It is hard to describe, or even to photograph the beauty of the Pamir mountains. In Tajikistan, where the adventure truly begins, it is a rugged, alien world, almost devoid of life. Riding through presented scenes which could have been from alien planets with unnatural colours plastering an otherwise completely inhospitable landscape. Jagged mountains of glistening black rock reminds one of Mordor, and gives a sense of foreboding. This is a route that truly lives up to its reputation.

Today’s route in blue

It was an early start for me, with a border crossing and a long day of riding ahead. I woke shortly before my alarm at ~6am and started to get ready: coffee, packing knick knacks, dismantling tent, etc. By the time everything was ready it was ~7:45am, and I went over to say good morning and goodbye to Greg and Constantine.

Morning coffee

I was keen to get to a racing start, and took the road back to the highway at quite a reasonable pace. I am starting to feel more confident in unpaved scenarios. Within half an hour I was at the village, and en route to Sary Tash. The plan was to refuel, resupply, get breakfast, and head to Tajikistan.

All packed up

The breakfast venue happened to have wifi, so I took the chance to upload yesterdays photos and post the blog. I expect internet to be quite uncommon over the next few days so any opportunity is a good one. While I was doing this, Cornelius spotted my bike from the road and came to say hello. We resolved to cross the border and to ride together.

Just before setting off, Cornelius spotted one of my aux lights fallen off (yet again!) so a few minutes and a few zip ties later we were ready to go to the border.

The ride to the border crosses the grasslands and approaches the Trans-Alay range, which is home to Lenin Peak (as pictured in yesterday’s blog). The Kyrgyz side of the border performs formalities at the foot of the mountains, and there is another outpost before the actual border where documents are checked once more.

Road to Tajikistan

Already, the roads here are no longer paved. There is a combination of dirt and gravel which has been weathered by the elements.

Approaching the Kyrgyz border

Approaching the Kyrgyz border pt 2

Approaching the Kyrgyz border pt 3

I am incredibly glad I did a one day training course for riding in the desert before my trip. One of the things I learned about riding in sand is that it to do it well, you are an the edge of chaos. That is, when you are riding you are constantly transitioning between two states, one with traction (order) and one without (chaos). The art is both to anticipate and control the state without traction, so that you can recover, and also to harness the loss of traction (to enable easier cornering with power slides).

Leaving Kyrgystan, road to Kyzl-Art Pass

Riding on other surfaces like loose gravel and dirt share similarities with riding on sand, but:

1. Usually has more obstacles (so steering to avoid or ride over them becomes important
2. Usually has more traction/less loss of traction Having learned on sand, I feel a lot more comfortable with other surfaces.

Kyzl Art Pass

At the Tajik side of the border we met a group of 4 Australian travellers, who were university aged. They had purchased a Lada 4x4 for $6K in Bishkek, were driving it around the region for several weeks, and then were going to sell it upon their return to Australia. I was impressed, because this was a much “higher agency” form of travel than when I was in university (I remember being a lot more risk averse/following the crowd when it came to traveling back then).

The Australians’ Lada

A constant feature of the ride were the number of cyclists who were travelling both directions. These ranged from young to old (including a Korean couple in their 60s), with median age i would guess being ~40-45). It is hard to overstate how impressive this is. The road we were riding was mostly at or above 4000MASL altitude (even walking makes me short of breath here), with terrible surfaces (which i would imagine would be hard to ride), and steep climbs over mountain passes. There is also very very little tourist infrastructure; almost no restaurants for food outside of towns (villages?) spaced ~1-200km apart. They would need to carry almost everything with them; water, camping equipment, food, with a few days worth of supplies at a time. I saw one guy with what looked like more luggage than me!

After crossing the Tajik border, the scenery was completely different to the Kyrgyz side of the mountains. It was a landscape with jagged rocky mountains with colours varying from white, to orange, to red, to black. There was very little green - almost no plants at all - save for small and delicate yellow and purple flowers. Some mountains resembled Jupiter, with others looking more like Mars.

