The team enjoys a brief rest at the Hyatt and many parks of Dushanbe before undertaking the many final preparations to be made before the final border crossing into Afghanistan can be undertaken!
Steve Dew-Jones:
This morning Bryn and I had the pleasure of meeting a group of Afghan mechanics. These truly gentle men were in the process of giving our Isuzu a quick once-over, following yesterday’s relapse of the whole not-starting malarkey. This issue took place just as we were preparing ourselves to leave Iskanderkul in order to make for the capital and we would never have arrived if it weren’t for the help of a group of locals, who hooked up the car with a tow rope so that we could perform a jump-start.
Successfully under way again, the mountainous scenery continued to bewilder and amaze us for the duration of the three-hour journey from Alexander’s Lake – the highlight of which was certainly the 3km crawl through a completely flooded Iranian-built tunnel. It was more than a little relieving when eventually we saw the light at the end of it.
Now in Dushanbe – a capital surrounded by mountains – we have been enjoying the bliss of another Hyatt, whilst also sampling the best of Tajik cuisine at a local tea house. Unsurprisingly, the staples are plov (rice with meat), shashlik (meat), and lagmin (meat in soup). Will there be no end to this dire insistence upon meat without even an inkling of any veg.?
Tomorrow morning we set out again into the mountains to make for Khorog. At 480km distance, if it weren’t for the peaks we might expect to arrive by sundown. Instead, I should think that another spot of camping might be in store…
Sophie Ibbotson:
What struck me first about
driving into Dushanbe is the number of parks. The botanical garden is not as easy to find as the city map would suggest, but almost every street corner delivers a patch of green, a few trees and a stall selling snacks or ice cream.
One of the largest parks is next door to the Hyatt and runs alongside the central lake. Small boys stripped down to their boxer shorts shriek and splash in the water as their mothers and grandmothers look on indulgently. Wandering along through the melee the air is relaxed: the world seems half asleep in the afternoon sun.
Alas, despite the gentle call of the parks, we had rather more pressing things to attend to than enjoying a lazy afternoon. Dushanbe was our last major city before passing into Afghanistan which necessitated visiting the British Embassy to notify the staff of our arrival, getting the Isuzu serviced and re-fuelled, looking for maps and updates on the road conditions ahead, and paying a visit to the Afghan Embassy to request permission to take the Isuzu across the border.
It took us two attempts to find the Afghan Embassy as it’d changed location without bothering to inform anyone. The guidebooks and hotel map both directed us to a building now inhabited by the Tajik Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as for that matter did the business cards of most embassy employees. When we eventually found it we passed swiftly through security and entered into a large hallway with a high ceiling. Two or three staff buzzed out to meet us before disappearing once again behind closed wooden doors.
The reasons for our visit to the Embassy were many-fold. In addition to the vehicle permit we had a letter to deliver from the Afghan Ambassador to London, our friend Homayoun Tandor, we needed to collect a visa for Max (MEP’s director who had joined us in Dushanbe) and, last but not least, we wanted to interview his Excellency on film. I quizzed him at length about the experiences of Afghans in Tajikistan, particularly those who arrived in the countries as refugees from the Taliban or more recent conflict, and also about how Tajikistan and Afghanistan would be co-operating in the future on security, border control and economic development. He spoke eloquently and was a thoroughly obliging subject.
We could have spent a day or so more in Dushanbe and taken in the galleries, restaurants and other entertainments. However, the road called: Afghanistan was almost in sight and we were too impatient to finally see the Oxus River that demarcates the Tajik-Afghan border. It was therefore back into the Isuzu and into the heart of the Pamirs.
Steve Dew-Jones:
This morning Bryn and I had the pleasure of meeting a group of Afghan mechanics. These truly gentle men were in the process of giving our Isuzu a quick once-over, following yesterday’s relapse of the whole not-starting malarkey. This issue took place just as we were preparing ourselves to leave Iskanderkul in order to make for the capital and we would never have arrived if it weren’t for the help of a group of locals, who hooked up the car with a tow rope so that we could perform a jump-start.
Successfully under way again, the mountainous scenery continued to bewilder and amaze us for the duration of the three-hour journey from Alexander’s Lake – the highlight of which was certainly the 3km crawl through a completely flooded Iranian-built tunnel. It was more than a little relieving when eventually we saw the light at the end of it.
Now in Dushanbe – a capital surrounded by mountains – we have been enjoying the bliss of another Hyatt, whilst also sampling the best of Tajik cuisine at a local tea house. Unsurprisingly, the staples are plov (rice with meat), shashlik (meat), and lagmin (meat in soup). Will there be no end to this dire insistence upon meat without even an inkling of any veg.?
Tomorrow morning we set out again into the mountains to make for Khorog. At 480km distance, if it weren’t for the peaks we might expect to arrive by sundown. Instead, I should think that another spot of camping might be in store…
Sophie Ibbotson:
What struck me first about
driving into Dushanbe is the number of parks. The botanical garden is not as easy to find as the city map would suggest, but almost every street corner delivers a patch of green, a few trees and a stall selling snacks or ice cream.One of the largest parks is next door to the Hyatt and runs alongside the central lake. Small boys stripped down to their boxer shorts shriek and splash in the water as their mothers and grandmothers look on indulgently. Wandering along through the melee the air is relaxed: the world seems half asleep in the afternoon sun.
Alas, despite the gentle call of the parks, we had rather more pressing things to attend to than enjoying a lazy afternoon. Dushanbe was our last major city before passing into Afghanistan which necessitated visiting the British Embassy to notify the staff of our arrival, getting the Isuzu serviced and re-fuelled, looking for maps and updates on the road conditions ahead, and paying a visit to the Afghan Embassy to request permission to take the Isuzu across the border.
It took us two attempts to find the Afghan Embassy as it’d changed location without bothering to inform anyone. The guidebooks and hotel map both directed us to a building now inhabited by the Tajik Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as for that matter did the business cards of most embassy employees. When we eventually found it we passed swiftly through security and entered into a large hallway with a high ceiling. Two or three staff buzzed out to meet us before disappearing once again behind closed wooden doors.
The reasons for our visit to the Embassy were many-fold. In addition to the vehicle permit we had a letter to deliver from the Afghan Ambassador to London, our friend Homayoun Tandor, we needed to collect a visa for Max (MEP’s director who had joined us in Dushanbe) and, last but not least, we wanted to interview his Excellency on film. I quizzed him at length about the experiences of Afghans in Tajikistan, particularly those who arrived in the countries as refugees from the Taliban or more recent conflict, and also about how Tajikistan and Afghanistan would be co-operating in the future on security, border control and economic development. He spoke eloquently and was a thoroughly obliging subject.
We could have spent a day or so more in Dushanbe and taken in the galleries, restaurants and other entertainments. However, the road called: Afghanistan was almost in sight and we were too impatient to finally see the Oxus River that demarcates the Tajik-Afghan border. It was therefore back into the Isuzu and into the heart of the Pamirs.
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