Posts from — September 2008

daily distance: 70km
total distance: 10,429km
riding time: 5h

I really did leave Dushanbe today. Finally. Really, out of there. Not until noon though. The two hours I had planned on spending updating the website and burn some DVDs turned out to be 4 and so I set out midday only.

And for the most part, the ride was pretty uneventful. Out of Dushanbe was a no-brainer as long as you keep going straight after that traffic circle and ignore the police man that whistles after you for no reason.

Then you hang a hard right and you’re in open territory. And then the uphill starts. I hadn’t thought it would be that much of an uphill and felt that it would never end. It’s the bad thing when you have no real clue as to altitude coming up. You don’t know what to expect. And it was long and steep.

I was out of water until I came upon an apple stand where payment was refused and after seeing that I got three apples an old lady loaded three pears on top of that. When I sat down a bit later to have a go at some of the fruit a truck driver stopped and gave me a pommegranate … just like that.

On the top of the pass there wasn’t much of a view, but the downhill was exhilarating and brought me to Nurek soon enough. Looking at the picture now, I am totally spoiled. The view was great …

From there I continued some more kms and found a spot to pitch or so I thought. The owner of a nearby farm (mud house rather) thought that his dogs would eat me alive that night (and from the looks of it they would have) and ultimately invited me to his place.

I meant to leave Dushanbe today. Everything was ready - but not my body. I didn’t feel well and so opted to stay here for another day. It is now more and more likely that I will travel part of the way by car as my visa will be running out. We shall see how things develop, but I really want to ride the Pamir and not rush through it badly. Let’s see how things turn out in the end.

I am not sure if and to what extent I will be able to post anything over the next week, but will try my best. And I should be able to post something in Khorog. Until then, any messages or comments are of course, as always, welcome.

For those reading German, you can read an article in the Badische Zeitung or check out the report on a radio station - SWR3 weltweit. I am working to get an mp3 file of the actual interview.

It was my day off again … the plan was to rest up, have an easy day and not do much. That’s what happened. Manuela, Mark and I had breakfast. A long breakfast and a very relaxing one with good conversations about the country and life in the place.

Some more time on the web before I met up with Ravshan from Tashkent who was doing translation work for a judge from Germany who is doing a legal development project here in Tajikistan. It was a good deal of fun to meet him yet again (we had met up in Dushanbe in 2004, totally unexpectedly). Sadly, the spars that were to come in with him never made it to Tashkent. So, until China I am relying on what I have with me right now.

Manuela, Mark and I finished the day off with some Indian food (great place, the owner being a total character with the restaurant HQ in New Delhi and outlets in Mazar-i-Sharif, Kabul- Dushanbe and Khorog. Might just hit the place up when I am there, the food was very delicious.

daily distance: 25km
total distance: 10,359km
riding time: 1-2h

After a good night’s sleep and a quick breakfast with Sonja and Heike I set out to head to the regional office of German Agro Action here in Dushanbe. We looked at the city map and found a street which was way down south. Guess that’s where I had to go. At least it is a bit closer to where I have to head eventually. Once there, I was in the right street (asked a range of people), but couldn’t find the place. I called Nodir and he confirmed my hunch. “You’re in the wrong part of town. Go back to where you were.” The area hadn’t looked the place, too many drab old apartment buildings and too much of an industrial area. Alright, all the way back uptown and uphill. Once at the meeting point with the local German Agro Action staff I met a British tourist who couldn’t quite believe that I had biked here from Germany. Turns out that he worked for Lonely Planet. I asked him whether by any chance he knew where to get a hold of a copy here. Ian takes his backpack off, opens it up and hands over his copy. Figures that he could do without or ask someone else he is traveling with. Thanks a bunch, Ian.

I eventually arrived at the office and the passport handing over game started. And then the waiting. Remember that the decision over whether I had to pay a $400 fine was still outstanding. I couldn’t do anything but wait. Updated the website and so forth in the office and around mid-afternoon Akmal came back, said everything is settled: Kyrgyz visa - check, Pamir permit - check, Tajikistan registration - check as well. With that out of the way I can now head to where I want to and apart from China (if I want to get an extension), I don’t really have to worry about visas and the like. Hoooray to that.

The staff at the office here are just as great as the people in Ayni - a big thank you to them. I spend some time over dinner with other development workers from other organizations and was then invited by the head of German Agro Action to spend the night at their place (unbeknownst personally as she was out on business - in Veshab) and was greeted very warmly by her partner with whom I had a good long conversation about Tajik idiosyncrasies and some realities of the place.

daily distance: 135km
total distance: 10,334km
riding time: 9-10h

I left Ayni early in the morning, though not quite as early as I had hoped. I made it across the bridge that was to be closed soon after though and started hacking away at the distance. I wasn’t quite sure whether I would be able to reach Dushanbe in one day or not - and took let’s just see what happens approach.

The first 17km were awful - the road being torn up / destroyed again. Not much fun and on top of that too many trucks moving at my pace blasting fumes and smoke my way. Some Chinese construction workers were in the mix again, this time clearly cordoning off the road. One of them took a lot of interest in my book Moby Dick and started reading out the words.

The area was breathtaking and after the 17km the road became good again for a while. You continue to follow a gorge - and sadly I went into a pretty harsh headwind. Are those ever going to stop?

Just after passing Anzob (the village that is), the road starts to become mighty steep. And rough again. Chinese trucks seemed to be racing up and down the mountain, except for one who saw me being covered in dust when the guy in front of hm passed me - and stopped. A slight bow on both sides (as much as possible on a bike while trying to balance on a steep gravel road) and I thought I would never see him again. I would meet up with him twice. He soon overtook me again and stopped. We chatted (well, sign language that is) and it turns out he is from Urumqi, is a biker and pedaled 4000km through China at one point. So he was quite stoked to see me.

Further lots of steep uphill until the road leveled a bit before becoming steep again towards the tunnel of Anzob. I had heard many stories about this one, water waisthigh and the like and I figured I would see what happens once I got there. Well, it was the Chinese truck driver again - with a bunch of his colleagues. Mr. Nice Guy is the one on the right.

More chatting before I finally saw the tunnel. And water there was.

Plenty of it - so much so that the tunnel will be closed tomorrow for a month or so. I was told that I couldn’t go and so forth, but figured that I would try … and it wasn’t as bad as people made it sound. You stick to the side of the road and the water - though cold - is not as deep. The worst I had was kneedeep. In those parts, I pushed the bike rather than pedal through. You couldn’t see much really even with my headlamp, which I eventually turned off. The light in the tunnel was in the end sufficient and my initial concern that there were too many fumes in the tunnel were allayed when I saw construction workers hacking away on something on their machines.

After 5km I emerged on the other side … only to find gloomy skies and colder weather. The road was rough again, only some patches had been sealed and more Chinese construction crews were working on tunnels. But it entirely escapes me what the purpose of building them all at once is. It means that you have to go around all of them, which in turn means rough roads and complete loss of momentum.

Roughness can also be described by this … one of the screws holding my rear rack rattled loose and was bent 90 degrees, something I could fix without a big problem by putting in new one, but it shows how rough things were on the upper part of the downhill. Once you hit the blacktop things are smooth and I decided after a while to push all the way into Dushanbe where I arrived just after nightfall.

Sonja, friend of a friend of a friend (thanks Bettina, thanks Bianca - the latter I don’t know myself, for the contact) let me crash at her place and so all was well. Thanks a bunch.