Entering Tajikistan

Purple flowers

Tajik scenes

Sinister-looking mountain

What was also awe inspiring was the weather. It seems incredibly so localised against the vastness of the mountains; rain was confined to small patches in the distance; lightness came from gaps in the clouds, with areas of darkness cast over the landscape. Spotlights from heaven could be seen against the otherwise desolate landscape.

Light & Darkness on the M41

The Heavenly Spotlight

The first stop after the border was Karakol lake. This is a bizarre landscape. The waters look tropical and light blue…although it is a bit TOO blue. The temperature is very cold, around 5-6 degrees. Around the lake is a ring of grass which shimmers from afar, such that you cannot tell if it is under water or above water. Outside of the ring of grass is a circle of white salt, with green-red-black lichen. And outside of this ring is black asphalt like rock with tall clumps of grass growing out.

Path to Karakol Lake

We got off the highway and explored the surrounds of the lake, including the lake shore itself. Riding here was similar in parts to riding on sand, with the occasional loss of traction. Again, very glad to have learned to ride on sand beforehand! The shoreline was also much much further away than it looked, which seems to be a feature of the Pamir region. The mountains bordering the road are so large, that they make large distances look very small, and you only really realise this when you try to go towards faraway objects.

Shore of Karakol Lake

Surrounds of Karakol Lake

This was also where I encountered my first:

• thunderstorm (a few of these actually)
• hail The rain here is more like hail; surface temperatures are below 10 degrees, so likely sub zero in the clouds. In higher areas where temperatures are closer to zero, the ice gathers on the ground and turns into a paste of sorts; quite a challenge to ride through. It feels like riding through sand, only worse because the loss of traction is more sudden and much sharper.

Road leading to Ak Baital Pass

The pass itself

Sci-fi colours

By evening we had crossed Ak-Baital pass, the highest point on the ride today at 4655 MASL (with icy roads on the way up), and spotted a lone compound with a bright green Lada. A passing cyclist had mentioned to us that there was a lovely couple living there, and that we could stop for food, so that is what we did, while evaluating the plan for the evening ahead (to camp or to stay somewhere, and if so, where).

Lone compound after Ak-Baital Pass

The couple’s living room

They had a granddaughter of ~2 years old and a cute dog called Rex. Dinner was buttered Kyrgyz bread (they were Kyrgyz, set their time to Kyrgyz time and spoke the Kyrgyz language), some goat meat, onions, and eggs. While basic, it was extremely delicious (especially being in the warmth of their home, after freezing and icy roads).

Rex took a liking to me

The couple and their Lada

We decided to push on to Murghab, where there were rumours of nice (private, not dorm) accommodation and internet.

Road to Murghab

We reached Murghab by dusk. It is a very small town, maybe with 100-200 buildings in total. Kids rode their bicycles until it was dark.

The town of Murghab

The accommodation we had been recommended did have private rooms, but these were all taken by other travellers. Thankfully, there were two sets of dorm rooms and no other guests, so we took one of these each. I needed to restock on water and internet has been very limited, so bribed some kids with some sweets I had purchased earlier to show me the nearest store.

All in a day’s work

This evening’s accommodation

After walking 1KM (and being quite breathless at that with the altitude), the store i went to did not have any water! Only soft drinks. The owners of the store were Tajik and offered to take me to another store which did have water, about 2km away. It was an odd taste of their hospitality; they insisted that I get into their car, all 3 of them jumped in with me, insisted that I ate chocolate and pistachio nuts with them - and didn’t have any expectations of anything in return! It was what I would term “aggressively hospitable”.

Tomorrow; Langar!

Some stats:

• 299 KMs traveled
• 13L fuel added
• 22g coffee consumed
• 8 unique interactions

Altitude map of today’s ride

Route to date