The Pamir Highway (Part 2: East)

We left Zong tired but happy after our hiking exertions to the Pik Engels meadow. Tohir encouraged us to hike up another steep hill for 45 minutes to see some petroglyphs from the next door village of Langar, but we gracefully declined and set off for the lakes and village of Bulunkul high in the mountains. We turned away from the Wakhan valley and headed into the interior of Tajikistan, over the Kargush Pass at 4,400m where the weather decided it would treat us to some sunshine and a clearing of clouds. The scenery up here was magnificent, the kind we’d hoped to see on the Highway, at its best in the glow of the afternoon sun. Patches of cloud-shadow on green brown hills that looked smooth enough to slide down, snow topped mountains with wisps of light clouds lingering around the peaks and sharp red cliffs with grey brown scree funnels and the occasional rock fall. The roads here too have bags of character – rutted tracks and sand-blown side paths made by Land Cruisers to avoid the worst of the jarring stones, all single track, some clinging to the sides of the hills with exposed and almost sheer drops below.

The route to Kargush Pass

We reached Bulunkul village and it felt like the end of the world. Every building here was a mud construction, some painted white, some left unpainted and all single storey. Abandoned cars and vehicle parts littered the place – an old engine block partially sunk into the ground, several Ladas without wheels or windows strewn haphazardly and old Russian UAZ vans in various states of decay. Several shipping containers were also being used for various purposes and there were many kids here in a village of perhaps 20 houses, all pre-teen and riding around on bikes too big for them. Though the description is accurate, the place was actually very interesting; full of life and with a very welcoming vibe. We were taken to a guesthouse of Tohir’s choosing but quickly swapped to the only other one after encountering a loud and annoying pair of American idiots. Our new digs were already occupied by 3 very pleasant English lads who we’d met on the Pik Engels walk – it turned out to be a wise call as the other guesthouse later became overrun when 10 bikers turned up. For an end of the world place there appeared to be just as many tourists as residents. We bought beers from the local shop and sat in the glorious light of the late afternoon sunshine, attracting many of the children, then an early night after a fun evening with our fellow countrymen. Our room decor included the stuffed head of an impressively large male Marco Polo sheep on the floor – a magnificent specimen but one that kept tripping us up with its enormous horns. Oh, and the outside bathroom had a shower room with an attached but unusable sauna in which was kept the severed head of a cow.

Bulunkul village traffic

Bulunkul village at dusk

The only working vehicle in Bulunkul

A warm night, a wonderful rice pudding breakfast and off again, this time across the high desert plateau to an isolated hamlet called Jarty Gumbez where we were hoping to spot the elusive Marco Polo sheep in the flesh. The sun was out and afforded the most magnificent views of the high lakes with serene reflections and the kind of archetypal landscapes used in marketing brochures for the Pamirs. Long stretches of road with near and distant mountains beckoning you forwards. The reality is a little different, fabulous though it still is. The main Highway, the M41, is a pot-holed nightmare and most vehicles, if they can, skirt the sides or even prefer bumpy sand-tracks a good half kilometre away. Equally the weather is as fickle as a spring day in Blighty, sunshine one moment, showers the next.

Our route then took us past some rather dubious cave paintings and to an old Soviet solar observatory (the Shorbulok) situated at 4,400m and commanding superlative views over the surrounding hills and mountains. The observatory was padlocked off so we couldn’t enter, but we enjoyed the melancholy atmosphere of the building and the slow approach of a heavy rainstorm from the hills just beyond. Alas, our planned trip to Jarty Gumbez had to be abandoned as the ground was saturated with the recent rains and was churning up alarmingly with the Land Cruiser’s weight. Tohir was beginning to get concerned and stopped frequently. “It’s risky, man”, he kept repeating. We stopped a group of shepherds heading up to their summer pastures in their old Russian UAZ van (everyone around here has one it seems) and they confirmed there was a good chance we wouldn’t make it across. Getting stuck on our own with no other vehicles and a potential 50km walk to safety didn’t sound like the best of ideas. It had started snowing too. Reluctantly, but sensibly, we turned back and headed to the town of Murghab for a rethink of plans.

Shorbulok solar observatory

A very lively and enjoyable dinner & evening chatting to an Anglo-American couple and young lads from Switzerland and Portugal and some genuinely nice food. We’d heard that Murghab was notorious for its distinct lack of quality in terms of homestays, but ours was great. We also hatched a plan for tomorrow – a visit / hike to the hot springs at a remote place called Maidan, stopping at the local shipping container market and snow leopard rehabilitation centre on the way. Obvious really.

The container market in Murghab is apparently a pale imitation of its life before covid, but it still oozed character. Old Kyrgyz men, identifiable by their distinctive black and white hats, mixed easily with local Tajik women shopping in groups. Kids ran around everywhere trying to avoid the deep puddles. The shops, as you might imagine, were within shipping containers lined up in rows to form ‘streets’ and sold pretty much everything from haberdashery to simple food stuffs, though no-one seemed to be able to explain how on earth they had come to be there. From one shop, a woman was busy unrolling some lino, patterned side down, on the dirt and gravel of the street, trampling all over it as she measured a length. We decided against our own lino purchase and bought tinned sardines & bread for a picnic instead.

