Day 11 Khodjent to Sarytag

A fine night’s sleep was had at the Gulag Hotel, and I awoke to a blaze of brown and fawn. “Is the real life, or is it just fantasy?” I thought to myself.


First stop was the nearby Historical Museum of Sughd Region. Mildly interesting. I indulged in the pointless exercise of buying some Tajikistan postcards. Pointless on the basis that there wouldn’t be time to seek out the post office, and battle with officialdom to buy stamps. Hey ho, that’ll be the Royal Mail’s gain. The only other visitors in the museum, which incidentally is part of an old fort that is being recreated, were some local schoolchildren. As in Kyrgyzstan, they were wearing school uniforms that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the UK. The girls had little neck scarves in the colours of the Tajikistan flag - red, white and green. Quite tasteful and unique.








After a brief visit to a shop to stock up on booze for the forthcoming days in the wilds of the Fann Mountains, we headed to the Central Bazaar. Allegedly, one of the biggest in Central Asia. Opposite the bazaar was a mosque complex, comprising of one relatively new building, and one considerably older. Both quite striking in their own way.








We quickly went into the new one, but any hope of peace and serenity was shattered by builders working in it. Never mind, I’m expecting to be completely “mosqued out” when we got to Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva in Uzbekistan.



Then across a square teeming with life, especially hawkers, to the Bazaar. This place was far more ordered than the one in Bishkek, but was nevertheless a blaze of colours and an assault on my sense of smell. Another fine place to catch some candid pictures of the stall holders.










Back to our vehicles, and the long drive to the south. For the first few hours we headed along a nice tarmac road that went to the Tajik capital, Dushanbe. With 93% of Tajikistan being mountainous it didn’t take that long before we were climbing. Our journey was shortened considerably by the 6km long Shariston Tunnel, but we still had to negotiate bend after bench. This road was sensational. It really felt like what I imagined the Khyber Pass to be like. A testament to superb engineering.










Eventually we turned off the main road, and onto a bumpy bendy track leading up to the Fann mountains, and our “home stay” in Sarytag. The mountains were huge, stark and foreboding. Mainly sandstone, there were none of the verdant colours we’d expect in Europe. There were a couple of photo stops before arriving at our accommodation.










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