold of the night, it was obvious my 'zero' rated sleeping bag was going to be tested tonight. We prepared a meal of bread, sausage, ripe cheese, tom's mayo & chilli paste, then crawled into our tents and sleeping bags for warmth. Sleep soon came in the cold and the darkness, but did come-to sometime later to the patter of rain on the outside of the tent. I had a few bleak moments of feeling a long way from home and recollect some dark memories of hoping the choice of an eBay purchased tent was a lucky pick, before drifting back to sleep again. I'd taken no chances and worn socks into the sleeping bag, along with long thermal underwear. I was cold during the night, but had mostly slept well. Perhaps more importantly the tent did it's job of keeping the wind and rain out, because if it hadn't, that night could have then been a throughly miserable experience ...

There's snow on them 'thar mountains. And not so far away neither ...

The morning came steely-grey, with rain bearing clouds nestling amongst the not so distant peaks. One rather ominous cloud seemed to be slowly heading in our direction across the lake. It appeared to touchdown on the lake itself. And as the sun slowly came up behind us it highlighted one of the closer peaks. This peak showed white with snow and appeared to be little more than a couple of hundred metres higher than our camp site. No wonder we were cold! We we're not far from the snow-line ... A cold night, but a hot brekkie of fried bread, tom's onions & chilli paste! Oh ... and don't forget ... a nice hot cuppa tea!

A quick tidy round and some time for photographs! Bjorn had wandered further afield in search of good shots, and I contented myself to staying closer to our campsite. The one time I did venture a little further in the hope of getting something of interest in the foreground for a shot of the lake, I spied a dog near to our campsite. In walking over a nearby rise could see what looked like a small dwelling a kilometre or so further along the lake. That explained the lonely figure I'd seen walking alongside the lake some 10 minutes before hand, and was also an explanation for the presence of the dog. I'd taken the trouble to put most of the stuff away, so wasn't too worried that he would scavenge our food. But even though I'd wrapped the bread in two plastic bags and put it up on the saddle of my bike, that thieving beast had still gotten in and snaffled most of what remained. I sure didn't fancy what was left with dog slobber all over it, so it got ditched for the birds to eat it. Come to think of it, there were no birds up there. Not enough for them to eat normally I guessed ... Ah well, maybe the dog would be back later to finish it.

Not a particularly good shot but illustrates the point. That little dark blob is the Dog-thief!

And here I come to that over-long and boring anecdote as mentioned in the Dushanbe chapter about the dodgy Chinese oil! With the early morning cold of the mountains this oil had gone to treacle in the sump, so that when we hit the starter button the engine would barely turn over. I imagined something close to molasses churning away inside the struggling motor. I took my thumb off of the button after a few moments of listening to the pathetic groaning sound of the starter-motor struggling to move the piston up and down. It was being held back by a thick gluey mess of black sludge that passed as engine oil. The sad whine told me there was now way the bike was going to auto-start! Which is where the thought occurred, that it was a good thing we didn't manage to find our way down to the lakeside the night before, because those little hillocks nearby were going to come in very useful right at that moment. A couple of minutes heaving and grunting and my bike was at the top of the nearest hillock. Scooting off, snicked it into 2^nd gear and jumped down hard onto the seat at the same moment of 'dropping' the clutch. The rear wheel skidded for a second after which the engine started turning over. Another moment and the satisfying put-put of the exhaust note told me the engine had started. Phew! I was relieved, as I didn't think the RAC or AA would turn out to the middle of the Pamirs. “Yes, certainly sir. Can I take your membership number? .... Your where??? Where the bloody hell's that? One moment sir and I'll get back to you. (5-minute pause). If you'd like to give us a landmark close by, one of our unit's will be with you in about 6 months from now!” (click).

Our campsite after a cold night. Not long now and we'd find the bike's wouldn't start ...

Another few minutes of effort that had my lungs gasping for air in helping to push Bjorn's bike up the same rise, and he managed a bump start too. He left his Dakar idling away by the side of mine and while not particularly fond of the internal combustion engine or traffic noise in general, it was a pleasing sound in the silence of that forbidding place. We packed our kit with the rain-cloud that I watched earlier still threatening as it wrapped itself about the nearest peak, but were soon back on the road again. I'd chosen to keep my extra layers on till the clouds dissipated and sun climbed higher. Onwards along the M41 (I kid you not!), the Pamir highway was now leading us towards Murghab, and the last proper civilisation before Kyrgyzstan ...

Garfield. He's lovin' it!

Tajikistan Pt 7

Footbridge Khorag.

Khorag ... Definitely!

It made a change to have only a couple of hours riding before reaching our destination for the night. In rolling into Khorag, we knew we had to make the best of our time here, because afterwards the wilds of The Pamirs meant little in the way of creature comforts. And further, would be little enough in the way of provisions until Kyrgyzstan, which would be something like a weeks travelling once we left the town.

The River ran through it ... A view looking upstream

I didn't find out his name, nor could I swear his nationality was Swiss due to a perennially fallible memory, but my first impressions of Khorag was of Bjorn chatting away to some guy outside of the bank who had all the hall-marks of being 'shot-away'. He had wild hair and he was sun and wind-burnt on his face, neck and arms as if he'd been outside for weeks. There was also a detached look in his eyes that said his brain wasn't fully engaged and functioning 100%. Maybe I thought, that this is what the Pamirs does to people who don't take care? Whoever he was, we left him to his lunacy and went off to find some accommodation.

And looking downstream ...

The Pamir Lodge was adequate with a few rooms in a single guest-block, a solitary flush toilet and bucket-douche bathroom shared with the family who owned the place. With a good turnover of guests, the few rooms soon filled up. We were lucky and got a room first night, though was surprised to find the bed, was a slab of concrete with little more than a thin mattress to cushion the solid base. Brekkie was only a couple of bucks extra and proved to be a good feed of bread, jam, (1 x) fried (or omellete'd egg if you preferred) and sometimes given a pot of tasty locally produced honey too.

Here there was a chance to see the early stages of creating an extension to the lodge. Adjacent to the old guest-room block where we were housed was a big pile of rocks, that looked for all the world as though someone had recently dynamited away part of the mountain. There was a handful of guys stood on top of it who were slowly breaking up the bigger rocks into smaller and more manageable pieces, then carrying them a short distance to make a uniform pile a few metres in front. I watched them for a while, before curiosity got the better of me and went across to ask them what they were doing.

Evidently they were making building 'block' sized rocks that would be cemented into walls that were going to make the new guest-block. They showed me the chosen site some few metres above and behind the old block. Looking down at the old building and along with the toilet block the local building style was simple mortared together fragmented rock. A lot of mortar is required for this building method and the finished article would be 100% rustic. But it was perfect for the location and usage to which the building would be put. These few guys were breaking up rocks taken from the mountain, in readiness to glue them back together again onto a ledge carved into the mountain as as serviceable building. Simple and not a little ingenious, but bloody hard work. I was looking at graphic proof that labour was cheap in these parts ...

During our few days in Khorag we were to find the daytime's were mostly warm, with a couple of afternoons that could be interpreted as hot. But the nights were decidedly cool. I'd even go so far as to say it was actually cold during the latter part of the night, as the few people sleeping outside on the concrete porch would no doubt testify. I was usually up earlier than most and with the sun not yet above the mountains, the dew on the grass had a frost-like look to it. Temperatures had dropped during the night and the people dossing down on the porch could be seen buried under piles of whatever clothes they could mound on top of their sleeping bags for extra insulation. And something else, we'd not seen in a while. There was rain, but it fell mostly up in the mountains and not directly onto the town. This was a definite clue that in coming to this region, we'd ridden into something of a different climate. It was high summer and had been sweltering in 40° C plus heat not so long ago. Up here and further on into the Pamirs, even in summertime it's the cold that dominates.

It was pretty basic at the Pamir Lodge, but we had things to do. Stock up on food, water and fuel as well as checking over the bikes. I'd changed my worn rear brake-pads, but a more alarming discovery was that the rear-shock absorber on Bjorn's mount was leaking hydraulic fluid! With the rough conditions to come, we viewed this as something quite serious and would take up a good percentage of our conversation for weeks to come until it was fixed. Apart from 'sit-tight' for at least a couple of weeks and await the delivery of a new part, we had little choice but to press on and hope Bjorn's bike would stay ride-able. My guess was that it would become 'bouncier', but the spring should still maintain the ground-clearance enabling him to ride over rough ground okay. With care we should get through to Kyrgyzstan as it is.