Pamir Highway Part 1
The Upward Journey Begins
For me, Central Asia was always somewhat of a mystery. The fall of the Soviet Union occurred when I was a very small child, and the split of these new political entities fascinated me when I looked at a map of the world. Added to this, it seemed so few people even considered such a trip. So with this motivation, we did some extensive research, booked a tour with Roof of the World Tours, and made it the last major leg of our honeymoon.
Tucked away to the northwest of the Hindu Kush, and in the southeast of Tajikistan itself, the Pamir Highway (M41) hosts some of the highest elevation mountains in the world, and stunning views. The Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) is 45% of the landmass of the entire country, yet contains only 3% of its population.
This highway weaves its way through the Pamir, and holds the title of the second highest international highway in the world. Yet somehow, it hasn’t invested much in its tourist infrastructure.
For us, this is the kind of travel we were looking for.
You can do this trip without a tour guide, rent your own car, etc., but it will only work out slightly cheaper than getting a small guided tour like we did, and you’ll need your overall dates to be flexible which we didn’t have the luxury of (some of us need to go back to work to provide for this family).
The owner of the company, Khudik, picked us up early in Dushanbe to begin our trip. We drove over to another hostel on the other side of this city, to pick up our much anticipated Americans who were joining us for the tour. Michael and Jacob hopped in and we were on our way.
After a short feeling out period in our pristine white Toyota Landcruiser, we were all on the same page pretty quickly. Not many people who travel to Central Asia are totally clueless or unaware world travellers.
A few kilometres out of town we visited the first of many elevated lakes, and checked out a local market. For $2 we picked up roasted chickpeas and dried farrow in anticipation of the potential struggle as vegetarians.
After the open market, we passed the memorial of the two westerners killed by ISIS in 2017. The Tajik government has placed a large plaque condemning the attack and offered an apology for what occurred. It was a humbling reminder to all of us that this trip wasn’t without an element of risk.
We paid our respects and continued our trip up into the lower part of mountains. Around lunchtime we stopped in at a small bustling town for some food, where the only option for my wife and I was vegetables and “french fries” and the last beer for a while. Not a great start for us vegetarians.
Our start hit another hitch when we stopped at the next petrol station to use the facilities. To say the squat toilets were grim would be an absurd understatement. We were in the thick of real travel now.
A couple of hours later, after a moderate amount of elevation climb, the beautiful views began to reveal themselves. Dramatic jagged mountains, windy roads along cliff edges, rivers, valleys, tributaries; it was more stunning than photos could ever truly capture. We began meandering along a large sediment-filled river as we slowly gained more and more elevation.
It didn’t take us long to realize that across this river was not another Tajik valley, but actual Afghanistan. It had our attention.
We arrived in Qalai-I-Khum to our homestay, unpacked, had a small dinner, a shower, and slept outside near the glacial river under the stars.
Onwards and upwards.
Next: Pamir Highway Part 2