Murghab container market

Murghab containter market kids

Murghab container market kids

A brief stop at the snow leopard rehabilitation centre and our first ever encounter with these superb and elusive animals. The centre is a large fenced-off enclosure where the cats are allowed out in the early morning and evening for exercise. We arrived late morning but were given the chance to see a male (Kesha) and a pregnant female (Musha) in their adjoining pens. Snow leopards end up here if they’re on the point of starvation (shepherds sometimes find and capture them easily if they’re too weak to even hunt their livestock) or have been captured by locals, often when a cat has broken into a livestock pen, killed the animals inside but can’t escape. The Tajik government pays locals to hand them over and reimburses them for their losses. In both cases the suggestion is a worrying lack of natural prey for the leopards in the wild, though the centre suggested that the population is growing so perhaps there’s not enough prey to go round. Not much ‘action’ from either beast to be honest, but it was fabulous to see them as wild animals waiting to be released as opposed to permanently in captivity.

Kesha the Snow Leopard

The highlight of the day, however, was the drive to and from the hot springs. We’d thought the landscape was becoming more and more impressive the higher we got on this trip, but this little known side valley was something else. Hardly ever on anyone’s itinerary it took us up some seriously precarious tracks, barely enough for a single car to manage (thank god we didn’t meet anyone coming the other way) and with 300 to 400 feet drops in places. Strong nerves needed, but easily compensated by the proximity of the multi-coloured mountain slopes that felt near enough to touch. We thought Tohir was trying to make it up to us for not getting us to Jarty Gumbez yesterday and if we was, he succeeded. We finished the drive high above a tiny valley with a gentle stream and a couple of buildings enclosing the hot springs. This used to be a Soviet getaway and had, bizarrely, a greenhouse with huge pipes to allow the hot water to flow around it. It’s now derelict, but the stone housing over the spring is still functional. Some kids and their teacher were on a school outing here (!?!) – fifteen of them to be precise and all transported in one Land Cruiser like ours. We had to wait an age for them to finish mucking about inside, but at least the weather and our tinned picnic kept our spirits up, not to mention the unbelievable mountain surrounds. When our turn came, we stepped into a small room in which a 6 x 6 feet steaming pool was being fed by a gentle trickle of hot water. Stripping off we dipped our toes into the pool and promptly pulled them straight back out again, like you do when your bath is way too hot to get in. We couldn’t believe the school-kids had been playing in this for a couple of hours. We tried again – I got as far as my knees, then sprang back out in pain. Several attempts later (I suppose we gradually acclimatised), we managed to fully submerge, but could only stay in for one or two minutes at the most. By the end we’d been in three times and looked like deliciously cooked lobsters.

On the road to Maidan Hot Springs

Maidan Hot Springs

The walk back up was tough – we were drinking constantly but had got seriously dehydrated in the pool. It was probably only about 75m ascent in total but it felt like 750m. The journey back was just as spectacular, though we were seriously woozy from the springs. We perked up at dinner and again enjoyed a nice evening, this time with an Italian motorbiker. One of the marvellous things about this trip and Tajikistan in general is the like-minded people you meet, especially in popular homestays. We can all talk for hours about where we’ve been, telling stories and knowing no-one will get bored – quite the opposite in fact – we all find everyone’s experiences fascinating as they’re totally relatable to our own.

As we had another spare day due to our abandoned attempt to reach the saturated south Pamirs, Tohir suggested we go out west of Murghab to a settlement called Jalang where he knew a group of Kyzgyz nomads were likely to be and who could put us up for the night in a yurt in very salubrious surroundings. As his hot springs suggestion was so successful we jumped at the chance and headed out into the wilds (armed with half a salami and rubbery cheese from the container market). Our route took us through the Bartang Valley again, this time from the far east, but veered away from it after a while and entered territory that felt more and more remote as we progressed. We picnic’d by a river in the sunshine, then continued for several hours before coming across a group of single storey buildings, a single yurt and more yaks than you could shake a stick at. The Krygyz families who were currently occupying the settlement sometimes put up yurts in the hope that the odd few tourists will make it this far and stay the night, or otherwise they simply use them themselves. Only one was in place, but several others were being attended to on the ground – generally women making sewing repairs and small kids trying to help but getting in the way.

