My expectations of the journey were long miserable hours in a car, run down homestay accommodation and a definite case of the runs. How many of these were true will become apparent over the next five posts...
Me, the Belgian and the Portuguese chaps set off in our 4x4. It was less spacy than the Land Cruiser in Turkmenistan - usually 4 people do the tour in these cars, that would be unbelievably cramped for five days. With just the 3 of us it would be far more bearable.
The Portuguese guy started speaking about his trip to Turkmenistan and made it sound like he was an intrepid explorer discovering untouched lands, he was suddenly deflated when both me and the Belgian told him we had done the exact same route through Turkmenistan. I could tell being trapped in a car for five days with this chap would be trying...
We had only been going for an hour before a pit stop at the top of a mountain, looking over Nurak situated on the Vakhsh River:
Just a little further down the road (still roads at this point), was the memorial to victims of the terrorist attack on 29 July 2018, in which four cyclists were killed.
As we snaked our way south we started to see our first glimpses of Afghanistan which was just beyond the Panj river - only a few metres in length at some parts. At a particuarly narrows and shallow part of the Panj river our guide told us not to wade across, as we would most likely be shot.
As we drove along the Tajik/Afghan border (and we would for the next 2.5 days), there were a corresponding track on the Afghan side, with the occasional bike or walker as the main means of transport. It was surreal seeing Afghans and exchanging waves across the water - a country that everyone at home knows about for war and suffering, to be so close and to look so tranquil.
Our first view of Afghanistan:
As we descend down, we get closer and closer to Afghanistan:
After around 5 hours of driving for the day, my stomach takes a turn for the worse. I know we're very near to Kalai Khum (thanks to Mapse.me), but I can't take it anymore. I asked the driver to pull over and make a bee-line to a large rock. After a few minutes, everything is back to normal and make the final crawl into Kalai Khum.
Kalai Khum is an odd place. It is a village with reasonable home-stay and local shops, and then a massive five star hotel called Karon Palace, presumably catering for the groups of Chinese tourists that may venture this way.
I headed out to buy a coca cola to settle the stomach (it actually worked), then sat at our home-stay terrace to eat dinner. The home-stay was located right above the tributary of the River Panj - the water flowing through was crystal blue:
The lights went off at 10 and the drivers started snoring, so I hit the decks for a reasonable sleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment