Dushanbe to Khorog

Monday morning I walked into the OVIR office in Dushanbe around 9:15 to ask for a GBAO, only to be told I had to go to the bank down the street to pay. After a bit of searching I found the bank, paid my $4, returned the receipt to OVIR, and was told to come back at 4pm, so I did, and after a bit of standing around I got the permit. I quickly made my way out of town and started on the M41, making it about 40k before it started to get dark. I camped in the middle of a previously harvested wheat field:

It turns out that the replacement tent I bought in Baku was just as terrible as I thought it would be. I snapped my tent poles in half in Turkey and I had been looking for a replacement for a while but everything else weighed at least 5 kilos, so out of desperation I bought a terrible chinese tent in Baku.

The next day, It rained most of the day. Tajikistan has apparently forgotten that you need to put drains on your bridges, so they all became flooded with 1-2 feet of water. Most of the day was spent following terrible semi-dirt roads along the river valley. The rivers in Tajikistan are generally full of dirt and it’s interesting being able to literally see the mountains being washed away.

Half way through the day, when fording one of the flooded bridges, I managed to get a piece of cloth stuck in my derailleur. I cleared that out quickly, but about 1km later, the lower cog locked up, making the chain slip which caused the bike to shift all on its own, and generally made riding impossible. I messed with it several times, dismantling the cog and attempting to clean it out, but it looked almost like I was somehow missing bearings. In order to continue I decided to remove the bearings altogether and see how long the cog would last, since there really isn’t much pressure at all on this joint (only from the derailleur spring pulling the chain taught). I was regreasing this constanly and praying that it would hold until Osh.

I ended the day by stopping for dinner at a teahouse, where the owner gave me dinner, breakfast, and a warm place to sleep for free.

The next day was fairly uneventful, following some bad roads with lots of small river crossings in preparation for the large pass towards kalaikum.

After making it to the top of the pass, I had about a 1900m descent to the bottom of the valley. On the way down, it started to rain, and I got to watch a small flash flood happen as the river next to me turned from blue to brown within minutes, and then back to blue about an hour later.

It was here that I had to confront the bridge that I had been told in Dushanbe might still be out.

I took my bags off and a Tajik guy helped me carry the bike across that.

Some fairly uneventful days following the Panj, and I arrived in Khorog. The right half of this picture is Afganistan.

Khorog:

In Khorog I stayed at the Pamir lodge, where there were about 20 other cyclists also staying. Most of them were leaving at different times, with slightly different routes. I met Peter, a German Cyclist who I had met in Baku, and he offered me a replacement derailleur cog. I also left with Dan, a Welsh cyclist. We spent the next three days slowly climbing up towards the first pass of the Pamirs mostly because we wanted to go slow for the altitude, but also because we were exhausted by about 3 each day.

Pictures of the Pamirs will follow when I can find the patience to upload them.