The 'Stans - Pamir Highway: Murgab to Osh (13 August 2019)

In Murgab we say goodbye to our smiley Tajik driver and his Tajik 4x4 and it is replaced with a miserably stout Kyrgyz driver and his decidedly worse 4x4. This 4x4 was small, much smaller than our previous car. And to makes matters worse the Kyrgyz driver asks if his nephew can jump into the car to Osh with us. We say no, much to his disgust, unless the nephew pays his way. Obviously the nephew had no intention of paying a single Somoni for the journey, so off we go without him. Pissing off our driver for the next 9/10 hour journey may not have been the smartest move.

But alas, onwards to Osh, and the most painful journey of the roadtrip so far. Only 417km to go...

After

As we depart Mugrab we get closer and closer to the Chinese border (or at least the border fence). The Chinese have erected a fence along what looked like the entire Tajik-Chinese border. It is a very remote region with hardly any people let alone border guards and the border fence is almost immaculate. Apart from the odd sections of fence that have been run over, with fresh tyre marks left in the dust.

After an hour or so of driving we reach the highest pass of the the Pamir Highway, the Ak Baital Pass at 4,665m above sea level.

Just to be sure, the iphone compass gave an unofficial reading of 4,630m above sea level.

We passed another spectacular mountain top lake - Karakul Lake:

We reach the Tajik - Kyrgyz border by midday and have a relatively short wait at the Tajik side. We park up and are told not to leave pour vehicles by the Tajik border guards, who slowly take their time reviewing passports and stamping them.

 As far as borders go, this was pain-less with minimal waiting time. There was a small search of the car, but nothing invasive.

We trundle along for some distance in the no-mans land zone between the two border posts, at least 15 or 20 minutes passes.

In the middle of no mans land there are a couple of houses, both offering accommodation. Due to the high altitude and the mountain climb, traveller cycling through sometimes cannot make it from one border post to the other before it closes. Therefore, they have the luxury of this accommodation on hand:

Eventually we arrive at the Kyrgyz border post which seems a lot more friendly than the Tajik side. The Kyrgyz border guard see my British passport and immediately lists all the Premier League players he can think of - Liverpool players seem to be the Central Asian go to currently, especially Trend Alexander Arnold.

We are stamped through and told to wait in a car park until all the formalities are completed by our driver. We somehow manage to jump the queue of cars and bikes waiting, and head off inot Kyrgyzstan.

The initial thing that struck me heading into Kyrgyzstan was the greenery and the animals. There are animals everywhere. It's amazing how drastically the scenery can change after going through one border post.

Tucked away into the green pastures are Yurts popping up out of the green, each with its own collection of nomadic animals; buffalo, goats and chickens seems to be the popular choice.

We stop off at the first town after the Kyrgyz border - Sary Tash. At this point we leave our Portuguese car mate at a petrol station as he attempts the journey east into China. The Belgian and I grab lunch at a small Kyrgyz restaurant busy with traveller and Kyrgyz alike. One Kyrgyz uncle strikes up conversation in English asking us if we like Kyrgyzstan, we reply in the positive. The uncle is happy.

The driver into Osh never seems to end. We are seven hours in at this point and the journey slowly moves from natural beauty to motor way (or Central Asian motorway) and more built up by the kilometre.

I would guess that it took 10 hours, but we had finally made it to Osh. I said farewell to Simon, the Belgian chap, and we dropped him near to his hotel. We then set off to find my hotel, the driver was becoming more and more desperate to just drop me off whether near to my hotel or not. Narrowly missing being rear ended as the car behind us was.

After navigating the chaotic streets of Osh, which seemed like the polar opposite to the Pamir Highway that we had just traversed, I finally found my hotel.

I had been smart and booked up the nicest hotel that I could find. Unfortunately there was no restaurant in the hotel and no working ATM nearby. That meant a desperate dinner of almonds and dried apricots for me - two things i was sick of after snaking on them for 5 consecutive days. I got into my room and collapsed on my double bed and got the best night sleep I'd had in days.