{"id":3051,"date":"2011-08-10T20:53:56","date_gmt":"2011-08-11T03:53:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/?p=3051"},"modified":"2011-08-10T21:03:56","modified_gmt":"2011-08-11T04:03:56","slug":"robyn-friend-pamirs-tajikistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/2011\/08\/10\/robyn-friend-pamirs-tajikistan\/","title":{"rendered":"From Town to Goat track"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Tour of the Pamir Mountains of Tajikistan<\/h2>\n
\n\"Robyn<\/p>\n

Robyn in Khorog with Professor of English Language, Gulnamo Dustambaeva<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

by Robyn Friend<\/a>
\nposted August 10, 2011<\/span><\/h3>\n

Why travel to such an out-of-the way place?\u00a0 What is the attraction?\u00a0 Dance, of course, was the first attraction for me. But there are many others: the breathtaking scenery, the kindness of the people.\u00a0 There is also the realization, in a way that can\u2019t be acquired just by reading about it, that this is how most of the population of the world lives, with little or no electricity, indoor plumbing, or paved roads.\u00a0 There is nothing like a visit to a remote human habitation to come home with a greater appreciation of one\u2019s own blessings.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

\"Robyn
\ninterview at our riverside house in Khorog<\/h6>\n

After the festival, Neil and I stayed in Khorog for several days, recuperating from the whirlwind of travel and festival-going by visiting with friends, and relaxing at our river-front guest-house.\u00a0 Eventually, we were caught up on our email and our sleep, and it was time for the next adventure: a tour of diminishing population, via a road trip down to the southern tip of Tajikistan.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

We engaged the same driver, Amri Khuda<\/strong>, who had driven us up from Dushanbe the week before.\u00a0 We charted out where we wanted to go and the sites we wanted to visit, Amri Khuda<\/strong> putting in his recommendations as well.\u00a0 We decided to follow the Oxus River almost to its source, then head up to the Khargush Pass, and thence back to Khorog.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Khorog, the province\u2019s administrative capital, has a population of 25,000.\u00a0 The next city down the road has a population of 5,000.\u00a0 After that, the next village has a population of about 1,000; the next one after that, about 300.\u00a0 At the point where we were to turn north towards the pass, the villages looked to be even smaller; well under 100.\u00a0 The last few hundred miles seemed to be nearly unpopulated.<\/p>\n

At last the day came, and we headed south towards Ishkoshim, stopping along the way at Garm Cheshma<\/em> (\u201chot spring\u201d)  where men and women have separate rooms in which to soak in the hot mineral water.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The Pamir Mountains are part of a complex of mountains (1)<\/a> created by the northward motion of the Indian sub-continent, which for the last few million years has been colliding with Asia, resulting in the folding and lifting of the earth\u2019s surface.\u00a0 The movement of this huge landmass causes earthquakes, some of which open shafts deep into the earth so that superheated water can come to the surface, evidenced by the numerous hot springs throughout the mountains. <\/p>\n


Looking from Ishkoshim, Tajikistan,
\ntowards the Wakhan and the Hindu Kush Mountains<\/h6>\n

Ishkoshim is a very quiet town with one main street and one cross street.\u00a0 From the eastern end, you can just look down towards the Wakhan Corridor, the long valley between the Wakhan Mountain Range and the Hindu Kush (2)<\/a>.\u00a0 At Hani\u2019s Guesthouse we got a room, plus meals.\u00a0 I promptly fell asleep, and stayed asleep until supper.<\/p>\n

During supper we met four Britons: two from the BBC and two climbers.\u00a0 The climbers were hoping to be the first to climb the large mountains in the Wakhan Corridor, and the other two were there to document the first week of the journey.\u00a0 The climbers had planned to buy some food and supplies in the Tajik city of Ishkoshim, and the rest in Sultan Ishkoshim, across the river in Afghanistan.\u00a0 The only problem was that they did not know the words for any of the foodstuffs they planned to buy, like rice, bread, and so forth.\u00a0 Fortunately, I was able to write out a grocery list for them in Tajiki that would work on both sides of the border.\u00a0 The journalists eventually filed a series of reports of the part of the journey they witnessed (3)<\/a>.\u00a0 That night we were invited to a concert in a nearby little theater, a showcase of local talent, including singers, dancers, and musicians.\u00a0 It was lovely to see people appreciating their own culture and supporting their friends and neighbors.<\/p>\n

Afghan Bazaar<\/p>\n

About six years ago, the governments of Tajikistan and Afghanistan, with the aid of the Agha Khan Foundation, cooperated to establish a weekly market where Afghans and Tajiks could meet to swap, barter, and negotiate for each others\u2019 goods.\u00a0 I had been to the Afghan Bazaar, as the Tajiks call it, many times in Khorog, and had long looked forward to going to the one in Ishkoshim.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The Ishkoshim Afghan Bazaar was held on an island in the middle of the Panj River.\u00a0 From the Tajik side, we had to surrender our passports before walking across the bridge to this island \u2013 and suddenly, we were in Afghanistan! (4)<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Among the many interesting items on offer there were used modern wares (sewing machines, cooking utensils, and so forth), but also atlas<\/em> fabric, the hand-dyed silk for which Central Asia is famous.\u00a0 Some of the atlas<\/em> even came pre-cut and embroidered, ready to be made into the salwar-kameez<\/em>-like outfit that Tajik ladies like to wear.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

\"bazaar\"
\nAfghan Bazaar, Ishkoshim.
\nSome women have tied scarves over their faces, not as hijab<\/em>, but to keep from inhaling the dust<\/h6>\n

In several trips to the Pamirs, I had never before experienced altitude sickness, which can manifest itself in fatigue, shortness of breath, extreme headache, or dizziness.\u00a0 By the time we reached Ishkoshim, we were at about 8,000 feet, and the slightest physical effort made me aware of the reduced oxygen level.\u00a0 This awareness came first of all in the deep and lengthy sleep I had before our supper, and then later by the burning of my oxygen-starved\u00a0 muscles as I climbed up and down hills to see the sites.\u00a0 The local people are adapted to the altitude; a good thing, as at one point we had to hire local children to drag me up to the top of a hill to see some ancient ruins.<\/p>\n

The high mountains and narrow valleys of Badakhshan make the Pamirs remote and inaccessible, with what seems a strong and active connection to an ancient past.\u00a0 This is manifested most obviously in the form and structure of the cheed<\/a><\/em> house<\/a>, but also in the many petroglyphs and relics of the two main local religions before Islam, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

After we left the guesthouse the next day, we continued our route along the Panj River, stopping at a fort built in 300 BCE to prevent invasion by the wild tribes from across the river.\u00a0 The ruins of the ancient buildings remain, and are still used as a military outpost to prevent a different kind of invasion: drug smugglers.\u00a0 Among the other sites we visited were a hilltop Buddhist stupa<\/em> (5)<\/a>, ancient petroglyphs (6)<\/a>, and the hot springs of Bibi Fatemeh<\/em>.\u00a0 This hot spring had only one facility, so the ladies and gentlemen had to take turns.\u00a0 This was unlike any hot springs I had ever been in \u2013 instead of man-made pools, there was the natural cavern full of water, and we waded right in.\u00a0 There was a small window through which one could look up the canyon, and a tiny little cave at about waist height, through a narrow and oddly shaped crack.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

One lithe young girl twisted her way through this crack and into the tiny cave, and brought back some mineral crystals, said to have healing powers.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 She shared these crystals around, giving me one of them, as well.\u00a0 This spring is also said to open a barren womb, and make it possible for a woman to get pregnant.\u00a0 As seems to happen frequently when we travel in the Pamirs, we bumped into a friend; in this case, the mother of our landlord in Khorog, who had been making us breakfast just a few days before.\u00a0 Right near Bibi Fatemeh<\/em> was another, even more gigantic 2,000-year-old fort \u2013 almost 600 feet long, commanding an amazing view of Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.<\/p>\n

\"fort\"
\nfort<\/h6>\n

The second night on our tour we stayed in a home with a family.\u00a0 No hotels in a village of 300, of course, so a home-stay is the only option.\u00a0 They even had signs in a few villages directing one to homes that offered accommodation.\u00a0 Historically, travelling on foot from place to place up in the mountains, or down to the town, can take several days; because people need a place to stay overnight, traditional Pamiri houses have a separate room for guests.\u00a0 Our home-stay had an outbuilding with three rooms.\u00a0 There was another small building with a shower and sink, powered by a tank on the roof, filled by girls carrying buckets up a ladder.\u00a0 The toilet, a \u201csquatter\u201d, as is most often the case outside of Khorog (7)<\/a>, was in its own little building out back.\u00a0 We took our meals in the family\u2019s part of the house, cooked for us by the family in a small kitchen.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The family included a young woman with a baby; after our breakfast the next day, the woman put on some dance music and held the baby, moving the child to the music.\u00a0 And that is how Pamiri children learn to dance so well!<\/p>\n

Through the Khargush Pass<\/p>\n

Back in Ishkoshim, we had been told that there had been a washout on the road farther up the Oxus River, the very road that we needed to take to get to the Khargush Pass, and our route back to Khorog.\u00a0 The rock slide had occurred at a point where the hillside was very steep, and the road was very narrow \u2013 and several hundred feet up from the rushing river below.\u00a0 One French engineer at our guesthouse who had gone up to see the damage stated that it would probably be three weeks before the road would be ready for vehicles again.<\/p>\n

We had a conversation with Amri Khuda about the road, thinking about having to turn around and go the back way we had come.\u00a0 He just smiled and said, \u201cWe will go there and see\u201d.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

So, the next morning, we set off towards Langar, the last town along our road before we started for the Khargush Pass, visiting more sites, including a shrine and tomb to a local sufi saint, decorated with very pagan rams\u2019 horns.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In these mountains, elements of paganism, Zoroastrianism, and Islam are all evident and side-by-side. Many people appear to be aware of the ancient roots of some of their Ismaili Islamic religious practices, and seem very tolerant of the ambiguity and apparent contradictions.<\/p>\n

\"Fort?\"
\nShrine in Langar with rams\u2019 horns<\/h6>\n

\"Shrine?\"<\/p>\n

At the very last house beyond the very last village, we stopped at the home of the khalifa<\/em>, the spiritual leader of the town of Langar (population: not very many), where we had a delicious lunch prepared by his daughter.\u00a0 People in the Pamirs are generous, but they are also poor, so we paid for our lunch, just as we had paid for our accommodations each night in our home-stays.<\/p>\n

While in Langar, Amri Khuda had heard that there was a German gentleman hitchhiking around the Pamirs, and would we give him a ride?\u00a0 Of course, we had no objections to this.\u00a0 We picked him up after our lunch, and were surprised to see that he was not a young man, but rather in his 70\u2019s, with nothing more than a small backpack.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Map\"As we headed up hill towards the pass, I looked back and caught a fleeting glimpse of the Amu Darya plunging down a steep and narrow cliff on its way down towards the Aral Sea, many miles to the northwest (8)<\/a>.\u00a0 Off in the distance on all sides as far as the eye could see, rose wave after wave of snow-topped mountains, each range taller than the one in front of it.\u00a0 We eventually drove as high as 14,000 feet, but the mountains still rose up another two miles.<\/p>\n

Soon we were at the point where the road had washed out.\u00a0 There was plenty of time to view it because the road made a large hairpin turn hugging the opposite cliff.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n

We were pleasantly surprised to see that the washout had been neatly filled in with large rocks up to the level of the road.\u00a0 We crossed that patch of road fairly quickly, holding our breath and invoking the names of whatever gods protect the innocent traveler.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But we made it across, and the road held up just fine.\u00a0 In a land where the government is not there demanding a lot of red tape, safety inspections documented in triplicate, and formal contracts for acquiring materiel, people just take care of business and do what is needed.<\/p>\n

As we worked our way slowly up towards our turn-off for Khargush Pass, the number of dwellings and visible people dwindled until we seemed to be the only humans for many miles around, except for the occasional goatherd with his flock.\u00a0 Eventually the road leveled out even with the river, which was narrow and shallow at this point, more of a psychological border with Afghanistan, literally a stone\u2019s throw away, than a real barrier.\u00a0 Before we turned more directly north and away from the river, we saw above the opposite bank a small domed building with a few camels wandering around it.\u00a0 This building turned out to be another tomb-shrine, far away from any apparent village or habitation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Finally we turned our backs to the river and climbed up towards the pass.\u00a0 A small rill came down through a ravine, moistening and greening the land on either side.\u00a0 At the top of the pass (9)<\/a> was a small still lake, the source of the rill, backed by even more snow-capped mountains off in the distance.\u00a0 Green natural lawns surrounded the lake; scampering over these lawns were brown animals the size of a large housecat that disappeared into their burrows as we approached.\u00a0 Amri Khuda told us these were marmots, small mammals related to the North American groundhog, that live in mountainous areas all over the world.\u00a0 \u201cKhargush\u201d means rabbit in Tajiki; we had fun joking about the very large \u201crabbits\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n
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