DAY 10 FRIDAY OCT 9 2015 KHOROG TO KALA-I KHUM
We will probably all have kinks in our necks today from staring across the river at the Afghanistan side. It is just so fascinating to be so close. Any time anyone sees movement across the river, there is an announcement so we all sit up and pay attention, like we might have been doing something else anyway. Slava is best at spotting but then he's in the front and looking forward – we hope, and driving fast on these mountain roads so kind of would have been better had someone else been the spotter but he was good at seeing the slightest bit of movement.
Sometimes we are along a road similar to the one we are on, bumpy, jerky, up and down and around curves, etc. sometimes there is just a dirt path on the other side . Sometimes we can’t even tell what the people are walking on and following. We never see a lot of cars but there are donkey trains, people just walking along, sometimes some motorbikes, once a van, once a truck. We are driving besides the Panj river at this point and it is sometimes swift and violent in spots. At some points, we are only 50 yards away from Afghanistan – IF that much. We did see some armed soldiers on both sides. On our side, they were generally just walking along the road. Once three army jeeps roared by us and Slava said they were Afghanistan soldiers. Not sure why they were on our side of the river. For several days, we’ve also been passing check points. We always get pulled over because the cars are Kyrgyzstani so Slava and Anatoly must get their papers checked all the time. On a few occasions we’ve been on a toll road and that’s fun for Slava to have to explain that he is also paying for the blue SUV somewhere behind him but so far it works and Anatoly gets through every time.
One other reason, besides the wretched road condition, that we go so slowly through the mountains is the number of sheep and goat and cow crossings. Seems like we are always going around a corner and running into the middle of a herd of something. Unfortunately, we won’t see any of the Marco Polo sheep or any big horn mountain goats . They are too few now and too high up in the mountains. But the domestic herds are fun and always good for a slow roll through the animals and snapping photos the entire way.
As we are leaving Khorog in the morning, we do stop at a cross-the-river, between two countries bridge. It’s not far out of town and this must be the place where people work on getting a short term visa to cross here. Apparently it is doable but we didn’t have enough time. No one is on the bridge and it looks as if both sides are totally deserted but an Afghanistan flag flies over the bridge on the far side and a Tajikistan flag on our near side. As we are standing there taking photos, one of the two planes a week flies into Khorog. It’s a small plane.
There were many things to see on the other side of the river today. Some of the villages are quite nice and look very prosperous. Indeed, they looked a lot better than some of the places we have stayed. As we are climbing higher up the mountains, so are the villages on the Afghan side and once we saw a couple of women coming up from the river carrying baskets on their heads so that was a must take photo stop. We waited for them to get to the top. They were halfway up when we spotted them and it took them another ½ hour to get to the top . Other villages had large rugs and blankets spread on the grass to dry. Must have been a washing day.
We approached one point where they are working on the road, in Afghanistan. We stopped to watch. It looked like they were hanging onto the cliff side practically. They were painstakingly carving a road out of the rock on the side of the mountain. Looked like horribly tedious and back breaking work. Slava says they do use explosives to dig out the road and we heard some later and saw some puffs of smoke. Slava jokingly, we think, says it was the army having target practice OR it could have been road building. Who knows.
The best part of the afternoon was to stop and watch some people climb a cliff. The road had disappeared miles behind and the path had narrowed down to a narrow dirt bit that climbed up this face of rock that looked like there were no holds or places to put your feet at all. And it had some stick and twig bridges up the rock face in places where they had to move across the face to continue the climb. It was probably a couple of hundred vertical feet or more that they were climbing along a cliff face for couple of hundred yards. AND all these people had huge packs on their backs. Whether they were coming or going to a village, I imagine they had to do the journey both ways . It was incredible watching them. At times, they totally disappeared in the rocks but one man was carrying something that flashed when it hit the sun so we’d find them again from that or from the colorful clothes they were wearing. I think all of us watched with our mouths hanging to the ground! How lucky we were to happen along just as they were going up. We joked that Jamshed had called ahead to tell them to start climbing so we would see them. Funny that they reached the top and went around a corner and when we drove around the corner, we couldn’t ever see where they went so either they all fell into the river or they were resting and waiting for the next group to call and say "start down now for the tourists".
