I left Khorog in the morning, not knowing how the road conditions ahead would be. Well, it became a longer day than expected. That is the part, where the Pamir Highway is following the Panj river on the Eastern side with Afghanistan on the western side. In general the road was not terribly bad all the time, but had some slow sandy, rugged stretches, which was further slowed down by the truck traffic in both directions with narrow parts in the villages between. On top the lower I descended, the hotter it became. I was gulping down at least 4 liters of juice and water but still needed to top up another two liters when I arrived and I could sense the starting symptoms of dehydration I fear at most being on a motorcycle in difficult sandy terrain. It’s hard to explain how it feels to follow this stretch along the river, while it comes with great landscapes and viewpoints, you only want to arrive and you keep going. There is also no place to stop with trucks and cars behind and in front of you. I stopped twice at a roadside stall for bottles of ice tea and juices, when I met another group of bicycle drivers and we had a chat about the distances we can make per day. He mentioned about 80 km per day or less on the Pamir Highway, which means they need 10 (long) days what I could do on 5 not too long days, means below 8 hours per day on the road with breaks. Again, they are the true heroes for me, conquering the Pamir with pure will and muscle strength on the same bad, bumpy and sandy roads in thin air. Makes me feel like cheating in comparison, standing on my pegs and simply letting the bike roll over everything with a twist of my right hand.
When I arrived at the guest house Kalaikhum I bumped into 10+ German (group tour organised) dirt bike bikers on DR650s, with the youngest 48 years old. They drove the Pamir Highway in the opposite direction than we did and had all the fun ahead. Turned out, the leader was the Partner of Marek, the Kazak motorcyclist we met in China (Silk Off Road). The world is small and closely interconnected in the adventure touring business.
They already had one bad accident that day with three broken rips and an emergency flight back home to Germany. I stayed in contact with one of them and learned today, they had two more bad accidents with one broken arm and another broken leg. Means a 30% accident risk when driving in a group. And they had not even their luggage on the bikes but in the support car. I guess there was a lot of misconception about the Pamir Highway mixed with a certain competitive urge when driving in a group with all driving the same bike that clearly drives some people to go over their limits in challenging conditions.
Well, we had our own technical problems in our small group of different bikes, at the end, it was not only nuts and bolts, but suspensions and broken mounts and suspension bolts.
From Kalaikhum, it was another day to Dushanbe on comparable good roads, interrupted by long road construction detours on all kinds of gravel, but mainly flat, so we could simply speed over it, leaving the cars and trucks behind us in the dust, standing on the pegs. Felt quite refreshing after the roads we had the days earlier.
I arrived at the nice hotel in Dushanbe late afternoon, glad to take a shower, get some simple food and an early sleep. The next morning I went to the guest house where the others stayed to meet and say a final farewell to Harry and Sani. Harry went off to Afghanistan to reach Europe via Iran and Turkey, while Sani and his wife went on their journey to reach Europe via Russia.
Heri, Bintoro and I went to a recommended workshop to see what could be done with Bintoro’s broken rear shock absorber. The Russian mechanic was really good and to some degree ‘fixed’ it temporarily, but strongly recommended to order a new set in Russia and replace it when they would come back to Dushanbe from Uzbekistan, before also entering Afghanistan to get to Iran and Iraq.
I left the next day for Panjakent, another smaller Silkroad town at the border to Uzbekistan, which would become another interesting riding day. In short, the landscape was unexpectedly great, the road was good, however, it also came with the worst tunnels I have passed through in my lifetime. The last one bears the moniker Tunnel of Death, what stands for an over 5 km up and down left and right narrow two lane tunnel in absolute darkness with not a single light, no ventilation and standing water on a broken surface. In my case it was garnished with a broken down truck, standing in the middle of the tunnel with one indicator light barely blinking what I figured out only 15 meters earlier. Check out the video, quite entertaining. But all was compensated with a great road outside the tunnels with stunning landscapes.
Once at the junction where I had to turn left (West) to Panjakent, it was all flat with surprisingly less traffic. Seems there is not a lot of trade going on between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, at least at that border.
Panjakent, was a bit less of what I had hoped for. On top the advertised modern hotel was a fraud as it was under renovation and tye room looked bad enough that I canceled the first time on this trip a reservation and moved to another hotel. However, it looks like, Panjakent does not get a lot of tourist traffic and while I got a big room, I had the feeling I was the only guest in the hotel, which was managed by two very friendly brothers. They even organised a driver to get me to a nice dinner restaurant a bit outside.
The trip from Panjakent to Samarkand is only 80km or so, and I hope to catch up with Heri and Bintoro again to get over the border together. Only to get a message that the suspension bolt of bintoro’s bike broke and they had to stop a truck to load the bike on to get to the next bigger workshop to find a suitable new bolt. So I started a bit over 12, made my way to the border, bumped into a group of French drivers who ate on the way to the Pamir Highway and another German group who also exited Tajikistan. The border crossing was the usual organised chaos. The first time I felt, nobody spoke English and it was all pointing to places and directions and trying to make sense of it. The Tajik part was relatively fast and understandable, the Uzbekistan part was less understandable, but following the pointers of the officers I got through the pacour of custom, immigration and luggage scans, even got 200 Euro changed along the way. Just after the last gate was a SIM card office where I even got an e-sim and the SIM card for my two phones for less than 15 USD.
Had a quick late lunch stop somewhere in the middle between the border and Samarkand, and finally arrived in Samarkand, dodging the busy traffic, by mainly driving and overtaking on the most right gravel road, I guess used for ox carts etc. came with a lot of honking from the cars, maybe they all greeted me.
The hotel here was easy to find, in short walking distance to the square, where I walked to after taking a shower and simply felt good to be here and now with great weather and good food. Had dinners and another early sleep.
This morning I saw the message, Heri and Bintoro made it to Samarkand late last evening and they stayed with the others in a guest house just around the corner where I met them after breakfast. Ario and Jean arrived already one day earlier and went off to Bukhara, where I will meet them again tomorrow and what will be my most western turning point for this journey, after I decided not to drive to Khiva, as it is simply a too boring and too far ride for another silk road oasis town, which is now charging entrance fees for alone driving into the town and then another one of you want to walk around down town. Not sure I really need that after having been in Samarkand and Bukhara.
As a short trivia about Khiva, which was part of the silk road trade route, it was also the biggest slave trading place at its time in the world, with estimated 1 million slaves having been brought to and traded in Khiva. Most came from the European Slavic regions, with blonde and white skin women where traded like luxury goods. In fact the word slave (Sklave) derived from the word Slavic, the name of the region of the preferred slaves destined for Arabs and the Eastern region of the Mediterranean sea. It was mainly Russ, ( from early vikings/scandinavian people) and Corsair pirates and Moores who captured and traded those slaves, up to the beginning of the last century. There are reports, that slaves had been traded in Khiva up to 1910. It only stopped after the Russian military was capable of governing that formerly lawless region.
I do not think, one will find such information in the tourist brochures nowadays.
Having another lazy afternoon now, writing this update and waiting for the late afternoon when temperatures are cooling down and we meet for dinner.
The road along the Panj river
Samarkand in the evening
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