Bilderverkauf aller 50 km / Pictures on Sale every 50 km

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Leaving Tajikistan

11th of October:

 

We start in the direction of Khojand. In the beginning we have asphalt, but then we have to stop. Street under construction! Everybody has to wait, 2-3 hours nobody knows how long. Again the street is build by Chinese company, 300 million USD for 600 km the truck drivers tell us. Most of them transport vegetables from the North to Dushanbe. All of the trucks are Kamaz since every other truck would not survive this mountain passes.

 

Until some tunnel which unfortunately can not be used we have a nice street. After that we have to use an old pass which is not maintained at all. Because of our suspension we are as slow as a turtle. After that horrible street over the pass, it is hard to enjoy the landscape in the dust of the cars in front of us. Anyway finally we have asphalt and of course there is police. Again they want 20 USD for the black windows and the right handle. I just say Net, he wants Someni, I say net. I just sit on his desk and say I have time. He laughs and we can go, but at the same time he always takes money from the local drivers. Vitali explained us 3 Soemeni for an empty truck and 6 for a full truck. It is a known standard "fee" for the corrupt police in Tajikistan.

 

(N 39.7856 °, E 68.86714 °)

 

12th of October:

 

Kochan is still ill but we want to go on to Kohjand. The landscape almost changes suddenly from mountains to the flat area. We get to see our first cotton fields. I visit a huge market in Istaravshan. Actually I just want to have tomatoes. I get almost lost. An area 50 m by 50 m just onions, the second just sugar in all kinds, just plastic stuff..... just water melon.......and so on. I need almost one hour to find the tomatos. We are driving through Kojand and get stopped by police. Same game as usual! Behind Kohjand we want to make our camp at the sand beach of a lake. There we almost stuck. Alek a friendly Russian guy and his friend advise us to go to another place and invite us for next days breakfast. There I cook Japanese soul food, and Kotomi gets better (:).

 

(N 40.29759°, E 69.88814 °) 

 

No comments: