23/6/2014 0 Comments No complaints so far!!No complaints so far!!
A sigh of relief, the taxi drivers have been no where near as bad as in Uzbekistan, plus the roads are fabulous so far. We've also been able to take long distance buses that go on time even if the bus isn't full.!! They are air conditioned and can't speed as the drivers have to check in at various check points along the route to control this. So transport, roads, hotels, food, bazaars and people are great, IF ONLY it wasn't do hot!!!
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23/6/2014 0 Comments The Iranian people.The Iranian people. This country is great, if you are after traditional bazaars with genuine crafts men doing their thing here is the place for you. No fancy shopping centres or hotels or malls so far. I'm told there is in Tehran but that's not what we are here for. Old towns, mud bricked homes, quaint alley ways, silks and carpets abound. Fabulous, and the people are so nice. All friendly and helpful. They wonder what the west thinks about Iranians. One taxi driver said " so all Iranians are terrorists???"" We've talked to a few and they are as frustrated (more) about Iranian policies as the rest of the world. One guy said we are trapped like caged here and there's nothing we can do. If we speak out we will disappear !!! The women say if they don't wear the scarf they can be detained. But they don't know as they have never tried it. They doubt foreigners would be arrested but would be told to scarf up, again I'm not going to test the law out, but my scarf doesn't cover my hair and I've started wearing more of own clothes that just pass the strict guide lines. I also bought a clip for the scarf which makes things easier. It really helps when going to the squat toilets, the scarf falling off then wouldn't be pretty. Mind you in this heat I don't need to go very often which is only a plus!! The government here seems to have another clerical council over seeing them and vetoeing any reforms that a more liberal government may want to put in, or filling government positions with people who agree with them. So difficult to fight it as opposition normally end up dead. So hard for the normal people, not only have they a government they don't agree with but the outside world sanctions them for their governments decisions. What a way to live. The women do it tough wearing what is dictated to th not by their own men but the government. In this heat it seems do ridiculous and cruel especially the wearing of black. However what I don't understand is the chador. I GET the scarf and head covering that's a law that's punishable if not adhered to, but the black cloak doesn't seem to be compulsory, yet do many women use it. IF YOU can answer me why, please do. Also my view of the head scarf has changed since bring here, I don't have a problem if a woman chooses to wear it, but us all having to have one on, that sucks. Imagine working all day in one!! The international sanctions seem To have brought the country go its knees, inflation and unemployment is sky high. Plus although Iran has much oil, it doesn't have enough refineries, so ironically has to buy petrol from outside at a higher price then sell it back to it's people at subsidised cheaper rates!!!!! Bizarre. 23/6/2014 0 Comments Our days in Iran.Our days in Iran. I'm having my afternoon siesta 2pm till 7ish along with the test of Iran. What a great idea, then after 7pm the streets start to fill with people. We are in Yazd, staying in a lovely traditional hotel that used to be a home with mud brick buildings surrounding a lovely courtyard. Many of these ornate homes have been converted into guest houses or restaurants. Some with an awesome roof terrace or below ground rooms. Hard to explain so please google Yazd traditional homes/ hotels and hopefully some will come up. Add to this traditional carpets and decor, gorgeous. Plus they have the all important wifi. Bonus for us!! And I'm managing to by pass some blocked web sites on my phone but not computer with my pre loaded VPN. this web site is blocked by the government on my mac so I can't download photos, but I by pass with the phone and can get the blog on. Anyway Svend and I have just finished wandering the narrow alley ways of old Yazd, but the streets were pretty deserted. We are having a heat wave ha ha and it's getting hotter until 7pm!!! So still a few hours to go. Our own fault, we shouldn't have been in Iran in June. We just bumped into 3 German back packers ( I thought they looked Israeli and couldn't say it here !!) and they asked where is everyone what is happening why is everything closed. WE the knowledgeable ones told them it was the heat and the streets would be full at night then they could get something to eat, around 10pm ha ha. Food is great here so I'm no longer a vegetarian, kebabs galore and yummy zafhron ice cream. Carrots seem to play a big part, carrot jam we see all the time, and sour cherries ( an acquired taste) Although world sanctions are in place coca cola seems to still be produced here under license!!! And China still manages to get their plastic apparel into the bazaars!! The Holy city of Mashhad. The Harram. I'm all our travels nothing can compare to our visit to The Harram. It's Iran's version of Mecca where people come on a pilgrimage. To enter you women must cover completely in the chador (black tent) so I donned mine, went through security behind curtains in the women's section and thoroughly frisked. Thousands of people inside dressed in black, a huge city in a city with courtyards leading to mosques and minarets and so on. So easy to lose your bearings. I actually took a compass reading. This complex is spectacular. With gold, turquoise and glass mirrored mosaic tiles everywhere. Luxurious carpets all over and people praying, Sitting or eating. No cameras allowed but mobile phone pictures ok!!! You must google image The Harram as I can not give an adequate description in writing. I obviously still was very conspicuous as a foreigner but at no time did I feel unwelcome. The security was friendly elderly men with feather dusters in their hands. (Really) or others with long straw brooms. I'm Not sure of the background behind these but would live to find out. One kindly praying lady tugged at my clothes from the floor and pointed out that my chador ( black tent covering) was in fact upside down. I'd make a hopeless Muslim with topsy turvey headscarf, blonde hair escaping all over the place and upside down chador, did I blend in, not a chance. No wonder I was being looked at. Anyway it was such a wonderful experience that we went back next morning at 5.30am for 2 hours en route to the airport when we left Hussein's house. 22/6/2014 0 Comments All covered in black in 42degreesAll covered in black in 42degrees As I've been in Iran a few days my anxiety has lessened and I've relaxed a lot more, especially as we've left Mashhad and realised we arrived into the country to one of the most religious and Holy cities we could be in. Now in Shiraz not many women where the chador and tourists are mor frequent and I've noticed their clothing to be more relaxed. It seems that as tourists we get away with more but if we are seen to st least be trying to conform then it's ok. I've bought a bright coloured cotton scarf and switched back to my long denim shirt that fits in just fine and now wearing my sandals and my sanity in this heat is returning to normal!!! So now I am starting to enjoy this fabulous country and hope to learn a lot more. 22/6/2014 0 Comments Kidnapped in MashhadKidnapped in Mashhad Arriving in the city and trying not to my anxiety overwhelm me we were quickly taken under the wing of Hussein who was very friendly and insisted we come and stay at his house. This is very common in Iran so we agreed to the kind offer and after a walk we were taken to his house and met his children. Hussein had lived in germNy for 22 years spoke ok english and was really welcoming. At night his wife's family came over and we had kebab dinner cooked over a fire in the yard and served at about 10.30pm. Unfortunately Hussein was a bit too enthusiastic and wanted to make plans to spend the next 2 weeks with us, him & his children driving us around the country to the places we wanted to go. We had to let him down gently but agreed to spend the next day with him. A very late night was had with having to watch several World Cup games so the kids 13 yr I boy and 10 yr old girl were hard to get out of bed and we were off for the day by about mid day( after filling up the gas bottle in the car with 100kg of methane gas (done In a side street with some men who brought the bottles to us!!!) I'd been taken shopping to buy a manteau so I didn't stick out much in a crowd. After a long drive it occurred to Us we were on a day trip Out of the city and wouldn't be seeing the main attraction of The Harram or holy city that would take several hours to see. By this time I was feeling a little bit overwhelmed by Hussein's Hospitality ( a little bit kidnapped) so Svend negotiated a shortened trip and a quicker return to the city. We managed to spend some time at The Harram and visit family of one of svends work mates Fayhad. We had a fabulous visit meeting many of his 8 brothers and sisters and mother, with them insisting we eat dinner with them, again this was about 11pm, which we are beginning to realise is quite normal here in Iran. Not sure when people sleep because they are up again at 7am. But maybe during the day as it's so.......... hot. We would have loved to spend ore time with the family who gave us very incitefull views from inside Iran and what the people actually think!!! Welcome to Iran. What am I doing here. ?????? We decided to leave Turkmenistan a day early and move onto Iran. We'd fine what we wanted and didn't know what would happen at the border we weren't supposed to be exiting at. All went well, no