Tajikistan: Dushanbe and the Fan mountains

The border procedure getting across into Tajikistan was quite interesting; the contrast between the two countries could not have been bigger. As organized the Uzbek side was as chaotic was Tajikistan with about 10 different stops not or badly marked, military control, veterinary inspection, doctor who measures your temperature, police, customs, traffic police….

Customs was obviously the biggest hassle, not because they searched the truck, no they first insisted I could only have 14 days transit papers at 90 US for the truck… never heard of that limitation before. Although politely insisting that I am a tourist they did not budge, only until a more friendly officer came to help and who introduced me to Colonel Borodin, the boss of customs…he seemed more Russian though. Big fat guy, good English he obviously wanted to practice and as so often very curious about the truck. After giving him a tour I got my 30 days but the 90 US were gone, I was trying but not too hard and he could not or did not want to let his people loose face…

So as info for travellers…There are transit papers for vehicles that are valid for 14 days at a cost (A4), however, there is also the A5 tourist paper for vehicles and I believe that should be for free normally. Just insist.

In the process of getting in and out of the truck about 50 times I must have banged the screen of my new pocket camera in my pants against something so I am 1 camera down…luckily I took a spare one :-).

Dushanbe about only 60 km from the border is a city with little touristic interest, I was aiming to get a Kazak visa here so had to stay a night, camping in front of the embassy …

The city is surprisingly green and the large alleys with huge trees are quite impressive. Unfortunately there is not a great culture for street café’s possibly even with wifi, so I was just wandering around and had dinner in the only Pub I could find…

Next 4 days while waiting for the visa I was off to the north into the Fan mountains hiking.

I needed to cross one mountain chain through a tunnel, which does not even deserve that title. Well it is a 9 km long hole through the mountain but the inside condition is amazing, water standing everywhere, the road is a chain of big potholes with steel rods poking out all over… I was praying not to get a flat in there as some other trucks seemed to have as the air in there is a thick as pudding heavy with black diesel fumes… quite atrocious as you spend a while in there with average speed of about 10 km and hour…

A few hours later I was in paradise though, passing Iskander Kul a well known lake in the mountains I aimed for the little village Saratok to start my hike.

I ll let the pictures do the talking but the landscape is magnificent and as I am early in the year the high pastures are empty, so I did not see a soul. Tough thing is that after the the biggest snowmelt some of the small bridges x ing the rivers were gone which forced me into some adventures that were a bit scary to say the least…

Now iam back in Dushanbe collecting the visa and preparing to head into the high Pamirs… unfortunately Tam did not make it here (work work work eh?) so I will be still on my own.