Started out later than intended (of course), and had to get some additional provisions before we left town (needed to gas up and buy the inevitable bag full of lepyoshka/Tajik flatbread, which isn’t worth getting very far ahead of time because it quickly goes stale). Also reluctantly swung around the house again for a quick grab when we realized we hadn’t packed any booze.
The theme for days 1.5 of the journey was frankly how bad the road was. The quality of the road and our relationship to it was a theme on which we had chance to meditate throughout. But on the early legs of the journey, spent basically getting to remote Badakhshan (where I guess I assumed the roads would be worst), Dan and I were both surprised at how inferior the road was, especially the lead up to Kulob and the stretch from Kulob to where the road nears the Panj River. Our main complaint as we rose and fell through the high hills (or low mountains, depending on your perspective) that progressively grow as you go south from Dushanbe concerned the long dusty stretches where apparently some kind of road work was ongoing, although not exactly always actively in process. (To be fair, it was still Ramadan at that point, and I do think there was more activity actually happening on this stretch when we drove home the day following Eid.)
If you want to see this on a map, I'm plotting out points on the way here on Google Maps.
Also, if the Cyrillic is not a deterrent, here is a map below (click on it to get a larger view), which, now that I look at it, might have given me a more realistic expectation of the roads had I looked at it before we went -- notice the very absent road line, for instance, between Khirmanjoi and Zigar. And the yellow portion between Nurak and Danghara. It actually is a very accurate representation of the roughly 3 types of road conditions we met (terrible, bad, and acceptable/good). Brings that aspect of our trip belatedly into very sharp focus for me!
Here are a couple of shots of the scene out the window (this gives you no sense of the feel of the ride, however -- on the way home I actually started taking short video clips to at least record for my own memory just how much we were being shaken, though mainly in the middle portion in Darvoz, not here in Khatlon province). You can see more on Flickr.
Next stop: Kalai Khumb for a night's rest.
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