Our program notes had said that in Kalaikhum we would be in a very small town and in a homestay where the guesthouse is multistoried with very steep steps to get to the sleeping areas and dining areas. It supposedly had a pit toilet in the courtyard. I had planned accordingly and put everything I needed into my smaller bag so I didn’t have to drag the large bag up these steep stairs. Imagine my surprise when we pulled into a large well lit hotel with an elevator and all.
Jams said that the groups always stayed at this hotel . WTF. Is the program that old and un-updated, did I miss a update? Think not because everyone was surprised. Well, we were in for an even bigger surprise. The hotel had no water!!! Wow, such a potentially nice place and then no water. The desk assured us it would be on in 1 hour. Canada and I got a room on the top floor. The view wasn’t too much as the town was pretty dark all over.
We went downstairs for dinner and a poor chef, all on his own, was working very hard at trying to produce a good meal for us. Jams decided we should all order breakfast while we were at it so that the morning would go better. Dinner wasn’t that wonderful. Back in our room, I used the toilet and then Canada got tourista and used the toilet which then wouldn’t flush. Oh no. We didn’t have enough bottled water to fill the tank to flush it so we just shut the lid and door and hoped for the best.
Mauritius, London, New York and I all went out for a walk and there was an actual grocery store about 2 blocks from the hotel - still open. Amazing for such a small village. We went in and just had a ball looking at all the cans and packages and trying to figure out what was what. We all ended up with some sweets to share in the car and a few snacks to supplement the dinner that had been yucky. I got some more Multi-fruit juice. Yummy.
Back at the hotel, we are sleeping and the phone rings at 11:30 to tell us the water is back on. I knew that I should have gotten up then to take a shower but I was tired so I went back to sleep as did Canada. Yep, you guessed it, the next morning, the water was out again. At least we had been able to flush the toilet a couple of times during the night.
We will probably all have kinks in our necks today from staring across the river at the Afghanistan side. It is just so fascinating to be so close. Any time anyone sees movement across the river, there is an announcement so we all sit up and pay attention, like we might have been doing something else anyway. Slava is best at spotting but then he's in the front and looking forward – we hope, and driving fast on these mountain roads so kind of would have been better had someone else been the spotter but he was good at seeing the slightest bit of movement.
Sometimes we are along a road similar to the one we are on, bumpy, jerky, up and down and around curves, etc. sometimes there is just a dirt path on the other side . Sometimes we can’t even tell what the people are walking on and following. We never see a lot of cars but there are donkey trains, people just walking along, sometimes some motorbikes, once a van, once a truck. We are driving besides the Panj river at this point and it is sometimes swift and violent in spots. At some points, we are only 50 yards away from Afghanistan – IF that much. We did see some armed soldiers on both sides. On our side, they were generally just walking along the road. Once three army jeeps roared by us and Slava said they were Afghanistan soldiers. Not sure why they were on our side of the river. For several days, we’ve also been passing check points. We always get pulled over because the cars are Kyrgyzstani so Slava and Anatoly must get their papers checked all the time. On a few occasions we’ve been on a toll road and that’s fun for Slava to have to explain that he is also paying for the blue SUV somewhere behind him but so far it works and Anatoly gets through every time.
One other reason, besides the wretched road condition, that we go so slowly through the mountains is the number of sheep and goat and cow crossings. Seems like we are always going around a corner and running into the middle of a herd of something. Unfortunately, we won’t see any of the Marco Polo sheep or any big horn mountain goats . They are too few now and too high up in the mountains. But the domestic herds are fun and always good for a slow roll through the animals and snapping photos the entire way.