questions asked and before we knew it I was head scarfing up for entry to Iran, passport and visa stamped and we were in The Islamic Republic of Iran after the usual scrum with taxi drivers offering extortionate prices we were on our way to Mashhad on the bus. To say my first hours in Iran were confronting is a vast understatement, what on earth was I doing here, my comfort zone was off the Richter scale. Here I was in 42 degrees, clothed from ankle to wrist plus a head scarf I was trying to keep on, looking at the women mostly in full black chadors on top of their top to toe clothes shoes and scarfs. On the bus I had to sit at the back with the women with Svend at the front. The women were very nice and said it was a bad time to come in summer. The sun would make me feel very ill. Yep they got that right. I have never felt so out of place. Hot bothered and looked at, not meanly but curious, with "are you a tourist" asked of me. My scarf had a mind of its own and kept snagging on my bag, falling off and just generally annoying me. Oh boy, 16 days of this!!!! 22/6/2014 0 Comments A big burning hole.A big burning hole. We left Ashgabat for a 4 hour journey to the centre of Turkmenistan. At the designated place for picking up transport we nearly had a riot and fight on our hand when another guy undercut a driver. We were quickly whisked away by one guy who passed us onto another and taken to a hidden car down a side street to a waiting driver. On our way we figured out these niceish guys were driving our way and were just getting their petrol covered (fair enough ) We were dropped at a roadside tea house, a very basic affair that serviced passing traffic in the middle of desert. Svend negotiated to stay on their floor for the night and a 4wd out to the reason we were there. The Darwaza burning gas crater or Hells Hole. We spent the afternoon at the tea house meeting the passing customers and keeping an eye on the fly catching sticky paper that was getting blacker by the hour !!!! Thank Goodness for the paper as I think every fly for miles around obviously dropped in here. A little before sunset we set off to The crater that on first impressions was smaller than expected but non the less impressive. A huge burning hole in the dessert. Man made during gas exploration but leaked noxious gases so some bright spark (no pun intended) decided to light it to get rid of the gas, it ignited and has been burning for the last 40ish years. And no one had really made an effort to put it out. You can stand right at the edge of the crater, no barriers to stop you crept the heat and fear of falling on. It's an amazing sight to see and look into especially when it got dark. Loads of photos taken we departed to our bed space on the floor after watching some World Cup soccer. Next morning we were up and on the side of the road hitching a lift with a truck that took us all the way to Ashgabat ( with Svend hidden behind a curtain at police checks) The hotel again told us there was no room and wanted to send us on our way, but when we said we would wait a room was miraculously found on a floor that Most of the rooms were empty. So we are not sure what was happening or they just didn't want the effort of foreigners there. 22/6/2014 0 Comments Turkmenistan AshgabatTurkmenistan Ashgabat It's hard to describe this country that is do paranoid about the outside world. So hard to get visas, so little time allowed here and from what we can see no reason. There are police positioned on every street corner and about 50 metres in between, and in really important places army with big guns as well. The buildings look amazing all white marbles and a whole city and expanding of them but are only shells, nothing in them. Plus you are not allowed to walk along the street, stop and look or take photos of them. All very bizarre. The people are very scared of going the wrong thing, and the police are always doting drivers, asking for their license then pocketing the cash always put in the license. There is no tourist set up and one girl even told us they don't need tourism as the country had enough money from Oil and gas. But the people SEEM happy enough, they like their president who has his picture everywhere( but no photos allowed) the new president isn't as crazy as the late one who died aged 66 after pitying I'm a new constitution that he could be president till death!!!! He really was an odd ball. He was changing the names of months and days of the week to the news if his family members!!!!! He was changing the street names first from the soviet names to Turkmenistan names and the decided to change them all to numbers. The new president changed them back but now the people don't really know where places are when we ask for them. Everything of interest was closed down, museums, theme parks and cable car, and the huge bazaar that is now new and modern we were stopped from taking photos of the vegetable displays AND had to delete any photos taken. The women wear the most incredible tall head dresses in vivid colours which are vet interesting, but not really religious regalia. The market had a big animal section with loads of camels and sheep, and a room I thought was an auction room but turned out to be the slaughter house !!!!! 