The M41, romantically referred to as the Pamir Highway, connects Osh in Kyrgyzstan with Dushanbe in Tajikistan. It’s a road of about 1600km that rises to an elevation of 4655 metres. Much of it is unpaved or rough pot-holed tarmac; not much wider than a single lane and is carved out of the mountain sides. […]
Category Archives: recap
Border Patrol (Night Two)
Setting Due to the road literally being honed from the mountain side with the river raging below; small picturesque villages have settled where the valley, on occasions, widens and flattens. As occasionally happens, dusk started to fall before we had found somewhere good to camp. And so it was we found ourselves having to stop, […]
Border Patrol (Night One)
Setting At the moment we are driving from Khorugh to Dushanbe in Tajikistan. The road follows the Panj River as it meanders between numerous mountains. On one side of the river is Afghanistan and on the other is Tajikistan. At times the river narrows as it flits through tight canons and you come so tantalisingly […]
One for the Road
We drove over a mountain today! Where the Japanese would have built a tunnel the Kyrgyzs built a road. The said tunnel would have been expensive, over engineered, straight and pretty damn boring. This road, on the other hand, was cheap to build, extremely basic, curvy and absolutely totally exciting.
A Tale from a Drama Queen High on a Mountain Pass
On the way from Bishkek to Osh tourists sometimes take a detour to Lake Song Kol; a beautiful lake edged by mountains. There are various roads to this lake but we decided we would take a little used high road and travel over a mountain pass. It would be about 160km from the turn off […]
The Mountain Goats
We are in the eastern corner of Kyrgyzstan where the country narrows and the mountain ranges create a natural border with Kazakhstan and China. From entering the border (which took no more than 15 minutes,) we drove straight to Karakol: a large town that sits on the eastern edge of Lake Issik Kol. The town […]
New Friends in Almaty
Driving into the old capital of Almaty after dark was an amazing experience (for me at least) as I got to gaze outside the window at all the sights. The fringes of the city are lined with kebab stalls, fruit markets, small shops and restaurants. Both cars and people mill around in amongst the swirls […]
Visitors from Outer Mongolia
Our last camp spot in Mongolia was 10km from the Russian border. We chose a hidden spot behind a small hill off the main road. It was beautiful! Within half an hour, from yonder, came three figures and a horse. As they neared you could tell that they were all children. They were dressed for […]
Forgive me for I have sinned
Yesterday I broke one of the four wheel driving commandments: thou shalt not attempt to cross an obstacle without first performing an inspection. In short, we got stuck in the mud! My confession follows.
Lambs to the Slaughter
(Veggie and Vegan advisory: contains meat lyrics) We stopped off at a small town to buy some groceries and something for the barbecue. Even though the Mongolian staple diet is meat, potatoes, milk and flour we’ve found it hard to buy meat in the small countryside shops. What meat they all have though is salami […]