Penjikent and the Fansky Gory

The trip North from Dushanbe was every bit as bad as expected... We got our hopes up when our driver managed to negotiate his way through the initial roadblock and we passed the Jolly Follies landrover coming the other way in the Tunnel of Death. But half an hour further on there was a proper closure, and no way of getting past. The road was supposed to re-open at 5pm, but it was after 7pm before the Chinese truck came through beeping its horn to signal we could proceed. At this point, about 100 cars at either end of the closed section started off simultaneously, with no regard for what was coming the other way. This resulted in a spectacular demonstration of collective genius - two queues of cars, each queue three abreast, facing off against each other on a mountain pass. It was another couple of hours before they'd organised enough reversing to get some kind of stream of traffic going. The police were completely unhelpful - concentrating on extorting bribes rather than trying to sort out the stupid traffic. Trevor's suggestion of throwing rocks at any car pulling into the lane meant for oncoming traffic was demonstrative of our mood by the time it all got sorted out.

We didn't arrive in Penjikent until nearly 2am and were tired, dirty and grumpy. Luckily the only hotel in town has obviously been refurbished since Lonely Planet was written, and we were pleasantly surprised by the running water and general lack of squalor.

Penjikent is famous for the Sogdian frescos that were preserved when the Arabs burnt the city down. The best ones are now in museums in Dushanbe and St Petersberg, but there was enough old stuff to see to fill a day.

(Me and Sogdian ruins)

Yesterday we took a trip up into the Fan Mountains, to hike to the seven connected lakes near Margurzor. These were beautiful, although the water was too cold even for Trevor to swim! We took a picnic and had a lovely day walking and enjoying the lakes (and attempting to build a causeway...)

(Trev by the 7th lake)

(Me on the way back down)

(Got the camera timer to work - thanks Jamie for buying Trev and instruction book for Christmas!)

So then this morning we changed our 5 x 100 Tajik Somoni notes for a 6 inch high stack of scrappy Uzbek Sum, and took a taxi to the border. It was a pain-free crossing, made somewhat amusing by the border guard insisting we took his brother's mobile number, as he is currently studying in the UK.

We're now in a car going from Samarkand (near the border) to Tashkent (the capital), where we're hoping to get our Azeri visa tomorrow. The scenery is flatter already, and we're expecting to hit dessert before we get much further West. The other obvious difference is that women's clothing seems to have changed from the velvet salwars in Tajikistan to a much more comfortable light cotton (yes, it's 35 degrees in the shade and the Tajiks are all wearing velvet. Bizarre.)

I'm not sure we'd go back to Tajikistan - there's some stunning scenery and very friendly people, but the travel is hard and there's not much in the way of sights or stuff going on. The walking is lovely, but you'd need to bring your own kit if you wanted to do any serious trekking.

In Other News, I got a new pair of flipflops (which made me very happy)... and we realised that it is indeed possible to eat Shashlik and Naan for four meals on the trot without any serious side effects (which made Trev very happy)

Gems