20/6/2014 0 Comments Iran and safe.A quick post whilst we have Internet. In Iran real culture shock. 42 degrees and coveted from head to toe in clothes topped with scarf plus an enormous black chador on top. Masshad too much to take for first days. But I'm getting used to it slowly. We are safe despite seeing news on unrest in the region. No where near us I don't think. 20/6/2014 0 Comments Pet hates.Pet hates. Plastic drink bottles a scourge on the nation./ world Glass vodka bottles discarded on the plains of Kyrgyzstan. 100's of satellite dishes on the roofs of apt buildings in Turkmenistan. State paranoia over photos and everything in Turkmenistan. Russian hotels that charge a fortune and offer nothing, and haven't been renovated since building (or cleaned properly for that matter) People who try to help and give advice or directions where they decide you want to go / stay and not where you actually ask for. Not understanding language or writing ( our own fault) Smoking in cars. Old several days old bread broken into pieces served all the time. Driving way too fast on dangerous / or good roads. Chinese imported plastic goods in all the bazaars. Not having enough time anywhere due to visas. Drunken men especially if they are driving. 20/6/2014 0 Comments Yee ha Turkmenistan.Yee ha Turkmenistan. Another early start to the day with the promise of 650km to drive as well as a slow border crossing. All went smoothly we were the first one at the dusty desert crossing, stamping out of Uzbekistan walking 20 minutes between no mans land in 60km winds, 42 degrees heat and a desert sand storm. This all persuaded me to don a scarf over my hair and face and found it worked very well. On entry to Turkmenistan we were informed that the visa we had taken so long to get actually had the wrong exit town printed on it and we didn't have permission to go to the capital Ashgabat. We promised we wouldn't go there(!!!) and would cross at the other crossing (!!!!!!!) stated in our documents in the 4 days we were allowed in the country. Everything was taken out of our bags just for the sake of it but not looked at, and we were asked heaps of times if we had any religious books. No no and no. ( they don't want extremists there) we paid another $12 each and we were off and out. Unfortunately (or fortunately) down the road we had our first police check point and they couldn't find our entry stamp. Someone had forgotten to stamp us in, so back we trudged to the border in the dust storm to get the rubber stamp. Crossing the border each side were more than a hundred trucks heading to Iran, Turkey or Europe. It would take them days to pass through. We were quickly given a lift then very soon asked to get out as he'd been told the police would fine and deport him if he was caught with tourists. That was ok we walked for a while and got a taxi taking us the other 600km. The roads were fabulous and I was thrilled to see a herd of nearly 100 camels on the road and we made good time arriving in Ashgabat (shhhh....) in record time. Unfortunately our luck ran out then as it took us 3 hours to find a hotel that wasn't full, with 3 taxi drivers who didn't know where they were going !! We did get to see the white marbled futuristic city by night but were too stressed and tired to really enjoy it. Our hotel was expensive but as usual with the previous soviet ones, ok on the outside but very run down inside. It was however a bed (no top sheet!!!) for the night and had a shower. A pizza next door and several cold beers later we felt much better. Welcome to Turkmenistan. 20/6/2014 0 Comments Return to Uzbekistan.Return to Uzbekistan. We had a two night stay back in Uzbekistan, first at Samarkand (unexpected but the northern border we expected to use was closed) but it gave us time to see the newly renovated Registan in all it's glory, catch our breath in familiar surroundings and enjoy temperatures a few degrees cooler than what was waiting for us in Bukhara and Turkmenistan. At night The Registan had a changing light show but to be honest it's got nothing on Sydney's Vivid festival on the opera house. Arriving at 2am we were greeted with tea and warm hospitality at our guest house 2 minutes walk from the Registan and we couldn't resist having a walk around town at that time if the morning. (Last time we would be there) A bus trip was the choice to Bukhara unfortunately the air conditioner broke and was driving wAter all over us, it had a flat tyre and the clutch went, so after breaking down we finished the journey in an overcrowded minibus. Very very hot 43 degrees and a dust storm .... nice. But the pub was open and our room had air conditioning.
