Apologies for the break – I was busy finishing a piece of writing and didn’t have any spare time to continue the Pamir roadtrip story.

Where were we? We were still on Day 2, having just arrived into Khorog, and were exploring the gardens at the Serena, while Dan napped off his stomach bug. We can cover the remainder of that day plus Day 3 (In Khorog) here.

By about 5 in evening Dan forced himself out of bed to show us a bit of the town, and we went to have a bite to eat and a pleasant time relaxing on the tapchans at the Chorbogh teahouse (operated by the group of Aga Khan organizations, just like the Serena – the AK development network seems to kind of run the Pamirs, or at least Khorog). The teahouse is situated just on the banks of the river Gunt, in a corner of the Khorog city park, with a raised platform hanging out over the river and the icy blue-green water rushing by below.

The town itself feels quaint and small, although it also has the bustling feel of a regional hub, and the center of town right next to the bazaar housed a constant crowd of travelers and touts and small-time sellers and minibuses and SUVs – the marketplace for anyone wanting to depart the Pamir region for west-central Tajikistan and not aiming to pay for one of the very limited airplane seats out of town (meaning almost any ordinary traveler).


Khorog is a border post, founded in the 1890s by the Russian military as the boundaries between British-controlled Afghanistan and Russian-controlled Central Asia were firmed up, so in a sense, although the town is picturesque, it isn’t surprising that it also has a hint of the rough and ready menace of a border station. And maybe because our visit coincided with a holiday weekend, including Tajikistan’s independence day, for which there was a large public celebration in the city park, there was also at times an ever so slightly trashy feel – drunks hanging around on the edges of the park, groups of men ranging around after the late afternoon breakup of the local football match, and literally lots of remaining litter lying around in the park after the main heaps of trash had been carted away on the actual holiday. So Khorog was a pleasant break during our travels but certainly not home to us, as tourists and visitors.

We had a peaceful stay at the Serena, got rested up, and refroze the ice packs from our cooler. Continued to meet up with random travelers you’d never imagine would bother to make their way to Tajikistan, although I suppose that for them that’s the point: the Pamirs in a real sense are the end of the world, following in Marco Polo's footsteps, that kind of thing. On our first evening we’d already met up with a group of San Diego based travelers in Kalai Khumb who were making their way from Osh in Kyrgyzstan (I was surprised, given the relatively recent violence there) to Dushanbe, by way of Khorog. They claimed they’d visited (or would soon have visited?) every country in the world. “There’s a group of us,” their ringleader noted, by way of explanation. Who knew? In Khorog we crossed paths at the Serena with a French family traveling in a 2-car caravan. They had driven overland all the way from Europe and aimed after an exploration of the Pamirs to end up in Tashkent, where their university-aged son had a reservation to fly out in a few weeks’ time.

We also spent a thoroughly enjoyable morning in the Khorog Botanical Garden, perched up on a hill above the Shakhdarya river, on the southeast edge of the narrow town. (Khorog is situated in a narrow gorge, where the Gunt runs westward and intersects with the northward flowing – at this stage – Oxus. It basically has room for one main east-west street on the north side of the Gunt and a few secondary ones parallel to it.) Not much more to report on here except a slow meander through the semi-wild gardens and admiring (and taking snapshots of) the flowers, groves, and the imposing and tacky new mansion the president of Tajikistan has built for himself at the edge of the grounds. (The Serena, where he used to stay, apparently is no longer good enough. But thinking about that made us realize, kind of ickily: ‘wait, if we splurged to stay in the deluxe suite at the Serena, probably we’re sleeping in the same bed where Rahmon has slept!?’)

The brief R&R was good for our peace of mind, and Dan began to feel better. After a phone consultation with our Dushanbe medical provider, he decided to get his hands on some metronidazole, on the suspicion that he’d gotten giardia. We had a moment’s doubt about whether we could find it in Khorog, but then we realized that the prevalence of stomach bugs in this part of the world meant that actually this was probably the easiest medicine to get your hands on in a local drugstore. And we were right. He started to improve after 1 or 2 doses of the meds.

