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 °) 

 

Visa Marathon in Dushanbe

7 th of October and third day in Dushanbe:

 

In the morning we go to the Kazakh embassy and it is fortunately ery easy. We just need to wait until Friday. Again for Kotomi it is free and I have to pay 44 USD. Also the Uzbek Visa cost for Kotomi just 18 and for me 62 USD. I am happy that I married a Japanese girl (:)! After all that we drive out of the town to have silence and peace to write Blog at a nice camp at a river. Buuuuuuuuut after some while thousands of kids are coming and screaming. Always the same and only word they can remember from their Russian lessons, mamuschka, papuschka, or maybe just words from Russian TV. Under thousands of eyes I repair once more one tire at the river. The hole was really small but enough to loose the air over two or tree days.

 

(N 38.66076°, E 68.69555 °)

 

8th of October:

 

Still one day to wait but since the place is not really silent we decide to go back to the town and to sleep in a guesthouse. Before, we want to say good Bye to Gulia. Saying bye bye finally ends there in cooking and chatting together. Today we make pumpkin mantus, while talking about her life and the situation in her new family. Again we stay there over night.

 

(N 38.52584°, E 68.74968 °)

 

9th of October:

 

We are picking up the Kazakh Visa, buying diesel and food, go north over a mountain pass.  After 50 km the road starts to be horrible again. The shock absorbers of the car seem to be totally broken now. The car is swinging over the road and it is real pain to drive. Although the landscape is beautiful I am just concentrated on driving. We make a camp in a narrow valley. Since Kotomi got flew from Gulias kid and does not feel so well we decide to stay here one more day. The place is noisy because of the close by road. But still it is a beautiful place. I am cooking and making Sanddorn juice, which is good supply for Vitamin C. It takes a long time and finally you just get a little juice, but it is worth to do. The tea gets really delicious with it. Actually Sanddorn comes from Central Asia and the Caucasus. We can find it at the Baltic Sea and also around our lakes a lot, but the origin is here. (Thanks to Hartmut we know this now.)

 

(N 39.18418°, E 68.76577 °)

 

Klaus San and Joelle

We went at 9 am to the Uzbek embassy and after waiting until 1 pm we have our Visa. At the embassy we met Klaus and Joelle. They are coming from France and were also waiting for their Visa. But even so they paid express fee they had to wait more than 4 days. The Letter of Invitation from David in Almaty costs the same as express and we got it the same day. That is perfect for us and we can go the next day to Kazakh embassy. We are sleeping at a secured car parking place. It is the same where the nice French couple has their camping car. Actually Klaus is from Germany but they are living already quite a long time in France. We are sitting long until the night while chatting about the different life styles. We curious listen how they travelled and get to know each other.  Klaus was travelling by car to India and Joelle was hitchhiking. I think it was in the 70ties, if I remember correctly. After their kids are old enough now they decided to retire and to travel again. Both of them really remind me at my parents. I wish my parents that they can do the same when they retire.

 

(N 38.56845°, E 68.7887  °)

 

The Neverending Story of the BLACK Car Window and Gulias Home

5th of October:

 

The last kilometres to Dushanbe we have a very good road. Of course the road is again built by Chinese company and workers. Until we reach Dushanbe we are stopped by the Police at least 8 times. Every time they are complaining about our black back windows which is not allowed in Tajikistan and only the president can have it. We always explain this is a foreign car and not Tajik and it is original. Often they just give up and let us drive. But one of them is really "funny". First he complains about the 3 people while we have only two seats. Then he forgets this and is complaining about the black windows. Finally he tries to tell us that our car is too dirty which is exceptionally not true. Anyway in the same time he stops another car and tells the driver he was to fast. They are also fighting with him and finally he releases us. Another police guy is complaining about our right handle. They try to find any reason so that we feel guilty and pay some money to them. But we just discussed and never paid and they got bored and we were released.  It is better than in Kyrgyzstan, no chance also with long discussion.

 

We find the Uzbek embassy in Dushanbe and say Bye to Vitali, who is lucky and do not need any Visa since he is from Bela Russia. There are a lot of people at the embassy waiting for their processed passports. Unfortunately for today it is too late to apply for the Visa and we have to go their next day again. We check out the Kazakh embassy but it is also closed that day.

 

In the Wakhan valley we got invited from Gulia to visit her in Dushanbe. Kotomi was really looking forward to see her again. Somehow she had the feeling, which you normally have for a sister. After one hour we found her place, I am ringing and she opens the door. She is just cutting hairs of a friend. It is like telepathic she said, because she was just talking with her friend about us. Somehow she wondered why we do not come and if we just left the country. That means she was really happy to see us again.  We stay over night in Gulias house, cooking together a typical Tajik dish and chatting a lot. 

 

(N 38.57504°, E 68.78649 °)

 

Abduloh

4^th of October:

 

In the morning Abduloh wakes us up or better the conversation of him with Vitali, who already stood up. He invites us for tea and breakfast in his house. We just pack our tents and go to his house. Abduloh is 75 and living together with the wife of his son, who is working in Dushanbe. We are sitting on his terrace having the breakfast and view over the valley. He looks like wise old king while sitting in front of us in his long and probably warm blue coat. A Muslim cap on his head and long grey beard he has. By the way these caps are different in every valley we visited. He is very interested in our journey and we are talking about it. We get self-made honey, bread, sweets and Shirschai. Shirschai is black tea with milk, salt, butter and Nan. In Soviet times he made his military service in the Ukraine and told us that the people there were very nice. He has 12 kids and some of them working in Russia, as in most families we meet in Tajikistan. After breakfast he joins us and we walk back to our car. On the way he tells us that some of his neighbours just in the stage of some apathie. They have no money to pay the tax for the land but they also do not want to find a work in Dushanbe. That is what he told us. Some sell their cows to pay the tax. We say Goodbye and want to reach Dushanbe tonight.

 

But the road is still really bad, for the next 100 km sometimes I can just drive 10 km/h and the car is still jumping. However I have the feeling that our shock absorbers in the backside got damaged since the car never stops to swing. We listen to the tapes we got from Ismail in Murgab and Vitali  is not happy with the old style Tajik music. But one of the tapes there is a song from ... Iglesia .... It is one of his favourite music and we hear the one song several times while jumping with the car over the "street".  We are talking about god and the world. There is always an interesting topic and we really enjoy the time. In the afternoon we stop at a wedding ceremony which is held close to street. Vitali is forced to dance by some woman, who seems to be some kind of animator. It is getting dark and we decide to find a sleeping place along the street and still 80 km away from Dushanbe. 

 

(N 38.6697 °, E 69.57805 °)

Vitali

3rd  of October:

 

We still drive through a corridor which is free of mines. But all the way until Kalaikhum we often see the signs mines along the way. It was just a civil war between clans and families of different valleys but still has such an effect on the present. At checkpoint after Kalaikhum before the mountain street to Dushanbe starts we pick up a guy from White Russia. He (Vitalie) was hitchhiking from Belarus to here. For us he is very interesting to see once more how different can be travelling. Since his Russian skills are perfect and he is somehow citizen of the former Soviet Union most Locals treat him as a brother. With this he has even much more opportunities to experience the culture of the different countries of the former Soviet Union. A year before he was just hitch hiking until Jordan and Egypt from Moskau. Almost no money is needed for his travel since most people on this way treated him with great hospitality. And he is wondering why some Italian guy pays almost 6000 USD just to go along the Pamir Highway.  He made some money in Mobil phone business and got a little bit crazy about money. Then he went to India and his life totally changed. He understood that money is not the only thing and started to make his dream from his childhood true. There was always the interest for different countries and cultures, reading about the faraway places and seeing pictures of world’s nature always fascinated him. He even studied Geography teacher. And now he make is dream true and preparing for a trip around the world just by hitch hiking. We really enjoyed the conversation with him because he really has a wide and living knowledge about history and geography. After a cold mountain pass we make a camp together with Japanese food. And we help him to build up his tent, which he used the first time that day.