20/6/2014 0 Comments 50 shades of grey in a taxi!!50 shades of grey in a taxi!! So it's time to head west again after saying good bye to Tajikistan and doing another dusty land border crossing on foot into Uzbekistan. Several police and military check points later we are looking for a taxi to take us about 500km (yes). We felt lucky when we realised there was us and another lady, and just needed one more person to fill the car before we left. About an hour later the driver had installed Bubu (maybe meant grandad???) into the backseat beside me. The lady on the front seat and Svend the other side of me. Things went well at first until the driver turned quite manic and kept yelling at Svend to close his window quicker when we were on dusty patches of road. ( the winder would stick so he couldn't ) as you can imagine this didn't go down very well and the atmosphere was quite frosty in our car. Add to this really bad roads and unbelievably dangerous driving that at one point involved us overtaking a truck that was overtaking another truck and a car heading straight at us. I was really really scared and realised that I had forgotten how they drive in Uzbekistan (I know, I should read my own blog). I did whisper to Svend that I thought there was a big chance we would die that night. So there I was wedged in between Bubu the old Muslim looking man with cap and long white beard,with a very fungus infected thumb, smelling ever so much of stale urine if I sniffed the wrong way ( he was quite nice though) looking out of the front window at the on coming traffic, WHEN I noticed the lady passenger had put her hand on the drivers seat, as time went on her little finger touched his leg and then all her fingers, eventually his fingers were squeezing hers. I'm watching all this in amazement and I can tell you she was no spring chicken or oil painting especially when she took off her sunglasses. As time went on her hand was on his leg and moving upwards, he was then holding onto the steering wheel trying to drive with all this distraction going on and I was in disbelief. On arrival back in Samarkand at 2am It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know what they were up to!!!!!! 50 shades of grey in a Muslim country!!!!!! We left Uzbekistan 2 days later from Bukhara (45degree fame) and as we arrived at the border who should run over to us than this very same driver. If only we could speak his language I'm sure we would have asked a question or two???? 20/6/2014 0 Comments Two min noodle dietTwo min noodle diet I think I've found a new way to keep slim and trim. A diet for a week through the Pamirs consisting of bread (old usually) a few nuts and dried fruit, tea and one 2 minute noodle per night definitely works!! 12/6/2014 0 Comments Back to reality.Back to reality. After a few weeks in remote areas we are back to more civilised areas. One plus or minus is the more widespread use of wifi. It's obviously great when we have it but slightly addictive. However we are certainly brought back to reality when we hear various news from home. Kalle, Bente and Fiona have had another birthday. Logan doing well at first year of school. Anna's had glandular fever for a month. Wendy and Viggo got sick on their trip to Nepal. Also Viggo tried to contact us on all our contacts which panicked me a little, but nice to know they all work , even skype voice mail. Aden not meeting us in Croatia, will be doing two weeks flight school instead at Tamworth not quite as exotic! Also passed all his exams and training at Duntroon so far, only 6 months to go!!! Ane Marie still organising parties. Anja doing well on The Voice Australia. Also in new idea magazine I believe. Bree had an accident in our Honda on a country road in Victoria, all ok, the car not so good. Started air traffic control training in Sale. Liam's been on tv again. The lovely ladies and mothers group lunching non stop and jetting off here and there. And Nathan having the time of his life in Denmark, coming to the end of his college stay and now needs to decide where to travel to next, and should he buy a week long concert ticket to Roskilde music festival. So yes we are back to reality . 12/6/2014 0 Comments Whistle blowing policemenWhistle blowing policemen. I've been thinking about our own young sons and daughters Nd how they have never been exposed to a world that has no real structure, rules and regulations. Here I think there are rules and regulations but the people use them as loose guide lines. Cars are filled up with as many people as will fit. Kids roll around on all seats. Smoke wherever you like. Drink and drive AND use your mobile at will. No road markings so drive where you like at speeds you want. We probably can all remember these days but our kids would be stunned. However if you want to sit on the grass in the park, the police will blow their whistle at you!! Also if you sit on a step near a monument, the whistle will blow, also if you take a photo of a beautiful building. The police will also stop you,ask for your passport then ask if we have some money!!!!! Hard to work out what is important, obviously the grass is!!! 12/6/2014 1 Comment The baby cradleThe baby cradle. In the bazaars and shops we are often shown the fabulous rocking wooden baby cradles of which they a are very proud of. But we were quite shocked when we were shown how they work. The baby is strapped onto the mattress and wooden board is clothed but a tube is attached to drain any ursine and us drained through a hole in the cradle to a container below. The baby rarely comes off the cradle and we saw the mother feeding it by just leaning over the baby. Apparently it is a cause for concern (Some foreign aid agencies ) especially in orphanages as the babies get no mental stimulation and are left for most of each day strapped to the cradle. I would like to find out more about this, but we have actually been shown it and it is part of the culture. Shipping containers and rail carriages. One thing we see all over the region is the ingenious re use of shipping containers. They are used as shops in the local bazaar. They are used as an extra room in the front garden. Piled on top of each other, clad and ruled and made to look like a two story office from the front but at the back they are jus your old shipping container. Amazing. Old train carriages are also seen all over the region. They are some how dragged up the mountain and local families live in them until the weather is good enough for the Yurt to be built. Again amazing. 12/6/2014 0 Comments Useless street signsUseless street signs One problem travelling here is street names. Not only are they in Russian Cyrillic script (not understandable) but they have often been renamed since the soviet times, but the locals will only know them from their old name and the maps will have the new names but the street will still have the old name on the walls. Confused??? So are we. It will be a miracle if we find our way home!!!! 12/6/2014 0 Comments Annoying tv.Annoying tv. Have you ever just wanted to chill and watch TV. Just anything as long as you can understand it. Well don't expect that here. EVERTHING us dubbed into Russian, no subtitles just Russian. All movies cooking programmes. Documentaries. So annoying. And the Russians agree. They want to improve their english but don't get the chance. In china they had their own tv no english again but mostly singing and karaoke shows. Quite tedious. But you can get Islam today if you are really keen!!!!!! No english ha ha. Afghanistan Border river road and market. The Pamirs. What a week we've had. Visually stimulating and exhilarating. The Pamir mountain region lived up to our expectations and way beyond. We headed south deep into the mountain ranges until we came to the Tajik / afghan border area where we ended up driving more than 600km. It was crazy how close we were at times to that off limits country. Truth be known we could have got a visa to visit but we are not sure where we could have entree and what restrictions there would have been. However we saw its spring snow capped mountains and glaziers from just over the river. We travelled on mountain tracks and got held up Ruth donkey traffic or goat herds marketing their way up to find summer pastures. The tracks were 4wd and came perilously close to the cliff edge. Rock falls were common and switch backs numerous. The scenery amazing. Part of the journey to undertook with a hired Kyrgyz hat wearing driver Sollyboy and new travel mate skiing and mountain hiking American John Jay from Colorado. One of the highlights was the afghan market at ishkashim, where we crossed a bridge and left our passports with the soldiers. The afghan traders do the same their side and we meet at the bazaar. The traders lived up to my expectations but their wares were unfortunately mostly Chinese plastic shite that we see in all markets all over the world. Svend and the other travellers did find a guy selling afghani hats and scarfs and he sold out in no time. Some traders wanted to talk and were telling us where we could go safely and where there were no Taliban. Seems they don't want them either. Of course I had a great time with my camera but it may be awhile till I can download to the web site. The next part of our trip involved more hitching lifts on trucks coming from china bringing plastic shite into the country and beyond. You don't get much choice who you travel with and our first lift started ok until we had to visit the guys brother, have dinner there then after this long wait and a beer on the go, he thought we could stay in his cab that night, however he already had his other brother and son in there too, so it was getting a bit crowded. Late at night with us panicking a little about the mountain tracks, pitch darkness, tired and erratic driver, Svend saw an opportunity to jump ship when he saw a wayside stop. I hurriedly got our bags off, he asked if we could sleep on their floor and the driver was frantically trying to get us to stay. After a night in this tea stop in the mountains, at 6am Svend got us another truck lift and away we went again. Very slow over the mountains but we stayed with him for several hours until a passport police check, where we got a lift with a family in a 4wd. Unfortunately the engine was burning oil and often stopped when we slowed down , plus when we met them they had just changed a tyre. It was a very sick car. On top of that we had to wait for a landslide to be removed from the pass, plus a few 100 sheep and goats to pass by. But we got where we wanted to go eventually and