By the time we managed to get away from the border post it was already close to dusk, so then in hitting the first village it was full-on dark and were having to rely on our headlights to avoid unseen obstacles along the way. Night rides as explained before were not recommended in central Asia, and happily our Polish buddies agreed and that we would get some provisions and find a campsite pronto'.
One thing that we had noticed was a marked deterioration of the road's surface. While not always brilliant in the further reaches of Uzbekistan, near to the big towns it wasn't too bad on average. But after a short time on the Tajik roads found the pothole count had increased considerably. We'd been warned from others who'd been through here before (there's heaps of info' on the Horizon's Unlimited website) the roads are 'bad' in this country, so the regular pot-hole dodging came as no particular surprise.
It was during that first shopping trip into a dingy 20 Watt lightbulb lit local shop that we were to discover the value of our new found buddies. Not only could they converse, but they seemed to have some kind of idea of which sausage to pick. There was precious little on the shelves, so stocking up on food wouldn't have been too much of a problem if we were on our own. But when it came to picking out something from the line of half dozen torpedo shapes lurking in the chill cabinet, I for one would not have had a clue. The truth of the matter is that I would have likely dismissed them as inedible tubes of meat-based protein that might or might not have been intended for human consumption. They reminded me of a product I'd seen sold in the UK as pet-food, so would have likely walked out of there sausage-less without the benefit of Justina and Maciej's counsel.
Once we'd made our purchases, the next important thing was to find somewhere to camp. A couple of brief forays and stop-off's to ask for some directions and we ended up by the side of a river. In order to get to the spot we had a short spell of off-roading, but of course the darkness made it much more unpredictable and Bjorn came a 'cropper' at a muddy stream crossing. From that he was left in some pain and once again the girls from the Polish contingent were to provide welcome succour as well as more direct and practical help. As a trainee Vet Justina could transfer some knowledge to people, and concluded that Bjorn would not need to be 'put-down'. Some bandage to give support to his ankle and some pain-killers seemed to help him. He was left with a limp, though seemed happier all round. But the girls together did us all really proud after the medical treatment was dispensed, by rustling up a really tasty supper from bread, sausage, mayo' and spice paste. Mind you the beer helped as did the bottle of vodka that appeared to provide some refreshment, after a bunch of locals turned up to find out who and why we were there.
A young Tajik' girl from the nearby village, who'd come to see these strange foreigners ...I was initially a bit dubious about our choice of camping spot that first night, as a quick survey with a torch when we first arrived during darkness showed up one place where a load of glass had been broken. Along with a couple of other items of rubbish, indicated it might've been used a dumping ground from the nearby village. But when the morning came there was little further evidence of village detrious and the distant hills and nearby river hinted at some of the good stuff that Tajikistan had to offer. It was a beautiful morning and we had the prospect of beginning our exploration of this somewhat undeveloped country.
Packing up next morning ...
After some routine maintenance by Darek on his aging Africa twin we headed off towards our first high Pass. With horror stories about a new tunnel that had been drilled through the mountains to connect the roads coming from Uzbekistan into Dushanbe, we weren't about to go that way. Besides which the prospect of a high pass held some excitement as a test with some real enduro conditions. In a brief curtsy to our reasons for avoiding that forbidding tunnel, is that evidently after the tunnel had been carved out the Civil Engineers were delighted to discover an underground river was on their chosen trajectory through the kilometres of solid rock. The net result was that anyone going through there had the joyful experience of traversing that hole into hell thro' an aquatic building site. Evidently part of the way into the tunnel you'd find yourself riding in some 300 mm of running water, which added to darkness, high concentrations of exhaust fumes, plus unknown road/river-bed surface condition, I for one didn't relish experiencing.
So Anzob pass it was to be ... And here's a good time to insert a link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E8jjECKiRw For those of you that haven't seen it before, it shows highlights of our journey across and towards Dushanbe.
But before that we were to find that travel in the Central Asian country of Tajikistan cannot be measured in times comparable to anywhere in Europe, unless you want to try and ride the length & breadth of the Highlands of Scotland avoiding all sealed roads. Looking at the map it showed a couple of hundred Km's as a bold red line. In other words a main-road ... An easy and a short day's drive in almost any Euro country. But The Stans had shown that we needed to be cautious and open our minds to the vagaries of bad roads, break-downs and fuel supply. Once we got moving we found that things happened slowly in Tajikistan and that we'd not managed to get very far along this highway due to the lumps and bumps that constituted a road surface. Watching the distance reduce as we counted down the Kilometres towards Dushanbe seemed futile that first day, and decided it would be more realistic if could get as far as the turn off for the ascent to Anzob. Towards the end of the first full days riding we were approaching the ill-famed road-works, which were part of the process in creating a new highway. Once completed it would connect the capital Dushanbe all the way from the North West corner of the country.