 

(N 38.69032°, E 70.70831 °)

Paradise and the Kalif of the "German" village (:)

30th of September - 2nd of October:

 

Before we leave Khorog we try to fix our Internet since we bought a Tajik SIM card some days ago. But it seems impossible to solve the problem. We just go to the Internet café and I am happy that we got the invitation for our Uzbekistan visa, which means we do not need to wait for it 10 days in Dushanbe. We also got the invitation for Azerbaijan which is the visa we need to pick up some days later in Tashkent. I am happy that this will be probably the last visa we need to get. It is always a hazel. We do not like so much to wait 2, 3 or more days in the big towns where you normally have all the embassies and consulates.

 

(N 37.70609°, E 71.54768 °)

 

When we are leaving it is already afternoon. We just drive out of Khorog. The next day we leave to the Bartang valley to spend some time there. We are thinking if we go now to Dushanbe it will be weekend and than we have to wait there 2 days. So we decide to stay in this nice warm valley. We find a place just 1km before Yemtis. Here the river makes a curve which gives us a nice view. We make our camp bellow some really old walnut trees where close to us a small river comes down the rocks of the valley. First time for Kotomi to see walnuts at the tree and to taste it just there. It is like paradise, I put my hammock between the car and the tree. A warm wind blows through the valley and the big leaves of the walnut tree give me a shadow. In this peaceful atmosphere I finally have some time or better I get in the mood to write a blog for you. Latter some boys from the village come and ask if we need anything. They bring us walnuts and when they see I collect a wood they start to take my saw to provide us with more. A man comes back from the mountains and also he is really friendly, brings us tons of walnuts and also fire wood. He invites us to his home. But the place is so nice that I do not want to leave today. He understands.

 

(N 37.98573°, E 71.65212 °)

 

Next day we run out of butter so we try to get some in Yemtis. We find the English teacher of the village and he tries to find butter for us. He explains us that other villages call the people from Yemtis Germans (Nemez in Russian language sounds almost like Yemtis in pamir language). We find no butter but we get invited to a tea by the Caliph of the village. The Caliph is a very respected and educated person of the village. Every important decision for the village and also in the families will be discussed with him. We have a very interesting discussion about religion and that it finally does not matter which one you have. But he is also worried about the change of the world or his village. How to preserve traditions if they still exist? I mean here they still have some traditions and the villages still seem to work as a community. They keep up there tradition since they live the life which is given them by this nature. I often ask myself what are our German traditions? What is German culture? Is it only food? or some habits we Germans have?

 

The Caliph starts to play a traditional instrument, the Rubab. It is like a guitar but the body looks totally different. This region actually has a lot of different kinds of such instruments. I guess it would be really interesting for my friend Andy.

 

We are sitting in an old Pamir style house. You have no windows just in the middle in the roof you have one. Around the centre of the room you have like terraces covered with colourful carpets. Each level is used for different purpose, kitchen, sleeping place for different members of the family. The roof window consists of 4 stacked wooden squares. Each of the squares is rotated about 45 degree and the squares getting smaller until the last with the window and hole for the winter oven in it. I saw this already in other houses. The Caliph explains that this is a 3000 year old tradition but most people do not know the meaning. The 4 squares symbolise 4 angels of an ancient religion which are protecting the people of the house against everything bad from outside.

 

And one more thing I saw in a lot of houses and that is a picture of a holy man. It is the IMAM Agha Khan IV of the believers of the Ishmaelite. His ancestor is Ali the brother of the Prophet Mohamed. I never studied about Islam but also there as in all religions you have different streams and slightly different believes. One stream votes the IMAM, another stream selects the next IMAM only from grandgrandgran.... sons of Mohamed or Ali and another one just believe in the 14th IMAM after Mohammed. Well we learned a lot this day and it was very interesting to stay in his house for the tea. Before we leave we get bread, tons of walnut and apples from other villagers and go in the direction of Dushanbe.

 

This time it is really hard to find a place to make a camp. Everywhere there are still signs or it is just written on a stone mines. These are left over from the civil war in the nineties. We are happy that we find later on a place which is cleaned up already by a German mine group.

 

(N 38.25168°, E 71.37569 °)