sadly had to say goodbye to The Pamirs 11/6/2014 0 Comments The belly button of the world.The belly button of the world.We were now in Tajikistan, which bordered China,& amazingly there is a 2m high wire fence running 450km along the two countries that was build by the Russians pre Independence time. I named it the Great Fence of china. Not sure who would want to cross into either place, as it’s the most desolate part of the world I have ever seen. For your information Tajikistan also has a 1300km border with Afghanistan, as well as one with Kyrgyzstan. (some interesting neighbours to have)We were driving along a road that had been made on top of glacial moraine, & had washed out in places so was pretty rough. Not a blade of grass exists as far as we could see. The mountain ranges are very foreboding but majestic at the same time with their white caps & you just wonder who on earth would want to live here. We spent a night at lake karakul in a family run home stay, called Homestay Sadat. The village was by a beautiful Lake & had about 65 families there, & is at 4000m above sea level. A very duty desolate town with the added hardship that the lake is unfortunately salt water so nothing lives in it, & couldn’t anyway because of the altitude. What a joke god played on that town, bleak, dusty, windy, freezing & not a fish to be had. I think of the lake & town like a Belly button, it exists but no one really knows why!!!!!Our guesthouse was a wonderful surprise once we were inside. It was run by a Kyrgyz family (Kyrgyz clans live inside Tajikistan, as do Tajik clans inside Kyrgyzstan…. All a matter of who your ancestors were, but you will still have a passport with the country of birth but also what ancestry you are) The rooms were all lined with carpets on the walls & hand made tapestry, & elevated sitting platforms with low tables to eat at, & beds made up on the floor with colourful mattresses & covers. The toilet was across the yard, in still freezing weather, next to the sheep & yak shed.
63 days on the road. Tajikistan here we come.So on arrival in Osh we stayed in what looked like a really dodgy Guest House, in an apartment building on the top floor that was full of very friendly back packers, & a very knowledgeable manager. It was also the most noticeably Muslim apartment we had encountered on our travels. The manager was wearing his Muslim cap & had a very long beard, & we saw a notice on the board that said any alcohol drank or even kept in our rooms would be a $50 fine!!!! So we knew what we were up for. Osh is also the most Muslim town we have been to since Kashgar, & all the women wear scarves that cover all their hair. We were supposed to be hiring a 4wd & driver for the next part of our trip over the next 10 days to Tajikistan & through the Pamir mountains. However only one more person could be found to share the cost, & the cost was really too expensive at us$1300. The main problem for the next section was lack of public transport & few people travelling to the area. Also there was some political unrest in a couple of areas that are quite sensitive & drivers weren’t being allowed to take their vehicles through the areas. The other guy John (American) still wanted to go so we decided to hire a 4wd just to the next town after the border in Tajikistan, but still about a 12 hour drive with a border crossing over high mountain passes of 4200m & an over night stay at a Lake.So it was arranged we would leave at 9am in a Mitsubishi Pajero, we drove to the town that was having demonstrations & we found the road blocked with several Yurts to stop traffic driving through. Another driver had driven up from Murgab (our final destination) with a car full of passengers & we all simply walked around the demonstration after the drivers had made contact & we swapped cars. The local demonstrators asked me what I was doing there & was I a spy. (thedemonstration was about one of the government ministers had been put in prison & he was from the town & they had been protesting for over a week for his release). So off we went with our new driver & a couple of barrels of petrol that had been exchanged between cars & rolled through the demonstration. After about an hour we found our selves in a snowstorm & told that 25cm had fallen last night over the passes. It was completely white out at some point & freezing cold. We still managed to get out for photos at one high point of 4260m & try to smile. We passed a very bleak border crossing where our driver got out & lifted up the barrier himself & took all of our passports through the two border posts, & the guards never even got to see our faces to check the visas or permits. Unbelievably after one mountain pass it had stopped snowing, & was sunny & there was no evidence of snow at all.
11/6/2014 0 Comments Google earthWe are so blown away with our last few days in Tajikistan hitching and driving along the Tajik and afghan river border. Please if you have any interest. Google earth murgab, Langar, ishkashim and kharug I haven't seen it yet but I think it will give a good perspective to the Pamir mountain ranges we are in. Also google image ishkashim Sunday market. It was amazing. |
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August 2014
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