As we are leaving Khorog in the morning, we do stop at a cross-the-river, between two countries bridge. It’s not far out of town and this must be the place where people work on getting a short term visa to cross here. Apparently it is doable but we didn’t have enough time. No one is on the bridge and it looks as if both sides are totally deserted but an Afghanistan flag flies over the bridge on the far side and a Tajikistan flag on our near side. As we are standing there taking photos, one of the two planes a week flies into Khorog. It’s a small plane.
There were many things to see on the other side of the river today. Some of the villages are quite nice and look very prosperous. Indeed, they looked a lot better than some of the places we have stayed. As we are climbing higher up the mountains, so are the villages on the Afghan side and once we saw a couple of women coming up from the river carrying baskets on their heads so that was a must take photo stop. We waited for them to get to the top. They were halfway up when we spotted them and it took them another ½ hour to get to the top . Other villages had large rugs and blankets spread on the grass to dry. Must have been a washing day.
We approached one point where they are working on the road, in Afghanistan. We stopped to watch. It looked like they were hanging onto the cliff side practically. They were painstakingly carving a road out of the rock on the side of the mountain. Looked like horribly tedious and back breaking work. Slava says they do use explosives to dig out the road and we heard some later and saw some puffs of smoke. Slava jokingly, we think, says it was the army having target practice OR it could have been road building. Who knows.
The best part of the afternoon was to stop and watch some people climb a cliff. The road had disappeared miles behind and the path had narrowed down to a narrow dirt bit that climbed up this face of rock that looked like there were no holds or places to put your feet at all. And it had some stick and twig bridges up the rock face in places where they had to move across the face to continue the climb. It was probably a couple of hundred vertical feet or more that they were climbing along a cliff face for couple of hundred yards. AND all these people had huge packs on their backs. Whether they were coming or going to a village, I imagine they had to do the journey both ways . It was incredible watching them. At times, they totally disappeared in the rocks but one man was carrying something that flashed when it hit the sun so we’d find them again from that or from the colorful clothes they were wearing. I think all of us watched with our mouths hanging to the ground! How lucky we were to happen along just as they were going up. We joked that Jamshed had called ahead to tell them to start climbing so we would see them. Funny that they reached the top and went around a corner and when we drove around the corner, we couldn’t ever see where they went so either they all fell into the river or they were resting and waiting for the next group to call and say "start down now for the tourists".
Our program notes had said that in Kalaikhum we would be in a very small town and in a homestay where the guesthouse is multistoried with very steep steps to get to the sleeping areas and dining areas. It supposedly had a pit toilet in the courtyard. I had planned accordingly and put everything I needed into my smaller bag so I didn’t have to drag the large bag up these steep stairs. Imagine my surprise when we pulled into a large well lit hotel with an elevator and all.
Jams said that the groups always stayed at this hotel . WTF. Is the program that old and un-updated, did I miss a update? Think not because everyone was surprised. Well, we were in for an even bigger surprise. The hotel had no water!!! Wow, such a potentially nice place and then no water. The desk assured us it would be on in 1 hour. Canada and I got a room on the top floor. The view wasn’t too much as the town was pretty dark all over.
We went downstairs for dinner and a poor chef, all on his own, was working very hard at trying to produce a good meal for us. Jams decided we should all order breakfast while we were at it so that the morning would go better. Dinner wasn’t that wonderful. Back in our room, I used the toilet and then Canada got tourista and used the toilet which then wouldn’t flush. Oh no. We didn’t have enough bottled water to fill the tank to flush it so we just shut the lid and door and hoped for the best.
Mauritius, London, New York and I all went out for a walk and there was an actual grocery store about 2 blocks from the hotel - still open. Amazing for such a small village. We went in and just had a ball looking at all the cans and packages and trying to figure out what was what. We all ended up with some sweets to share in the car and a few snacks to supplement the dinner that had been yucky. I got some more Multi-fruit juice. Yummy.
Back at the hotel, we are sleeping and the phone rings at 11:30 to tell us the water is back on. I knew that I should have gotten up then to take a shower but I was tired so I went back to sleep as did Canada. Yep, you guessed it, the next morning, the water was out again. At least we had been able to flush the toilet a couple of times during the night.
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