On the negative side, Monday morning we got a phone call from Dushanbe, alerting us that, in addition to the recent 25-man jailbreak and reported suicide-bombing at government buildings in Khujand, there were now reports of a bomb (or a fight? in Tajikistan rumor is king) in a local Dushanbe nightclub on Saturday night. That was slightly unsettling news, although the rational mind would tell you that in the remote eastern Pamirs you’re about as safe from unrest and political violence as you can be in Tajikistan.

Another negative that was nagging at both Dan’s and my mind, as we prepared to set out on our eastern loop through some of the most remote and unprovisioned territory in the country, stemmed from the unfortunate fact that the X-Terra’s “Service Engine Soon” light had lit up just as we pulled into Khorog, and it hadn’t yet gone off. Although the message was ominously vague, after consulting the owner’s manual, we’d established with pretty good confidence that in fact it was primarily a warning about the emissions system. Bad gas from a brief refueling stop in Kulob, perhaps? We weren’t sure, but we convinced ourselves that it probably didn’t mean we were in danger of breaking down. We hoped.

After our second morning enjoying a hearty breakfast in the Serena dining room, overlooking the sunny garden and riverbank, we gassed up again at the much more trustworthy-looking main gas station in Khorog (hoping the possibly bad Kulob fuel might get diluted?), and set out southward on the road toward Ishkashim.

Summer Camping Trip

Photos from our goodbye camping trip with 2 families that will leave us soon -- one for a few months and the other permanently -- are here.

First Road Trip of August 09

Somehow we don't seem to have taken nearly any pictures nor gone on any drives over the course of July. I'm not sure how that happened, since summer is the time in Dushanbe when people tend to escape the heat of the city for the cool of the river valleys outside of town. I guess we can chalk it up to an extremely full social calendar here in the city, from the weekend of July 4th all the way down to last weekend, as the US ambassador to Tajikistan prepared for the end of her posting here.

This weekend we took our first drive out to the east of Dushanbe (or at least Anya and I did -- Dan had been a few times, to visit the dam at Nurek and to see Gharm, in Rasht Valley). We went in neither of those directions, though, instead going up the smallest road that spokes off from the little hub that is Vahdat (aka Kofarnihon), a town due east of Dushanbe (that is being somewhat kind, I hope you realize): we took the northern spur into Romit Valley (that's Romit like "raw meat," although if you're following along at home with Google Maps, apparently it's "Ramit").


It was very pretty and very different from the Varzob river valley that runs directly north of Dushanbe and through which we have driven already too many times to count. (Road construction work on various tunnels and road surfaces makes that trip a little tiresome.) It was also quite different from the valley that runs north of Shahrinav, out west of Dushanbe, although it's possible our experience of that terrain was unique because it was springtime and a very wet one at that.


Romit in summer had brown hills, but a wide rushing river the color of jade or celadon. The further up we went (and according to the GPS we turned around to head home right here, at 38.90 x 69.28), the wetter the landscape got -- actually kind of surprising given how dry it is for the most part where we live.

In the valley that runs due north of Romit village, the roadway was lined at almost every turn with carefully constructed rock walls and fences woven out of spindly branches, evidently delimiting orchards and garden plots and grazing land. Some of the road wound under full tree cover where the ground was wet and the walls were covered with moss. (Moss!)


The unpaved roadway up the valley was surprisingly smooth, given our experience elsewhere in Tajikistan so far. Someone had clearly been through with a grader or something since the end of the spring, when all the rainfall we saw here would have covered the route in rockfall and mud. But there were still sizeable stretches of our trip where we were bump-bump-bumping along, which you realize only near the end of your journey is actually quite exhausting. I think maybe if there was a clear destination we were headed to, I'd endure that jostling a little better. (I think of the poor souls on that 22 hour car ride I have heard about between Dushanbe and Khorog, and I wonder if actually I'd be pulling my hair out even with the anticipation of seeing the Pamirs.)

