Crossing at Panjakent border

Above:  You could say these four men are having a good time in bed.

Samarkand to border

Today, I start my 2400 km overland adventure from Samarkand in Uzbekistan to Hotan in Xinjiang, China.   Today’s portion is a relatively solo border crossing from Samarkand to Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

After a good breakfast at 0900, I took a Yandex for the 46km ride to the border for UZS128500 (NZD17).  I thought it would simplify the day rather than taking a Yandex to the shared taxi station and then sharing a ride the Panjakent border.

It worked marvellously well, getting dropped off at 1000.  With no queues and easy formalities, and a short walk through no-man’s land, I was on Tajik soil around 1020.

Border to Dushanbe

This is when easy turned into difficult.  I met a Malaysian couple and we agreed to share the ride to Dushanbe.  We managed to bargain one driver down to TJS100 (USD10) per person.

Then we realised his car had more seat than we thought, and it was taking forever to fill.  When a group turned up, it was our chance to make our retreat and he didn’t protest at us abandoning him.

The other drivers would only come down to TJS150 (USD15) and with some bargaining, we agreed on that price including a hotel drop-off rather than the station.

We finally set off after filling the 4^th seat around 1125 after an hour of waiting and hoping.  The Malaysian couple were also doing the Pamir Highway starting tomorrow, but haven’t paid a deposit.  They had booked their flight to Tashkent to start their trip only a couple of days beforehand!  We had very nice chats along the way.

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Arriving in Dushanbe

The ride to Dushanbe took just over 4h, going through two long tunnels and making a car-wash stop an hour before arriving in the city.

We got dropped off at the Ultra Hostel, located in the 17^th (top) floor of a nice apartment block.  We had tried to tell the driver we needed to change money but things got lost in translation and he thought we wanted to pay him in foreign currency.

I paid him with a USD10 plus the remainder in UZS at a bad rate.  The others had no USD and only UZS and had to go look for an ATM.  In the meantime, the driver thought they were being suspicious of him with the price, exchange or whatever.  Fortunately, all ended well when he came back all the TJS required for the payment.

It was good that the other two found me an ATM nearby which I was able to use later to make my withdrawal.

Overall, it wasn’t a terribly difficult journey of 6h30 (about 300km) of which 20 mins was border formalities and 1h was negotiating for the car and waiting for the car to fill (actually, that was the hardest part).

My hostel

My double room was actually a huge room, with 3 bunk beds rattling in one side.  I could have danced in the remaining area if I had known how. And I was lucky to have the toilet and bathroom just outside my door, making it nearly an ensuite.

I finished my day returning to the restaurant (Çıtır Usta) I found 7 years ago, with Marco, one of the people with whom I will do the Pamir Highway in two days time.