PEOPLE AND PLACES IN TAJIKISTAN

This Exploroz Members Trip continues with us leaving Kyrgyzstan (KYG) and heading through the Pamir Mountains then along the Warkhan Valley, finally on to Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan (TJK). Our journey takes us along extremely high glacier formed valleys and over passes that result in bouts of altitude sickness for Ann and Chris. To top it off, while resting up in Dushanbe, we are struck with a serious dose of food poisoning, laying Ann, Alastair and Chris low for a few days, fortunately we lodge in a well appointed guest house near the centre of town. It is not always smooth sailing for the overland travellers after all……



The day is cool, the wind strong and the night cold as we approach the southern border of KYG, close to the Tajik border. The altitude of our camp immediately before the border is about 3,300m, the landscape desolate and bare, no trees here for a camp fire, just early to bed after dinner before the wind makes us any colder. About midnight we wake with the glare of car headlights, beaming on our cosy beds, a Russian made Lada comes slowly across the rocky ground toward us from the border road. We do our best to ignore this unwelcome intrusion, thinking our visitors more interested locals looking at the “Martians” again, then loud knocking on the side door of our vehicle, what now! “Documents, passports,” stern orders barked from outside; Chris, still in his pj’s, is confronted by three uniformed and AK-47 armed border guards. They want to know who we are and why we camp out so near the KYG border. Our documents show we are just four crazy Australians camped out at altitude, in the freezing cold. Our visitors decide we are not such a terrible risk after all, with some difficulty the Lada negotiates the steep and rocky inclines of the track back to the road, sound of our visitors slowly retreat into the blackness of the night, leaving four Aussies trying to get back to sleep.




The Tajik border is located along a rough rocky track at the top of a 4,282m pass. The Tajik border guards are not overworked with just a few cars a day passing by this lonely and desolate part of the world. Although the mountains and valleys are stunningly beautiful, the area is very remote and moderately hostile. The volume of international visitors to this part of Pamir Mountains remains very low; we only pass one or two vehicles a day, including one middle-aged German man riding a recumbent bicycle and a single male backpacker from Belarus, hitchhiking across the Pamir. Both very difficult modes of travel, with their need to sleep in a tent at night as there are absolutely no accommodation facilities out here. Ann and Chris are affected by altitude sickness, including nausea, headache, stomach problems and insomnia. Fortunately both are not sick at the same time, Chris recovers before Ann succumbs. Altitude sickness can affect people when over elevations of 3,000m, so we are well into the danger zone now, some of the passes are over 4,500m.



A few old town and village settlements are located along the Pamir Highway, sadly most housing is well past its prime, in need of major works and significant renovations. This part of TJK is one of the least prosperous areas of the country with average incomes very low. We see only small flocks of sheep and goats surviving on the most meagre of vegetation. Still the local Tajik people welcome us and we are busy waving and saying hello to all we pass on the road and meet in the small towns where we replenish our food supplies. Fresh food supplies are difficult to buy at the “magazins”, all the local householders seem to bake their own bread, so none is available for sale. Fresh vegetables are not really available, as the climate and soils are not suitable to grow vegetables, the transport cost and travel time to this remote area also limiting. In the small shops and markets there are the usual bottles of soft drinks, tinned foods, biscuits, sweets and chocolates, these seem to make their way to the four corners of the earth, even to the most disadvantaged communities. In some of the villages the shops are very small, sometimes just 3m by 3m, with the customer standing outside, served through an open window. This makes shopping quite difficult for Ann and Bron. They often leave the little shops empty handed, either as the few items that are on display are not what we require or our language skills cannot uncover them hidden behind the counter!!! Our food supplies are not at rock bottom yet, in the larder there remain long life items, rice and pasta, dried and tinned food, however the fresh food items are running out. We usually carry enough fuel, food and drinking water to last up to fourteen days.