The road works were being actuated by Chinese labourers, and they had brought their safety standards along with them. Again, the jungle drums of the travel community had sent word ahead, so we had some warning. In some ways though it still made no difference, as it was difficult to comprehend their downright dangerous procedures, that resulted in at least one fatal accident where a car went off the road into the adjacent gorge as a direct result of their road making methods.
Darkness and dangerous conditions were becoming too frequent for my liking, and on this occasion were to prove to be pretty frightening too. In following the valley we'd wound our way alongside a muddy and fast moving river. Sometimes it was wide and slow and at other times was squeezed into a narrow niche through the mountains and tumbled through when it was restricted so, with a roar that could be heard over the sound of the engine. We'd been following this river over the course of the day and a couple of map-checks showed we were not making very good time. Encountering the road-works were often stoppages that brought us to a halt while they cleared debris or sometimes for other reasons less obvious. In some cases we could squeeze past the blockage and ignored the barriers that we stopping the cars. Whether piles of rock or earth moving machinery if we could get past it, we'd do so in order to get a few more kilometres along our way. Suddenly we hit good road. In fact very good road. In fact it was near perfect newly laid black-top of billiard table smooth tarmac. This of course meant traffic was able to get up some decent speed and it was a positive joy to be able to ride in top gear once again. Of course it was never going to last ... and it didn't. Going around one bend, suddenly things changed. It was subtle and at first didn't know what it was. The only thing it reminded me of was riding on super-smooth tarmac in the wet, or during the winter when you hit patches of frost on the roads in mid-winter. But here it was not only dry, but the weather had been hot and dry so it wasn't any of those things. But the steering was definitely light and alarmingly so. A touch on the brakes told me that it wouldn't be a good idea to pull up sharply. In rounding a bend saw someone directly in front of me waving their arms. It was Bjorn and to one side Mateusz both of whom were warning me of something. The something were a couple of bikes laying in a heap in the road and were directly in my way. There was no chance of stopping, so a quick glance in my mirror showed it was clear to go around them, which was executed gingerly with both feet down in an attempt to gain some extra stability. Once safely past judiciously tried the brakes again, but the 'unsettled' feeling fed back from the road underneath me meant I had to mostly use engine-braking to slow down. Edging my way over to the side discovered things felt more sure and so managed to pull up and got off. In stepping back towards the middle of the road found it was actually quite difficult to stand up. It felt like I was walking on ice. No wonder the guys had come off, the road surface was bloody lethal. It was wet tar! And had been newly sprayed onto the recently laid tarmac as a 'finish' to the road surface. Well it nearly finished us off and along with the other cars had serious trouble trying to avoid an accident. Some didn't as several cars as well as the two bikes had lost control. One car had gone into a nearby pylon and another had gone off into a ditch on the right away from the gorge. This was where the car went off the road killing it's occupants recently, and we'd just had a graphic example of how this could have so easily happened once more.
The people in charge of this project should be ... and here I measure my comments to say simply, that they should be held accountable. In Europe such a serious lapse in safety standards would have seen someone jailed for incompetence. Here, nobody seemed to notice and life carried on as normal. The scenario of vehicles skating dangerously across wet tar is likely to be going on every single day that the finishing touches go into that newly built road. Accidents will be happening every day along with the likelihood of more people dying during this piece of civil construction. It's happening still and is likely to continue until the road gets to Dushanbe. Or maybe someone 'important' will get caught in the daily mayhem, in which case maybe ... just maybe, somebody will do something to stop it.
The guys had picked one bike up by the time I got back to them and I was then able to help get the second upright, but not without some difficulty in staying on two feet ourselves. Another car slewed off into the nearside ditch as we watched. It was a Mercedes that had selfishly blasted past earlier in one of the road-works chicanes, showering everyone in gravel and choking dust. We'd managed to overtake him again a short time afterwards when he'd got boxed in with other traffic. It was a slow speed impact and nobody was hurt so was glad the Merc' owner had this misfortune, as he's been going way too fast in another attempt at bulldozing past everyone again.
After we'd dusted ourselves off, and in Darek's case wiped as much of the thick black sticky tar from his jeans and hands, it was time to find somewhere to sleep for the night. The torrent of a river continued to rush past as we progressed slowly along this section of the road in the rather vain hope of finding somewhere suitable. And once again ... darkness was on us, but I needn't have feared as our intrepid Polish buddy's did us proud again. There was one failed attempt at trying to talk some locals into letting us camp in their village on the other side of a rickety bridge. Rickety enough to appear rather daunting in the gloom. I'd watched Maciej pick his way carefully across and didn't fancy it too much if we were given the thumbs up for us all to follow. I wasn't too bothered when they said there simply wasn't enough space in the village for all of us, but when I was getting concerned we'd need to carry on some way further in the dark again, their conversation with the village elder indicated we could stay at a small place a few minutes back along the way we came. Now, after coming from that direction it all looked like stark near vertical gorge, with little in the way of roadside pull-overs. If there was anywhere even vaguely suitable I expected to be kept awake all night by the thunder of lorries rolling past a few metres from our tents. In short, I was not too optimistic at that point. It was Mateusz and his girlfriend that paved the way and after a foray to investigate the described place, they didn't come back. The agreement being, if they didn't return then it was a suitable spot and we should all follow on in their tyre tracks. Rather pessimistically my thinking was that they may not have come back as they'd encountered a problem and were unable to do so. With us following we may have all ended up in the same fix ... Maybe I should have had more confidence as Maciej and Justina went up the small track, then came back down to report that it “was really nice ... It is a beautiful place”. I remained sceptical and even after arrival wasn't too convinced, as it was dark and couldn't see much under the trees. I was shattered ... 'all-in' after the day's trials and didn't even join in with the evenings wind-down chat over bread, sausage and beer. I simply grabbed a couple of mouthfuls of food, 'skulled' the one beer and crawled gratefully into my sleeping bag. Oblivion soon followed ...
Next morning dawned and it became clear that Maciej was absolutely 'bang on the nail'. It was not only beautiful, but a short walk along to the edge of this apricot orchard to overlook the gorge, showed that it was indeed a truly gorgeous spot. We could see another small orchard on the opposite side of the river reached by yet another rickety bridge, and there too could see a few locals who were wandering along the pathway to assumedly begin their days labour in and around that area. I could just about make out the road below, winding it's way alongside the river. Somehow even though only 20 or so metres down, didn't find the passing traffic particularly intrusive. The overhang seemed to muffle the sound of a lorry as it drove by and so guessed it was bounced back and into another part of the gorge.
And here you can see Bjorn doing his Photobiker 'thing' ...It got better too. As the others rose from their nights slumber Mateusz wandered further along and up into the orchard, then came back to report he'd found a small stream. This stream came directly from the mountains above and was pretty much guaranteed to be 100% pure water. In bathing here it seemed to wash not only the road grime away, but some of the tension from the past 24 hours too. It was cool and refreshing and I did that thing of drinking from the same water source I'd washed in only minutes earlier. But of course it was fresh run by the time I came to drink and fill my water bottles. I've gotta say there's something quite special about drinking water straight from the stream, as it's a very basic health consideration and not done lightly. Some say that water doesn't really taste of anything, but here the water tasted good. Very good ...
Our campsite in the orchard ...With the sun up and warming the air and the prospect of a hot day to come, didn't even bother to dry myself. Simply putting my clothes back onto my wet body felt good and it felt right. The wet clothing would soon dry and besides which I reasoned, would keep me feeling cooler while packing the bike ...
In returning to our camp came across a group of ladies who were sat sorting what looked like dried apricots. They weren't too industrious in their labours and seemed more interested in me. I passed the time of day and they seemed friendly enough, though was surprised when I was offered tea. There was no fire evident, but there by the side of one of the older ladies was an oversized pot filled with a hot brew. Well, what could I say? Life is so much brighter with an early morning cuppa, and it had the effect of putting the icing on the cake for me during that first hour of the day. None of the ladies could speak any English and my Tajik' is non-exist ant, but it didn't matter in the slightest. In those 10 minutes or so I was sat with them I felt quite at ease and laughed along with their amicable banter. It seemed they were having a giggle at me and guessed it was because I looked so strange to them. There was no malice in their laughter at all and got the distinct impression these simple people who scratched out a meagre existence alongside the one and only main road through that part of the world, were in fact very happy people indeed.
With some reluctance I said my goodbyes and thanks for the much appreciated cuppa, and went back to my travel buddies to pack and get ready for the days riding. Anzob called. We were going to cross our first real High-Pass this coming day ...
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