Jalang settlement

After agreeing a reasonable price we took possession of our surprisingly spacious accommodation, an entirely traditional yurt with a trellis construction, a massively thick yak wool outer covering and many intricately weaved internal support strips. It was quite beautiful. We spent the remains of the day exploring the small houses, watching the yaks being milked, mucking about with the kids and generally marvelling at the unbelievable place we found ourselves in. We even spotted Marco Polo sheep at a distance, a mother and baby. Our hosts brought us steamed dumplings, yak yoghurt and green tea for dinner and we had a sumptuous feast in the yurt with an unusually talkative Tohir. A fine evening indeed, especially when we got the vodka out. The yurt was heated to an almost unbearable temperature through the integrated stove in which a burning ember and several yak dung cakes were placed, however once burned through the space quickly became very cold. We had a bed made up for us including yak wool blankets which kept us fabulously toasty warm all night. A trip to the stone loo enclosure a little way from the settlement at night revealed more stars than we’ve ever seen. An early breakfast of rice pudding, more yoghurt and tea and a chat in pidgeon Russian with the lovely Kyrgrz hosts followed. We both agreed this was the best place we’d found and stayed on the entire trip thus far and we left with a renewed sense of how utterly marvellous this country is – scenically splendid and coupled with amazing hospitality.

Our abode for the night, Jalang village

Inside our yurt, Jalang village

On our last full day in Takikistan, and after trying and failing to rescue an overloaded UAZ Russian van stuck in a river, we made our way to Karakul Lake, a vast high altitude expanse of water at around 4,000m above sea level. Our final trek of the trip was to the top of a hill on a promonitory jutting out into the lake called South Aral Peak. Helen’s hip was playing up so Tohir and myself made our way up a ridiculously steep incline of only around 300m, but with the altitude, the effort to get up the mountainside and the fact I’d had too much vodka the night before left me breathless and hyperventilating like an asthmatic with one lung. Tohir might as well have been on a stroll around a pond. Still, the views from the top were utterly breathtaking and well worth the painful effort.

The Hushang Pass at 4,655m on the way to Karakul

Lake Karakul from South Aral Peak

Tohir at the top, South Aral Peak

Our last night was spent in Karakul village, a pitifully godforsaken place that made Bulunkul look like a metropolis. We wandered down to the lake, which was beautiful to be fair, but our ramble back was like walking through a ghost town. Most of the dwellings were boarded up – just a couple of guesthouses, but seemingly no other facilities at all. A nice encounter with a Swiss couple made our stay pleasant though. We swapped alcohol – they gave us a beer, we gave them some vodka and we both swapped travel stories. Again, a lovely evening in the company of the like-minded.

Karakul village

Lake Karakul to the Kyrgyzstan border was yet another fabulous drive through ever reddening mountain-scapes and we reached and passed the customs check with no bother. Tajik citizens are not allowed over the border to Kyrgyzstan so the protocol is to drive to the Kyzyl Art Pass (at 4,300m) where the two country’s land border actually lies and change vehicles and drivers. It felt like a spy movie where prisoner swaps are made at Checkpoint Charlie in the mists and dead of night (except it was broad daylight and everyone was laughing and joking, so not really like that at all). It was tough saying goodbye to Tohir though – Helen was a bit teary and we were both gutted at having to leave him behind.

Ascending to Kyzyl Art Pass

Kyzyl Art Pass

The border crossing must have the longest stretch of no-man’s land on the planet. It took 40 minutes to drive down the 19 kilometres of the pass to the Kyrgyz check point. There we waited an hour to be let into immigration, but the process was a total breeze, and again no-one even checked or scanned our luggage at all. This border crossing used to have a reputation as one of the most corrupt in the world, with bribes being the norm and random confiscations frequent. I’d heard stories of border guards ripping up passports here in drunken fits of pique or if they didn’t like the look of you. I’d even saved half of our bottle of vodka as a pre-emptive ‘gift’ to try and ease the way through, so I was a little disappointed that there was no real colour to the experience for us. Glad our passports still have all their pages though….

We bounced our way to the Kyrgyz town of Sary Tash for lunch through rolling green hills with white yurts and hundreds of horses roaming the field and roads – a complete and utter contrast to the sometimes lunar-like landscapes we’ve been used to for the last week or so. We then bounced our way down to the Tulparkul Lake, back near the Tajik border. There’s a series of tourist yurt camps here. Mercifully our was the most isolated and furthest away from the melee occurring at some (noisy volleyball games). A far cry indeed from our genuine yurt stay experience a couple of nights ago, but still we didn’t expect anything different, the setting was utterly spectacular and again we enjoyed some great company at dinner.

Tulparkul Lake

On to Osh for a wash (we hadn’t been able to shower for three days) and some needed rest & recuperation before planning the rest of our time in Kyrgyzstan.

Without doubt, travelling the Pamir Highway has been one of the best travel experiences we’ve had anywhere. We had a great driver (loads of others reported many problems with theirs), largely fantastic weather, some fabulous hikes and will never cease to be amazed at just how beautiful the landscape is up on the plateau. Homestays in this part of the world are notorious for bad quality & giving you food poisoning, but we were totally fine (and really enjoyed the food). But the thing that made it really great was the people we met, and re-met, as we criss-crossed our way over the roads and tracks. One of those trips where you’re genuinely sorry it’s over. Still, we’ve got the delights of a few horse treks to come in the next few weeks, and Helen’s really looking forward to that…….