But our usual road trip M.O. is just to head out merely for the sake of exploring, and more often than not Dan's interest in what lies beyond that next rocky outcropping is greater than mine, although he -- by mutual agreement -- invariably holds the steering wheel. Maybe the next time we hit some terrain cooler than Dushanbe, I'll push for less driving time and more footpath exploring (or picnicking), to break up the journey a bit more.

Walkenfeld Taxi Service -- Accepting Payments in Rhubarb

We took a drive into the mountains in a new direction today -- traveling out of town headed west, towards the fortress town of Hisor and the aluminum mining town of Tursunzode, but turning north at Shahri Nav (New Town), into to the Dairo river valley.


It was quite a day: we took the road beyond where it deserved that name; passed many young men either hiking, gathering various plants, herding cows, or driving groups of donkeys through the valley; and stopped for a short walk when we judged that the water we'd have to ford was too high. (You can see pictures mostly from this part of the day starting here.)

This valley was truly beautiful -- the most impressive thing was the great gushing volume of water in the river and all the creeks, streams, waterfalls, rivulets, and other flows feeding it, thanks to our unbelievably rainy spring. There were few people, beautiful deep green hills and valleys, and, throughout, the sound of the rushing water.



After our mini-hike (which Anya and we really enjoyed), Dan decided to have another look at the water and found that, while it was truly freezing, as I suppose spring mountain runoff ought to be, it wasn't in fact too deep for us to ford. So we went further.

Then we encountered an old Tajik guy walking, which tends to happen. As we passed him, he yelled something at us, so we decided to see if he wanted a ride. So we picked him up, and he was going to the village at the end of the road, so we kept driving, probably for about 30 minutes or so. He took us a bit further, so we could see how the passable road ended, and then we took him to where he needed to go. He brought us out some rhubarb (it is one of the plentiful things this season -- people say it grows in the mountains, and although it is sold in the markets in great volume, Tajiks I've asked say they don't actually cook it in anything, just eat it raw with salt) , and he said the next time we come we should spend the night and save time for hiking around the area. We met one of his many sons and exchanged phone numbers.

Then someone who I assume was another son, but might just have been another of the residents of Hakimi village, asked if we would take passengers back down, and we felt a bit unable to say no. So we took him and presumably his wife and daughter back pretty much all the way to Shahri Nav, and although these folks were probably perfectly nice, we didn't have much to say to one another as we sped down the valley, unlike on our shorter ride with Mr. Hajji. We definitely felt a little more like a taxi service at this point, but what are you going to do...

The main downside, which actually was not as bad as it's going to sound here, was when the daughter (maybe 8 or 9 years old?) segued from a consumptive cough into barfing -- luckily, apparently that was the commentary going on in Tajik with her mother seconds before the full transition, and the father asked us to stop and the mom got the door open in time. Not early enough to avoid the upchuck getting all over the lower door (plastic, yes, but also home to the rear speakers -- ouch).

Oh well, we mopped up what the mother hadn't and traveled on homeward, figuring we had done our Tajik mitzvah for the day, and certainly earned the rhubarb, which we have just sampled in the form of a rhubarb (with a little bit of strawberry) crisp. Mmmmm.

Oh, the postscript to the journey came when we turned into our neighborhood and noticed what looked like the last bits of unmelted snow lying around on the ground. We puzzled over it for a few seconds, until we realized that another huge hailstorm must have hit not long before. It must have been quite a downpour -- the trees and plants (including the poor, already undertended rosebushes) really took a beating!

Piknichok in the Hills

After some off-road exploration on the third or fourth dry day in a row, Dan boasted of the beautiful views and firm traction on the dirt paths out east of the city -- basically in the same direction I'd walked last week, but a lot further.

Today, after an afternoon and night of rain, we returned, only slip and slide our way over the terrain. There were only a few moments where my jaw was tightly clenched in order to stave off rolling down the hill. A big improvement over some of our off-road adventures in Primorskii Krai.

