The 'Stans - Dushanbe (7 August 2019)

As I had made my choice to take on the Pamir Highway, starting on the 9 August, I had to sort out my Central Asian admin. Today's task was to apply for a permit for the Gorno-Badakshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) - essentially it is an autonomous region that takes over nearly 50% of Tajikistan.

As I speak no Russian or Tajik, and the local government offices would not speak any English, I managed to find some extremely helpful instructions of where to go and what to do, all the way down to the specific colour of doors that I should be using when inside the government building.

I took my trusty dollar Dushanbe cab downtown in the general direction of the OVIR (Department of Visas and Registrations) building. The first instruction was 'when you are standing in front of the building, you want the white door on the far right. It seems to stick, though, so if you can't open it just knock politely until some one opens it.'

Success, I say G-B-A-O, the lady takes my passport and start making copies and hands me a bit of paper and motions me to another window. I pass the Tajik man my form and he asks whether I have paid, I hadn't. My instructions tell me I must go to Amanat Bank, a five minute walk away, to make payment there and then come back to the office with a receipt.

Amanat Bank is again very Soviet - disinterested and slow. I finally get my receipt so head back to the OVIR office and hand over my passport, visa, permit form and receipt for payment. The lady motions for me to come back at 4.

The next few hours I wonder around the leafy city of Dushanbe - the city is pleasant and slow paced, with the occasional G Wagon whizzing passed. For the poorest country in Central Asia, Dushanbe definitely has money.

Steele with the state emblem of Tajikistan:

Rudaki Monument:

Statue of Ismoil Somoni:

After ambling through Dushanbe, the time nears to four and I head back to the OVIR office and pick up my GBAO permit - I had successfully navigated the bureaucratic system of a former soviet republic without speaking a road of Russian. After a couple of weeks of travelling, this felt like the most productive I'd been in a long time:

I headed back to the hostel and bumped into Simon again, who happened to be staying at the same hostel. We caught up on our different journeys from the Uzbek border to Dushanbe, and Simon informed me that he had found a Portuguese chap to share the car journey in the Pamir Highway.

For dinner I met up with a friend of a friend - they both worked in Dushanbe when my friend was working here in the Tajik capital. Nargis, a local Tajik lady met me and took me to one of her favourite local Tajik restaurants slightly out of town. We had a mix of local foods including Mantu, Plov, Shashlik, Manti and a local Tajik beer. In true Central Asian fashion, Nargis offered to pay for the meal and wouldn't accept no for an answer.