Wakhan Fran

Errr, so having not posted anything in an embarrassingly long space of time, its a little difficult to know where to start. I have decided to proceed in segments - so please imagine this was posted about two weeks ago, about the time I got to Murghab in the Pamirs and found internet there was basically non-existent.

Two other travellers and I hired a car to drive the Wakhan valley from Khorog to Murghab. The car is a Russian UAZ jeep - photogenic, but not particularly comfortable, and made before I was born in 1979. We chose it for the driver though - Tatik speaks really good english, drove UAZ jeeps for the Russian army for 15 years, and has been driving tourists around the pamirs for the last 3 years so knows all the good spots. The Wakhan is the southernmost valley in the Pamirs, off the main route to Murghab which goes through the Shugnan valley, and follows the border with Afghanistan for most of its length.

The first day we left Khorog, and the big highlight was stopping at the weekly Afghan bazaar in Ishkashim. This bazaar happens on Saturday in a special compound in an island in the river that separates Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Its in no-mans land and you have to show your passport at the Tajik border post to go. The most amazing thing about the bazaar (apart from the rather exciting proximity of Afghanistan) is the stuff on sale. Despite coming from a country that produces essentially nothing but opium, the Afghan traders are there selling all kinds of things. One man had nothing but second-hand cassette players, another guy a heap of odd shoes. A lot things look like they came from the UAE, probably via Pakistan. It really gave a sense of the silk road trading routes still being used - and for many people in the Wakhan villages, this bazaar is their equivalent of a shopping mall, few ever make it to Khorog and think of Ishkashim as the big city.

We spent the night in Darshai village at a homestay in the valley and was shown around by the son of the owner of the house. Everything is grown using irrigation from the river as the place gets almost no rain. One of the best things was seeing a functioning mill powered using a small paddle wheel.

The next day was spent going through the main part of the Wakhan, including seeing the fort at Yamchun. This is a massive 12th century fort thats pretty ruinied but still sprawls atmospherically over the top of a mountain. Its hard to imagine this place, which is now so out of the way of everything, was once important enought for someone to build such a huge fort. From the walls, there are great views up and down the Wakhan. The valley is fairly wide, and across the river you can see the villages and mountains in Afghanistanh, and beyond them the snow-capped peaks of the Hindu Kush that forms the border with Pakistan. The fact that there is a bit of Afghanistan here at all is mainly as a remnant of the Great Game time, when the Russians in the Pamirs and the British in Pakistan used it as a neutral buffer between their two territories.

By the fort is the Bibi Fatima hot springs where mineral water pours out of travertine deposits in the cliff face at about 45 degrees C. We went for a very nice swim. Afternoon was spent in Vrang, where there is a supposedly 3rd C Buddhist stupa - which gives some idea of the layers of history in this place. We spent the night at a homestay in Langar, the last village in the Wakhan and the next day climbed up the pass out of the valley and onto the Pamir plateau. The road to the pass, being off the main Khorog-Murghab road was extremely remote. In 2.5 hours of driving we saw only one other car (with tourists) and a couple of cyclists (also tourists). A highlight was seeing Bactrian camels grazing on the Afghan side. Camels seemed quite a weird sight given the absence of the traditional desert and surrounding snow-capped peaks. Tatik our driver said that he has seen caravans of 50-70 camels and horses on the dirt track along the Afghan side.

The scenery over the pass was completely different - a plateau at around 4000m rather than steep valleys. It is cold and flat and windy and not a natural place to live; all the towns here were founded relatively recently by the Russians and form a stark contrast with the villages in Wakhan that look like they have been there forever. We stayed in a homestay in Bulunkul, that could otherwise be known as the Tajik End of the World - a desperate cluster of about 10 houses on a dusty wind-swept plane where people try to make a living by fishing the nearby lake.

On day four we made it to the main Khorog - Murghab road along the Alichur plain, a wide, flat plain with a meager covering of grass on which Kyrgyz hearders graze their animals in summer. Here we saw the first of many yurts, and also the first yak (major excitement!). Stopping for lunch we had yak cream, yak butter and yak yoghurt, all fresh and delicious. We also saw many Chinese trucks coming from the Qolma Pass and heading toward Khorog, where goods are loaded into the Russian Kamaz trucks for transport to Dushanbe and onwards (the roads being too bad for the Chinese trucks to make the journey). We also stopped that afternoon at the Shakhty cave neolithic cave paintings, about 25km off the road down a stunning valley. The paintings apparently show a bear hunt - they weren't a whole lot to look at, but the feeling of looking out for miles at nothing but rock was pretty amazing.

We arrived at Murghab expecting something of a metropolis after 4 days of no showers or resturants only to be sadly disappointed. Its a big town, but like all towns here feels totally unnatural. Everything except yak milk has to be imported over miles and miles of mountainous roads from China or Kyrgyzstan, and the bazaar is a sad, empty, dusty place where its impossible to find a coca-cola (yes, it must be remote when coca-cola is unheard of) or fresh fruit. Any non-carb food here is a bit of a luxury in fact - at our homestay the first night we had spagetting topped with potatoes, mmmm... carbs.

All in all, the Wakhan was a total highlight of the trip so far. More updates to follow soon.