Pamir Highway Day 1

Stats

Today's Route

Travelogue 

We were up at 5 a.m. today, hoping to avoid the busy period when cycling out of the city of Dushanbe.

And today is K1's birthday! What a way to spend s birthday!

Getting ready to leave the hotel 

We were on road 6 a.m. Go us

We found our way to the road out of Dushanbe easily. Quickly it became a four lane dual carriageway. Despite the early hour it was quite busy but fortunately most traffic avoided the slow lane that we used. This was perhaps helped by the fact that there was a policeman every hundred metres or so. We have no idea why but there were dozens of them and they were sometimes stopping cars. Not us though, fortunately! In fact we one policeman gave us s thumbs up and said "good luck" as we passed!

We left the city limits behind. It was still a little urban. We then passed through a series of small towns. We crossed a bridge over a river into Vahdat.

We saw lots of fruit sellers by the road and stopped by one of them for no particular reason. Immediately the man running the stall came over to me carrying a melon. I couldn't understand what he was saying but assumed he was trying to sell the melon to me. Using my charades skills I let it be known I couldn't carry it on the bike. He walked away, returned with a carrier bag and indicated how easy it would be to loop the carrier bag over one end of my handlebars. There was no winning an argument with this guy :-) And in fact he wasn't selling. The melon was a gift! He got an enormous water melon for K1 and gave it to him as well!

We cycled off, heavy melons making steering hard, especially for K1. He soon decided it wasn't going to work and gave the melon to a woman we passed. I kept mine. And still have it. Perhaps I'll bring it home. 

We stopped at a shop at about 20 km and I went in and bought some salt. We were losing it through sweating rapidly and I knew I'd somehow need to replenish. Yes, it was hot and getting hotter, soon up to 33 Celsius.

We stopped regularly to buy cold drinks. Hydration was a challenge.

Every kid we passed called out "hello". Some followed with "how are you?" or asked our names. It was incredibly heartwarming.

K1 started suffering from very painful cramps in all the big muscle groups in his legs. Heat and hydration issues were taking their toll. We stopped frequently so he could recover. 

Mountains were beginning to appear. The landscape became increasingly rural.

We continued to climb. The gradient was typically fairly easy but it was 7% at one point and significantly more on one short stretch.

The sky grew dark ahead of us. The temperature dropped to 24 Celsius. We heard thunder. And then it started to rain. I grabbed my rain jacket.

K1's cramping problems weren't improving so we decided to look for a homestay or a place to camp in the next village.

I stopped and spoke to a fairly young man outside a building materials supply store. Amazingly he spoke great English. I asked if there was somewhere in the village we could stay and said we had tents. He immediately said we could stay in his home! I accepted, introduced myself and K1 and we parked the bikes and followed our host upstairs to his home.

Our host is called Muqim. He's a very nice and interesting man. We were seated on carpets in the lounge and food and tea was brought to us. We were joined by his uncle, brother and another guy (we never quite knew who he was). Aided by Muqim's language skills, we talked. 

Soup with a big piece of meat in it was served for us. I don't eat meat K1 doesn't want to on this trip. It was awkward and I don't think any of them had ever encountered a non-meat eater. As an alternative, two fried eggs were brought to me. We washed it all down with tea and the diplomatic incident soon seemed forgotten.

We spend time alone chatting with Muqim. He works for his brother's construction supplies company. He's a huge premier league football fan and watches a lot of English matches. He sought our views on the conflicts in Gaza and Iran. This felt awkward too and we'd wanted to avoid politics but seemingly the conversation went ok. Apparently Spain's president Sanchez is known as a "lion" in Tajikistan because of the stand he took over the Iran conflict.

Muqim is a very intelligent 32 year old man with an amazing memory. He's university education and speaks English, Russian and Tajik. He studied World Economics and History.

He talked about Islam, seeking to educate us and succeeding. It was fascinating.

We were shown the outside toilet which we were to use as the brother's wife was in the house. Mats were set up for us to sleep on and we called it a night.

