A run of good luck after the fruitless drive to Kuldyk yesterday. I got up about 05.00, conscious that we were getting behind schedule and I’m desperate to see my beautiful little grandchildren in Berlin, so spent two hours driving 38 miles on an abominable road. Suddenly, as if by magic, it transformed itself into one of the best roads on the trip. Was able to drive at 90 mph as the road wound up through bare brown foothills of the Pamirs to near Batken, where I was flagged down by a policeman. I played dumb, pretending not to understand as he told me in Russian that I was driving at double the speed limit. I mentioned Manchester City, and he smiled and waved me on.
We drove through a huge throng of people in the small town of Batken as it was the weekly market. Bought some fruit, bread and other things. Lots of men in Kyrgyz hats. Jennifer has threatened to buy me one to wear in Berlin and on the TC recycling.
Although the Kyrgyz-Tajik border at Guliston was practically deserted apart from us and a class of school kids clutching the medals they had won at something, it took us ages to get through as every official on the Kyrgyz side wanted to question us: Who are you, where are you from, where are you going, what football team do you support. Eventually we got through to the Tajik side where passport control was painless but the customs took ages, basically because a young lady wanted to check everything meticulously. Had to line up the receipt for the vehicle import duty payment exactly with the customs declaration document; shades of Hyacinth Bucket. Wanted paying in dollars or Tajik soms, wouldn’t take a card, laughed when we offered Uzbek soms, but eventually took a 20-euro note and a few Kyrgiz somonis.
Joke of the trip. About 500 metres from the border post, the road was blocked by an Uzbek truck, It seems that a salient of Uzbekistan extends across the road and non-Uzbeks have to take a 7-km detour. We were told which sandy track to drive down, only to find that there was a wide, deep chasm across it and it was impassable. Three friendly Tajiks in a pick-up truck made some enquiries and found that there was another route and they kindly drove slowly to Isfara while we followed them (see pic).
We drove for the rest of the day towards Dushanbe, stopping for the night at a truck stop south of Isferavshan before crossing a pass in the Zerafshan mountains.