The Pamir Highway, which not really a “highway” but rather a rough stony track, with maximum vehicle speeds of 40kph and an average vehicle speed of 25kph, runs through the higher parts of the Pamir, but is subject to closure in winter. The alternate lower altitude track runs along the Warkhan Valley. This is also the border between TJK and Afghanistan, so is quite sensitive and guarded by Tajik troops to limit people and drug smuggling. To ameliorate the altitude sickness we head down to lower elevations as soon as possible, or as the rough track permits. We meet a young German man and his Japanese wife recently married and driving a Landcruiser wagon from Japan to Europe. We had heard about the adventures of this couple some weeks previously, their vehicle had been stolen while in Irkutsk, Russia. Russian customs officials said there is a substantial import duty on the stolen vehicle if they could not export it from Russia. After a delay of about four weeks they eventually were able to “buy” the vehicle back from the Russian mafia, less a few of their wedding presents missing from the vehicle. Other trials of the overlander.





As we bump along the wide valley floor, we find warmer and interesting places to camp, the soil and climate are more conducive to farming and there are many small villages and lots of healthy sheep, goats and crops on our side of the river in Tajikistan as well as the far side in Afghanistan. We stop in Vrang, a small village to seek out some historical caves and Buddhist stupa, a young lad, Ruslan offers to show us the way and leads us though the back lanes, on the way we meet has mother. For a small fee we arrange the park our vehicles in their yard, have dinner and breakfast in Tajik style. Bron and Alastair sleep indoors in a typical local style, a real change from Troopy. We meet the wider family including adults and lots of children, we are made to feel very welcome. The predominant religion in this area is Ismail. The family does not seem to be setup for frequent overland visitors, Ruslan and his mates need to demolish part of the yard stone fence to allow access for our vehicles. Word has got about that we are in town. In the morning there are about a dozen ladies of the village having a look over the back fence at these strange people from Australia. Our folding camp chairs are a great hit with Ruslan’s brothers and sisters, they seem to have never seen a chair that is so light you can lift it with one hand and yet folds up so small. In fact we see most of our camping gear as currently non-replaceable, as there is nothing available for sale quite like our folding chairs, stainless steel billies, camp table, cool box and the other items we take from granted.



Throughout our travels in both country areas and villages we constantly see women and children carting water from a well, river or irrigation channel for use in the house. There must be millions upon millions of hours spent in this daily chore, in Australia we just turn the water tap and think nothing of it, not so in Central Asia. In most cities in this region there is piped water to homes, but the water out of the tap not suitable for drinking! In some cities the water carries life threatening diseases, so we always need to be careful.




Sometimes having vehicles to sleep in can make life a little difficult. As the Warkhan Valley is so intensively farmed we cannot readily find open camping places. In the village of Nuroband we follow a river upstream a few kilometres to look for a camp spot. Although still close to houses we do find an orchard of fruit trees, asking the young fellow there minding his cows, he said it is “OK” for us to camp, and he promptly moved his cows away so as not to disturb us. For the next few hours we have a constant stream of visitors from the local area, including lots of schools boys and girls, the local School No. 4 Director (head master) and another teacher. Ann and Chris are invited to the school on the following day and given a royal tour, including meeting the English language teacher, a senior English class, demonstration of the school computers and introductions to many of the teachers. The school has about 330 pupils and nineteen teachers. Later from Dushanbe we are able to post to the Director a parcel with large plasticised world map, a similar Tajikistan map, a number of student drawing books showing how to draw animals, cars, dogs and cats and some elementary English books that have translations for difficult words. These are just a small thankyou to the Director and students for making us so welcome to their school; we hope the materials are of benefit to the staff and students. Nuroband is a quiet little village of less than a thousand people, well of the main road. It is heartening to be so sincerely welcomed even though our Tajik language skills are none existent.


The next chapter in our journey will take us through UZBEKISTAN, the seat of power for Central Asia in middle ages, until then, cheers from us all.

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