Tajik hospitality is like nothing I've ever encountered before in my life. Amazing.

Day 2 in Dushanbe

 

Walking Stats

Travelogue 

We somehow managed to get up at 7:00 today which isn't bad. We want to adjust to the local timezone quickly.

We'd both found our appetites again this morning and my breakfast at the hotel included a  fried egg and tasty bread.

We still had a few chores to do so we started there. K1 now has lots of cash, hopefully more than enough for the Pamir Highway.

And I now have a T-Cell SIM card! The man in the shop assured me I'd be able to use another network called Megafon as well with this SIM. Megafon gets good reports from travellers in the Eastern Pamir where we're soon to be headed. The SIM certainly worked well in Dushanbe with a 5G service right from the start. It's a data only SIM giving me an allowance of 100 Gb right up to the date my visa expires and all for 220 Somoni (about £18). Bargain.

We still needed petrol but apart from walking to the nearest petrol station we could see on the map to get orientated we decided to buy our petrol later. 

The president's image is everywhere 

K1 emptying another ATM

Dushanbe uses a system of deep water channels - you need to be careful not to fall into them!

Near our hotel. A fairly typical back street in this district.

Today was to be our last day in Dushanbe and that meant sightseeing was an absolute must!

Almost everything you might want to see in Dushanbe is a walk away. We did walk almost 23 km though so the steps do stack up.

All in all we had a great day and like this city. It has a very relaxed and friendly vibe. Everyone we've had personal contact with has been friendly, helpful and welcoming.

I like to watch out for novel birds when I travel. Yesterday I discovered that the most common bird here is the Myna bird. Today I saw Muscovy ducks in one of the parks and identified Laughing Doves which are also very common.

So, what sights did we see?

Just walking...

A cycle lane!

English books for sale

Bread - wood fired oven

Apartments and Taxis

KFC Dushanbe 

The Sadriddin Aini monument and gardens 

Independence Monument 

Monument to Ismail Somoni

There were lots of guys in suits with earpieces here looking just like what they were. Security! This monument is close to the Parliament of Tajikistan and we later witnessed a huge police and military presence build in this area with some approach roads closed. The presence of the Georgian national flag alongside that of Tajikistan that we'd noticed many lamp posts have attached to them now became clear. The president of Georgia was in town!

I asked a couple of local guys what was going on and after telling me they didn't speak English, they explained. In English :-)

The Parliament of Tajikistan 

Rudaki Park and Monuments 

Monument of the Persian poet Rudaki

Peacock!

Dushanbe Flagpole 

There's a flag up there, honestly!

Parliament seen from in front of the flagpole 

Istiklol (independence) Monument 

Botanical Gardens 

En route here we walked through a hospital area which was interesting to see.  Eventually we reached the botanical gardens and paid 10 Somoni each for entry. That's 82p each. Bargain.

A shelter guarded by a bear

M1 using the outdoor gym

Rain soon filled the drainage channels!

Yes, as we walked around the botanical gardens we started to hear thunder and then it started to rain. Nice rain. Welcome rain that felt good. It probably only lasted about 30 minutes but it was pleasant after the heat of the day.

By the time we'd finished sightseeing we were tired, hot and thirsty (despite buying lots of cold drinks today). We dropped into a supermarket and bought more drinks, some bread and salty snacks. We didn't feel like having a proper dinner. I bought some bananas for breakfast and on the road tomorrow and we bought some bottled water for in our bike water bottles too. Because tomorrow we start cycling!

We dropped our shopping back at the hotel and then cycled to the petrol station and had our four fuel bottles filled.

I strapped my second bottle to The Mule just in front of my saddle. Tomorrow I'll find out whether or not this works.

Tomorrow

We plan to get up at 5 am tomorrow, forego the hotel breakfast and make an early start. It will be cooler and we hope there won't be much traffic as we cycle East out of the city and onto the Pamir Highway. The adventure really starts tomorrow!