Wakhan Valley, Tajikistan

I blew a hole in the sidewall of my tire while riding in the Bartang Valley. Since a majority of the riding I do is on pavement, my tires are really good at riding on pavement. They do fine on gravel, but the Bartang wasn't even close to gravel, so my tire didn't last. I patched it a few times, but the tear in the sidewall just kept getting bigger. When I got to Khorog last week I bought a red-walled Chinese tire. I'm pretty sure it was made from the same stuff as a pair of flojos. I rode out of Khorog on my original patched tire, making it a little over 100 km on a paved road to Ishkashim. My tire was done at this point, so I put on the Chinese tire. The next day the road turned to gravel and I made it another 130 km or so before the Chinese tire looked like it would blow any second. I was 20 km from Langar at this point. Behind me was Langar and a whole bunch of other villages, ahead of me was nothing for over 100 km. And not much traffic. So I turned around. It was hard for me to turn around. I was really looking forward to what was ahead, but that's how it goes. I stayed the night near Langar and caught a ride to Khorog the next day.


Then I was sitting in an internet cafe talking to my brother on Skype about him sending me some tires. The guy next to me then leaned over and said, 'are you a cyclist? I've got a spare tire....'. So I told Ben not to ship the tire, and now I can ride again. And I'm going back into the mountains.


I was disappointed when I had to turn around because this was going to be my last high elevation riding on this trip. I was a day away from rolling over a 4400 meter pass, and then I wasn't going to be able to. The high elevation just changes everything. It makes everything more dramatic. Breezes turn to gales, chilly weather turns freezing, alone turns to complete isolation. I love it. And now I have a tire, and I'll get at least two 4000+ meter passes this week. And a whole lot of isolation. I really like people, but it feels cool to be in the absolute middle of nowhere all alone.


The Wakhan Valley was cool. The Panj river flows down the center and is the divider between Tajikistan and Afghanistan. The road follows the river closely, climbing a little here and there but not much. The Wakhan is kind of a popular spot for cyclists. I met something like 11 cyclists in 2 days. I enjoyed the Wakhan, but the remoteness and impressiveness of the Bartang Valley was always in the back of my head, and I wished the Wakhan could have done more for me. I was still riding with Peter. He kept going where I turned around. He flies out of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in about 2 weeks.


We found several hot springs, which were nice. They all alternate between time for women and time for men. Sometimes it's an hourly rotation, sometimes daily. We stayed mostly in homestays because camping isn't as easy to find in such a small valley. If it was a nice spot for camping, then it was also a nice spot for farming or grazing animals, or for a village. The homestays are usually about $12, which is way more expensive than anything else I've had on this trip, but they include breakfast, lunch and dinner.





Looking into Afghanistan.

My tire.

I really liked the red, but the tire was worthless.

There were several museums along the road and we went in a few. Centuries old items that they allowed me to pick up and handle...

This is a 'guitar'.

The peaks in the background are Pakistan.

Langar.

The locals frequently ask for me to take their picture. And when I do they always pose for it. This man picked up his sickle before the shot.

I wrapped duct tape around the tire where the holes were forming. So I had to disconnect the rear brakes. And then I had to descend about 800 meters over 11 kilometers. It killed my forearm only having one brake.

That's Peter on the left side of the photo as he continued up and I went back down.

Locals.

Bartang Valley

I'm in Khorog, Tajikistan right now and I just finished what has been my favorite part of this trip so far. Of course I miss the company of Spencer and Breckan, but as far as landscapes and people, and roads, and being in the middle of nowhere goes, Tajikistan is it.


The 'welcome' sign to Tajikistan.



I think that says Tajikistan.

The night I slept in Sary Tash I lay in my sleeping bag looking at the map of the Pamir Mountains. There were a few places I really wanted to see, but I couldn't get the looping right. I don't want to do very much backtracking, so I was trying to figure out a good way of going through Tajikistan. I saw a small 'dirt track' heading west from below Lake Kara Kul, and I decided I wanted to ride it. It's the Bartang Valley and I didn't know anything about it, but it just made for a nice couple of loops through the Pamirs. The Bargang Valley is easily my favorite part of this trip.

The next day while riding I met an Italian and a Brit. The Italian was feeling some altitude sickness (we got back up to 4,000 meters) so he hung back, but the Brit had the same plan of riding through the Bartang, so we decided to ride together. His name is Peter and he's a Sociology Professor. He's done a lot of cycle touring all over the world and made for really good company.

We dropped into Tajikistan and got another tailwind. I was up to 80 km/hour heading into Kara Kul lake. The lake is a beautiful blue and is surrounded by high mountain desert. The town itself is quite broke. Everything is dirt and nothing grows. The buildings are all white and one story. I wasn't there long enough to see many locals. But everyone I met was nice.


Kara Kul Lake.


Village of Kara Kul.

The next day we headed towards the Bartang Valley. The first 20 km were paved, then we turned off the main road and didn't see asphalt for 6 days.

We had a headwind almost the entire 6 days. The road alternated between ok gravel to horrible sand, big rocks, river crossings, steep uphills, steep downhills and combinations of all of these. I had to push my bike quite frequently just to get through.

Cars can drive the top part of the road and we saw two the first day. Then the road gets too rough for cars, and we didn't see any more cars for 3 days. We also didn't see any villages for the first four days. The riding was very remote. We had to cross several rivers, though I only unloaded and carried my bike for one.

After turning off the asphalt the road was gravel. But everything around us was gravel. We stayed in the tracks, but there were tracks everywhere and we could pretty much ride where we wanted to. There was a headwind, of course, so it was slow, but it was a very broad desert plateau with hills all around and was spectacular riding.

This was the first river we hit and we had to unload everything to cross. The water was cold but the sun was out.

After a few hours of riding on gravel we dropped into a valley and all the soil was white. At first I thought it was all salt deposits, but grass was growing in it, so I don't know why it was white. This is a Marco Polo horn. I thought about carrying home, but it was very heavy, and I bought a super sweet hatchet in Kashgar that weighs enough, so I'm done with souvenirs.

Our first campsite was in a grassy valley with a stream running through it. I don't think I've camped in a prettier place. There was a small nomad campsite just north of us, but they didn't even walk over to look.

The next day we popped out of the valley and went through another broad plateau. We saw some ancient thousand something year old gyroglyphs, which are stones stacked in patterns on the ground. We were still over 3,500 meters and it was windy but there were few clouds in the sky and the riding just kept getting better.

The road disappeared into a huge gravel bar again and we could ride wherever we wanted.

This nomadic family invited us in to their huts for yoghurt and tea. The man met us down the road a bit, and when we pulled up to their huts the women were quite nervous to see us. Cars would have a very difficult time making it here, and I don't think they expected to see many people. The yoghurt was freshly brewed (or however it is that you make yoghurt) and was a little sour but tasted really good. The man is wearing an 'IKEA' headband....Peter is on the right crouching down between a girl and a boy. They looked dreadfully poor, but were very generous and happy to see us.

The next day, after thinking we were quite the badasses for riding on the horrible rocky road we were riding on, we met this Tajik man riding this bike. I try to make a habit of respecting all bikes, just cause their bikes, but this bike was out of it's league. His single speed had a foot brake and non-functioning front brake. The pedals were plastic and I had to give him a strap so he could keep his water bottle attached. We didn't understand enough of what he was saying to figure where he was going, but he was quite interested in us taking several pictures of him with jacket on, without jacket, into the sun, etc....

Most of the bridges we crossed looked like this. Sometimes rideable sometimes not.

There was a full moon each night we were in the Bartang and it lit up everything. I didn't need a headlamp to walk around at night. It bathed the mountains in light as it slowly climbed up and over the ridges. There was absolutely no artificial light anywhere to spoil it. I think this was the third night and we had only seen one village and had dropped some elevation so the evenings were very pleasant.

The village of Savnob is on the left. It wasn't a particularly nice village, but we stopped for lunch. The first time we paid for lunch in 4 days. As we got nearer to the bottom of the valley we started hitting villages. It wasn't until day 6 that we started seeing vehicles and asphalt, but there were people about 4 days into it. And the Pamiri people are proud of and known for their hospitality, so we didn't camp the last few nights, rather we slept in people's houses.

Another picture of Savnob. I'm guessing the sign says Savnob in Cyrillic.

It was a very long strenous descent after the climb from Savnob. It took a lot out of me. I never thought I would dread descents. But it was rocky and long and steep and my forearms burned out from holding the brakes. So when we got to the village of Yapshorv we decided to get something to drink. There aren't any stores in these villages, there aren't any cars or anything, so we just wander into town and wait for someone to invite us in. We sat down for a snack of fresh apricots, peaches and tea, planning on hanging around for 30 min. We ended up staying the night.

We stayed at this guy's house. Mishu. He couldn't speak any english but was very energetic. We both guessed he was a teacher and we were right. He was a sport teacher but was in an accident three years ago and can no longer teach. His sons are in the back were very eager to show us how they can do splits and backbends.

Yapshorv is now the coolest village I've ever been in. They have an irrigation system they use for their fields, then in the evenings they divert the water into their electrical plant so they can have power. Some times during the day they divert the water to their mill where they grind their wheat. They're completely self sufficient and seemed very wealthy. I saw potatoes, onions, tomatoes, apricots, peaches, zuchinni, sunflowers, tobacco plants, flowers, wheat and it goes on and on. There were flowers everywhere. The village was set on a hillside and everything in town was green, which was starkly contrasted from the high desert mountains all around.

Mishu at the electrical plant.

The mountains around Yapshorv.

I randomly took a picture of this cow. Then about 2 minutes later Mishu put his forefingers to his head to mime a bull, and then cut his throat with an imaginary knife. They were about to slaughter this bull and all the men wanted me to watch. Peter had no interest, but I was curious. They tied a rope around his neck and then had to pieces of rope to wrap from the inside of his legs, so when the pulled the ropes he would fall, then they hog tied him. It took several times to get the bull to drop. Once he was hog tied some guy took a 6" blade and started sawing the bulls throat. I got too squeamish and turned. All the men laughed. I've never seen anything that big die before and I just wasn't ready for it. As the man was sawing some other guys grabbed a goat, threw it on it's back and started sawing the goat's throat. I watched this time. The goat bleeted and then had a last gasp. It's body jerked for some time afterward.

They skinned the bull really fast and cut up the meat. An older man in town has a son who was getting married, so they killed the bull and goat for the party. Mishu cooked up the liver for me and Peter. Peter is a vegetarian and I claimed to be the same....I hate liver.

Shortly after we got to Mishu's he poured himself a cup of tea and sat down against a pole in his house and looked at the mountains and let out a big sigh. The guy has lived in this village his whole life and you could see in his eyes how much he loves it. I really liked this town.

Riding the Bartang.

A landslide we had to carry our stuff across. Some guy carried my bike and I envisioned it going into the water. But we made it.

In Khorog we went to a Botanical garden and these girls were in the bus with us on the way back to town. They invited us into their house for dinner. The Pamiri people are incredibly hospitable. We have a hard time going anywhere without being offered fruit or tea or dinner. These girls are either in college or just graduated and spoke very good english. A lot of people in Khorog speak english, it's really easy to travel here.

I'm heading back into the mountains and will be out for about a week or so.

Kyrgyzstan

I have plans in Turkey in October, so I'm having to cut things out as I go. Kyrgyzstan is one of them. I had to go through it to get to Tajikistan, and becuase the visa cost me $55 it made for an expensive two days. It would have been nice to ride up into it some, but it never really intrigued me too much and I'm ok missing it.

I don't understand a lot about how the borders between Central Asian countries are drawn. But I'm pretty sure that when the Kyrgyz border was drawn with China it was based on where grass grows and where it doesn't. Leaving Kashgar I saw nothing but desert and sand and rocks and headwinds. Fifty meters into Kyrgyzstan everything was green and I got a tailwind. The Pamirs were on my left the whole two days I rode in Kyrgyzstan. They're covered in snow and glaciers and that is where I was heading. It was very exciting and very beautiful.

The first 20 km or so into Kyrgyzstan was fantastic. I got up to 80 km/hour, which is fast for a loaded bicycle. A lightning storm rushed in, so I camped under a bridge. The next morning the pavement disappeared and it was an awful dirt road that climbed forever. The rest of the way to Sary Tash was under construction, but not far enough along for me to enjoy any asphalt. Sary Tash is where I turned south and headed to Tajikistan.

Sary Tash oddly reminded me of Malad, Idaho or some other small town in Idaho. It was a very small town with old buildings made of brick and everybody knew everybody. I don't really know how to explain why it reminded me of Malad, it just did.

First meal I ate in Kyrgyzstan. I think that may have been ketchup on my chicken, but I was unsure. The chicken turned really pink really fast, so I didn't eat all of it. The bread in Kyrgyzstan is delicious. Several people speak a small amount of english, so ordering food and getting around was easy.

I really don't know how my clothes got so dirty....and it was another nine days before I could do any laundry.

This is the ugliest mule I've ever seen.

All of the homes I past between the border and Sary Tash were just nomad summer camps. This kid saw me coming and as he ran through the grass towards the road he tripped and fell right on his face.

Sary Tash.

I'm pointing at Peak Lenin. Which is maybe the highest in Tajikistan, but I don't remember. All of the peaks have old Soviet names. Marx Peak, Peak Engels, Peak of Sciences, etc...

I rode to Tajikistan on a Sunday morning and saw maybe 3 cars. The borders were both quite easy and didn't give me any problems.

Chinagain

I sat next to some 20 year old Pakistani from Lahore at the customs office in Sost, Pakistan waiting to get my passport stamped out when a lizard crawled up on the sidewalk next to my foot and then crawled onto his. I tapped him on the shoulder and said 'excuse me, there is a lizard on your foot.' He said 'yes yes yes, ok ok' (the common reply to any statement you don't understand, I do it all the time). So I tapped him again and pointed and said 'no no. There is a lizard on your foot.' He looked down just as it moved off his foot and the kid jumped up and squealed like a little girl. And I think that was the first time I've ever made that statement to anybody.

The bus ride from Pakistan to Kashgar, China was long. We got stopped behind two landslides that took over 3 hours to clear. They just hauled in a bunch of gravel on top of the landslide and made a new road.....

The bus ride was very interesting for me. I had ridden most of the stretch from Kashgar to Sost on my bicycle. The Chinese government, in their infinite wisdom, doesn't allow cyclists to ride the whole thing, so on my way to Pakistan part of it was done in a bus. And my return trip was all bus. It was interesting because it had been nearly two months since I had ridden this road, but I remembered every bit of it. Before each corner or hill I could picture what was on the other side. I easily anticipated when I would come up on the overpriced hot springs. And when I would get to the brand new tin shack where we bought out the entire stock of coke (2 bottles) and listened to Kyrgyz radio powered by a car battery. I knew when I would get to the worlds most beautiful campsite, the one Breckan shot down so that we could camp in a swamp instead. And the spot where Spencer kept stealing toys from that blind kid. Sucker. And while the parts of the trip originally done in a bus still had pretty views, they didn't mean anything to me, and were just different mountains to look at. But it felt completely different looking out the window at the portions I had ridden. Maybe this stupidly sounds like me bearing my testimony of bicycle touring, but cycle touring is the shit. It just is. When you're on a bike you feel a different connection to the land and the uphills and the downhills and the blind children. Anyway, I hate riding buses.

I spent a few days in Kashgar watching tanks (not tanks with tracks, but ones with 4 tires so they won't tear up the new Chinese roads) and truckloads of soldiers parade around town blaring propoganda from a loudspeaker. Nobody could use internet or make international calls. I like Kashgar.

The ride out of Kashgar was hot. It was all desert and reminded me, again, of the Las Vegas area. It was very beautiful. I had a head wind every single day. All day long. Thank you China.


Current fashion in Kashgar.

Old Town Kashgar.

The Han helping make Kashgar more safe.

That is safer.

Now that I'm alone, I have to set my camera on curbs to get pictures of myself. It's not easy so I hope you appreciate this mom.

When I crossed the border into Kyrgyzstan the Chinese looked through every picture on my camera (I changed out my 8 gb card with a 2 gb card so it wouldn't take so long....) to make sure I didn't have pictures of Uighyur's and Han fighting. The border took awhile but wasn't bad.