And it was indeed very beautiful:



When it started to rain again, we figured we ought to get moving or we might get mired in the hills, never to come down again. We escaped in time to help a 2-wheel-drive car out of the mud (thus christening our tow-rope), see both a sunshower and what I think was hail as we headed north on Omar Khayyam St., and pull into our courtyard just as the warm afternoon sun was returning in earnest.

Head For the Hills

I had a good writing day, and the weather outside was gorgeous, after a very, very rainy day yesterday. My treat to myself was to take a walk.

I headed east on Timur Malik and liked the look of the hills off in the distance, just over the crest:



And as it happens, that is exactly where I went.

I continued east past the students milling around at the Ag Institute, wide neckties and all. (Apparently another empty rule about form over substance in Tajikistan is that the men at institutions of higher education are required to wear ties. Some would say they ought to actually learn things and be encouraged to think critically before they're forced to do a Windsor knot each morning, but who am I to judge?)

Skirted south through the sorry little park in front of (our local) statue of Rudaki. Noticed a billboard that had a notice about what seemed to be repairs in the sorry little broken down park, and a photo mockup of better looking fountains in the park. Noticed the date was 21 April. Got interested. Then noticed it was 2007. Got a little disappointed.

Then I headed east again, on Karamova and decided, why not make my ascent close to home? I started my little climb just west of Tursunzoda. I passed the requisite group of kids who yelled stuff in English at me. Today it was "oh! let's go!" At least that's a little more creative than "hello!" Then I passed the requisite adolescent boys who greeted me in Russian. Then I got a young woman peeking out over a roof, who asked, strangely, whether I had a pen.

I continued a short way and the paved road ended, and a dirt path doglegged north and kept going upward. I rose up up up above the neighborhoods below me and got some beautiful views of the green foothills and the snowy mountains:


Then the Tajik woman who'd wanted the pen appeared again, and we had a friendly conversation in Russian. I continued on and two kids on bikes were hanging out enjoying the view. Had a short conversation in Tajik with the friendlier one, who, after of course asking me how old I was (another requisite question), said the Tajik equivalent of "dang, you're old!" (My main clue was 'pir.') Then I think he was trying to recommend some more good places to enjoy the view (I kept hearing 'tamosho'), but my Tajik was ebbing and I decided to leave while the time was right to have more walking time to myself. All in all, a very enjoyable afternoon treat!

A Day in the Garden

Poppy In the Breeze
Originally uploaded by lkwalker71

After an unexpectedly vodka-soaked evening spent guesting with our nanny's family, an unexpectedly beautiful Saturday spent on hobbies and relaxing in the yard.

Being Green

A friend who has also been away from Dushanbe for at least a few weeks returned this week and commented at how green the city is. I noticed it right away, too -- apparently it rained for practically the whole two weeks we were away.

This meant that, first of all, that there was no need for me to lie awake at night wondering what the swift change in weather in the two weeks before we left, from modestly chilly to downright hot, and possibly a continuing rise in temperature might mean for our little garden, left without anyone to water it while we were gone. We came back to a bushy garden full of all kinds of plants that I haven't even had a chance (because of the continuing rain) to parse out and edit. Among them are definitely a profusion of mint, what looks like maybe some carrot greens, definitely some light green lettuces, and a bunch of flourishing beet greens. And our rose bushes look very fine.

The rain also means that truly the hills surrounding Dushanbe really are a beautiful shade of green, which was especially striking to me, I think, because of where we'd been most recently.

We spent about a week in "La Ville Rouge," Marrakech, which really is quite ruddy red -- mainly I suppose it's the architecture and the old medina walls, but the overall sensation is definitely Red. Of course, I haven't yet uploaded all our photos, and anyway I didn't take anything so beautiful or illustrative of the red as this:


Then we hopped our plane from Casablanca to Istanbul, where everything is more grey-blue. Again, not my photo, but it easily could have been:


And now we're back and find ourselves in a curiously green environment. And, yet again, since I haven't yet gotten a snapshot of it, I will refer to Flickr for illustration. Even though this is outside Dushanbe, it gives a good sense of what those hills look like right now, and what I see every time I look out our upstairs window at the hills on the city's northwest edge: