Pamir Highway Part 3
Go All the Way Up, Trust Me
It didn’t take long after coming back into Tajikistan to see our first landmark.
We visited the Kahkaha Fortress, a 4th Silk Road century fortification with an armed guard who wouldn’t let me go to the top. This was quickly followed by a visit to Yamchun Fortress, a partially restored larger fortress, and another quick turn around to visit a local natural hot spring. It is rumoured as a fertility enhancer for women, but for men a loud, refreshing, warm (naked) spa/bath in the middle of seemingly nowhere. It was a lot.
After a short break, we then visited a Pamiri museum constructed in the 9th century hosting many well-kept displays, artifacts, and local history. A very nice man guided us through the small museum, using some of the old tools as demos while imparting the area’s knowledge to us, and performed some traditional music.
Lastly, we visited a Buddhist Stupa atop a large hill, before arriving at our home stay for the evening. With my darling wife still on hunger strike, we decided Green Onion Lay’s crisps (chips) were an acceptable compromise, despite the excellent home stay food Fatima and her family provided. I myself indulged in both, of course.
The next morning was yet another early breakfast, which involved picking perfectly in-season apricots off the garden trees to snack on.
Because, why not?
After we loaded up our transport, we got back on the road, quickly gaining a significant amount of ear-popping elevation, when out of nowhere our driver pulled over at an unmarked pass on the road.
Surprise champagne time! It was a celebration for making it to the high altitude pass!
We continued our ascent towards Bulunkul Lake and another adjacent lake which does have a nicer view and is worth the small fee/permit cost to access it.
While there, we prodded our Tajik driver, Kamran, with some questions (we were all friends now) and learned that he was about to become a dad (hope everything went well, K-Dog!).
The town itself was pretty quiet and didn’t have very much going on, except for a small football pitch, a volleyball court on a stone road, and an outdoor clay oven (which is super cool).
We got settled into this next homestay, and began to walk around this small village and take in the beautiful views.
But then, all it took was one kid with a football and me showing an interest in playing, for the entire town of children to rally for an impromptu football match.
Teams were quickly divided, and the game was on in an instant.
It was a great time.
After a tough 7–5 loss, we left the following day for Murghab, a small — but seemingly dystopian — town as the next place to stay. En route, we managed to spot Afghan camels across the river (two humps!), and a yak that the locals encouraged us to ride, before turning northbound away from this Afghan border and heading towards the the highest mountain pass of the trip.
One of the things immediately noticed was that the people in this part of Tajikistan did not look like the Western Tajik or Pamiri people; they looked more Mongolian/Kyrgyz and East-Asian, being shorter, stockier, and more shy in conversations with us. It was an interesting anthropological change in such a short distance (with no border crossing).
After arriving in Murghab, a hot bucket shower awaited (Russian style, like a glorious sauna), and then a check on the local bazaar. PT Mike found a market ice cream stall but with a twist — it was yak ice cream! We didn’t trust the soft serve machine (the stall had too many flies), so we went with a safer, packaged option. Probably wise.
We headed back to our homestay and settled into our comfortable beds for the night. Tomorrow we were going to the roof of the world.
At this stage, our altitude was in the mid 3,000 metres, and we were headed to 4655m (14,400ft) that morning.
On our way up to this summit, we began to notice the tall fencing running alongside the highway with no gaps. After pointing this out, our driver explained that this land was now owned by the Chinese government from a “negotiation” which began to ring alarm bells in all of our heads.
What happened to the nomadic people inside of that fence?
Tajikistan doesn’t recognize dual citizenship, so then what next?
Apart from these questions, we just had to investigate this “border fencing” and ensure we at least closely inspected where we were not “permitted” to cross.
After getting back in the car, it was apparent that running or doing anything strenuous at that elevation remained an aerobic struggle. The glacial-capped mountains are now level with you as you look around, the rivers are mostly frozen over, there’s very little wildlife or green, and it feels like a cold desert — sunny, cool, but pleasant. It was again nothing like I’d ever experienced before.
The other side of the pass was specifically breathtaking. We shortly arrived at the stunning salt water Karakul Lake.
We went on a long hike along the lake with a local four-legged tour guide (such a good boy) who escorted us around the mostly deserted town. It was eerie.
Our homestay, on the contrary, was full of life. We had three Germans join us for the evening to exchange stories and light banter (East Germans are the best!). It’s always a great thing to meet like-minded people on a trip like this and hear their perspectives on the world, because you’re always starting the discussion from an — and excuse the pun — elevated traveller’s point of view.
One of those Germans was a year and four months into pedal-biking from Singapore to Hamburg, which is such a preposterous thought prior to our trip’s beginning, now seems all the more real and manageable having visited the Pamir and been injected with such wanderlust.
With my darling wife’s hunger strike finally over after real vegetarian food was served and our now stove-heated room was prepared; we all slept soundly that night, before a short descent to the Kyrgyzstan border the following day. The Pamir Highway was complete.
What an astonishing adventure. So much to process.
Next: Kyrgyzstan Crossings
