October 01, 2007
Tavildara Road
A couple of hours out of Dushanbe, the good road runs out. From that point on, the road to Khorog alternates between broken asphalt and packed dirt. For most of its length, it's nominally a two-lane highway, although 'two lanes' sometimes translates to 'not quite enough space for two trucks to squeeze past each other'. The road is narrowest at the worst spots, where less than a metre of loose dirt separates the road from a precipice or a steep scree slope that drops hundreds of metres to the river below.
Continue reading "Tavildara Road"Posted by angus at 10:30 PM
October 02, 2007
Howo Kush
A little beyond Kalaikhum, we found ourselves at the scene of one of those complicated road accidents that mountainous terrain seems to produce. A shiny yellow bulldozer lay morosely at the bottom of a waterfall, still attached by cables to a winch dangling from the flatbed of the lowloader from which it had fallen. The lowloader itself was half over the edge, leaning at a precarious angle. The tractor that had been pulling it, a new white Chinese Howo, was still upright and, for the moment at least, on safe ground.
Continue reading "Howo Kush"Posted by angus at 10:30 PM
October 03, 2007
Bibi Fatima
Behind the door, a flight of stone steps led down into an unlit changing area, from which a further flight of steps descended to a steamy cavern where the stream rushed and gurgled.
Continue reading "Bibi Fatima"Posted by angus at 10:30 PM
Wakhan Valley
Some pictures taken in the Wakhan Valley, Gorno-Badakshan Autonomous Oblast, Tajikistan.
View picturesPosted by angus at 10:31 PM
October 04, 2007
Checkpoint
The outpost consisted of a few low white-washed buildings, huddled in a shallow dip that offered little protection from the wind. The desert around was a uniform reddish-gray, loose rubble and grit only relieved by a narrow stripe of khaki-colored grass that followed the slender line of a stream downhill. Behind us, the valley of the Pamir sloped down towards Afghanistan.
”Here they check our papers,“
W. said.
Posted by angus at 10:30 PM
In the Pamirs
Photographs taken in the Pamirs, near the Khargush Pass.
View picturesPosted by angus at 10:31 PM
October 05, 2007
The view from Bulunkul
Little more than a hamlet in the desert, home to just thirty-four families, Bulunkul began life as an artificial settlement created by the Soviet Union. A few of the people who live there are still employed to maintain the Soviet-era weather station. Others catch fish in the nearby lake, or tend to livestock - a few cows and sheep that share sparse grazing with a herd of yaks.
Continue reading "The view from Bulunkul"Posted by angus at 10:30 PM
Bulunkul
Photographs taken near Bulunkul in the Pamirs, Gorno-Badakshan Autonomous Oblast, Tajikistan.
View picturesPosted by angus at 10:31 PM
October 08, 2007
The Gray Plague
I have been in Dushanbe less than twenty-four hours, and already I have had far too many encounters with the police.
Continue reading "The Gray Plague"Posted by angus at 10:30 PM
October 11, 2007
Strange days indeed
I am riding in a jeep at night through a partially-completed road tunnel underneath a mountain in Central Asia. There are tens of thousands of tons of rock overhead, and fifteen centimetres of water on the floor. More water is raining down from the roof above, while at one point a positive torrent of white water pours out from a crack in the wall of the tunnel. When we slow to a stop, a bow wave washes out and surges against the wheels of the concrete mixer we are following. All around us, pieces of heavy construction equipment — gantries, concrete sprayers, bucket loaders and mixers — loom like dinosaurs in the dim light of the tunnel. The men working on the tunnel — probably Iranians — ignore us as we inch forward in the wake of the mixer, pretending we aren't there (which we shouldn't be; I rather suspect that we bribed a cop to get in). The walls are ragged with raw concrete and wet with moisture and the tunnel is a horseshoe of orange light that seems to stretch ahead endlessly. And a man who I believe to be an ethics professor is shouting “Floor it, floor it”
in Russian to the driver.
And a little voice in my head says “OK, this is weird.”
Posted by angus at 11:59 PM
A tale of two trucks
"Mr Engels. Mr Engels. It's time to get up."
said a voice from the door. I groaned and rolled over.
The night before my host had suggested that I might like to hitch a ride up to Artush with two of his drivers who were going to pick up some trekkers. At the time, after several teacups-full of vodka, it had seemed like a good idea. Because really, with a ten-hour drive ahead of me later in the day, why wouldn't I want to get up at five o'clock and spend another five hours sitting in a truck watching the mountains go by?
Continue reading "A tale of two trucks"Posted by angus at 11:59 PM