Travel Story: lawrence bransbury - kyrgyzsta
So, there was nothing to do but set
off on the long, six-day detour
west and then south to Dushanbe
to get around the rock fall. This
was a long, hard slog. The road (a
section of the Silk Road) is pretty
badly beaten up by the many
heavily-laden trucks that crawl
through this mountainous region
and, at times, we wondered just
how the bikes could stand up to
the beating they were receiving.
The heat in the lowlands was
oppressive, over 40 , yet when the
road climbed over mountain
passes, snow was thick on the
ground. Distances here are
deceptively vast and we were
riding between 8 and 12 hours a
day just to make sufficient
progress. Our soft panniers began
to disintegrate and my exhaust
mountings broke off but we
managed to strap it up with pieces
of fence wire.
Finally we reached Dushanbe and
turned south-east towards Khorog,
the setting-off point for our dip
south to the Wakhan Corridor. And
this isolated corner of the world,
tucked inside the tectonic push
and shove of mountains and high
Alpine plateau where Afghanistan,
Kyrgyzstan and China rub
shoulders in an uneasy and
suspicious relationship, was the
highlight of the trip: isolated and
remote, almost devoid of people -
just a few Tajik shepherds and
their families living in adobe
shacks high up in the mountains,
poor people scraping an existence
in this harsh terrain but whose
hospitality towards us was
touching in the extreme; clear
streams running alongside the
track, snow-capped mountains a
constant presence - the Pamir
Mountains to the north and the
Hindu Kush to the south,
Afghanistan just a stone's throw
away, Bactrian camels making
their solitary way just across the
river.