Sunday, September 19, 2010

Tajikistan - Part I - The Pamirs - glimpses into the Hindu Kush and Afghanistan

Hello everyone, today is Sept. 16. We have just returned safely to Dushanbe after a week of travelling. We drove east and south from Dushanbe via Tavildara to Khorog, made a circuit into the Pamirs driving through the Wakhan Valley, across the Pamir Highway and back via Kulyab to Dushanbe. Here are some thoughts and highlights. Inshahallah (God willing), Mark will be able to attach some photos from Kyrgestan and Tajikistan.

Sept 9. Our guide, Vlad and driver, Hatam picked us up promptly at 9 am from the Poythat Hotel in Dushanbe. We proceeded through this busy city eastward toward Tavildara to Kalaikum and then onto Khorog. The road is described in the books as being rough, but that is an inadequate description. Here are some elaborations: Animal trails from prehistoric times evolved and became donkey-wagon tracks. From photos in the Khorog museum, we could see that sometime during or after WW II, a track was hand-hewn up the Wakhan Valley along the Pyanji river. During Soviet times, a sort of road was built and the road construction machines still sit rusting along the way. The road may better be described as head-bashing, bone-jarring, bladder-bashing rollercoaster. At any given moment, the road washes out, turns into sand or requires going over a rock pile. There could never be enough road signs to advise the unwary drive.

The best one was simply an exclamation mark. The ! was good for complete disappearance of the road, an indication of repaving-a work in progress, or no road at all. No signs indicated animals, people, kids, or ruts deep enough to swallow the whole car. Just after Tavildara, we crossed the Sagirdast Pass at 3252 M. The views along the Pamirs were were spectacular. High mountain pastures with cell-phone talking shepherds guarding their animals. The villages are small, composed of flat-roofed houses, stables and walls constructed from mud brick and wattle. Men in distictive Tajik hats, women wearing brightly colored salwar kameze outfits and flowered or sparkly head scarves, kids and donkeys, and dogs work the fields. Straw was being harvested by hand with sickle and scythe in the patch-work of fields with cows, goats and sheep munching on the stubble. The sun was very warm; people were stooped and working hard, but seemed cheerful, waved and were chatty with each other; and there was sort of a festive atmosphere in the fields. Whenever we stopped, people waved, greeted us openly and asked for their photos to be taken. The straw gets piled up on trucks and then piled in pyramids on top of the flat-topped houses. Some of the newer houses are covering the piles of staw with an A shaped tin roof. Change is slowly coming to this valley but the machinery and tools are right out of the last century. I have seen one or two decrepid combines that could be regarded as antiques in Canada. When the Soviets withdrew taking with them the technology, equipment and know-how the Tajik people have had to relearn how to farm and harvest by hand. We can see that the people are strong, resilient and determined. With everyone using a cell phone and satellite dishes here and there, they seem to be moving from middle-ages living conditions into the technology age quickly. Music sounds Tajiki or Persian. No Lady Gaga in evidence here.

Our road vehicle was a Toyota Land Cruiser, the Prado edition if you must know, but the tires are balding and smooth. Despite 2 tire punctures and a dislocation of the steering strutt from the right,front wheel, Hatam's very skillful driving saved us from disaster. Every second required his complete attention. At any time, I felt as though we were one bump away from overturning and plunging into the river gorge; maybe with a swim across the rock-boiling river into Afghanistan. Thankfully after a full day of driving, we stopped for the night at a guesthouse in a little village called Kalaikum.

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