Cycling through the Pamirs (Tajikistan)

---

We almost the skipped country, but we are absolutely glad it was included in our route. Initially we didn't want to come here because of the visa cost, but was convinced to go by Teddy (our Malaysian cycling companion in Xinjiang), then reconsidered again after the tragic incident south of Dushanbe where four cyclists were killed. But after flip-flopping a few times made our way to the beautiful country that is Tajikistan.

Location: Tajikistan — Pamir Highway M41, Murghab, Khorog, Qalaikhum, Dushanbe.

*** Video is sized for mobile phone ***

Brief Descriptions of the Clips

1. People said the passes looked like Mars because of it's remoteness and red mountains. It was absolutely true, and blissfully quiet
2. The Karakul lake looked so beautiful, but too cold to take a dip in. It's a little under 4000m in altitude so no wonder it is super cold
3. We had a dog follow us from the last town and we named him Oat. Little bugger followed us until we got attached to him and fed him some oats, hence the name!
4. It got cold overnight so the river froze at the top
5. Amongst our bags we found a little creature hiding from Oat, so Matt distracted him with biscuits while Pheng packed the tent and try to shoo the little guy away
6. The highest pass we'll have to do in the Pamir (or possibly the entire trip) was Ak-Baytal 4655m
7. Oat patiently climbed up with us all day, until we reached the top
8. Going down was great, but Oat struggled to keep up
9. We met a Spanish couple cycling the opposite direction so we stopped for a chat. They had quite a misadventure in Turkmenistan where a car crashed and destroyed most of their bike and belongings.
10. Some parts of the road was very uneven making it dangerous if you're speeding down. We lost Oat even after we waited 30 minutes for him.
11. We arrived in the small town of Murghab, it reminded us very much of news footage from Afghan villages
12. Once again we are crossing our fourth pass. It was a difficult one because the top stretched far and we had headwind
13. Pushing along the unsealed road
14. Beautiful blue rivers halfway through the Pamirs
15. The road before Dushanbe was probably the toughest and worse condition we've had
16. We stayed with a cool family that made traditional Tajik wooden bowl
17. Fixing our bikes in Dushanbe required 5 days visit and we became very close friends with Zoir
18. The father of the family we stayed with worked at a diary farm so we got an awesome tour of his work
19. Cycling to Lake Iskanderkul was the best detour we took. The colour of autumn was beautiful, bringing an end to our longest summer so far
20. We made bread and it was very successful!
21. The northern route leaving Tajikistan was mountainous but we passed through many villages and met many nice Tajiks
22. Our last camping spot was just in front of the border office. We felt really sad leaving Tajikistan after 45 amazing days

Video made using Instagram Stories and Quik.

==== Keep us pedalling ====

Did you enjoy reading our travel content? Perhaps you learn a thing or two. We are actively contributing to the STEEM blockchain because it is really awesome. Also, we would gratefully accept donation in any of these cryptocurrencies:

Wallet	Address
STEEM	pushpedal
BTC	1PFGQbJekoUjYji1eLhkU2XYJDZpiFHCSH
ETH	0x5b67d4597e200110af6ad5441383602c476abb82
XLM	qr6q2uuaqhpw6r7avhazvwtqxy8z6s6tuupravqdd0

---

▶️ DTube
▶️ IPFS