The Pamir Highway

Murghab village, Pamir.

The Pamir Highway is a 4655 meter high road built by the Soviets.

With 314kms on front of us for today, we set of at 10 in the morning to Murghab.

The Pamir Highway is not so bad, at least when your in a jeep for the first hour the surface is quite good for the most part. Where it is not, you know all about it. There's some drops, and you can see a few weeks prior it would have been a very different journey. This road is closed for the winter and is liable to flood or be snowed on and be closed for days even when it should be open in the late spring. The snow is still encroaching up to the road in parts.

We stopped for food at about 3400 meters.

We met the switch backs at three five (or 3500 meters) where we quickly gained altitude. The roads get worse, the temperature drops, there's rain which turns to snow at 4000 meters, the clouds meet us and the road turns to slush.

At 4000 meters there is 40 percent less oxygen then there is at sea level. The oxygen level drops ten percent every thousand meters you gain in altitude.

My breathing becomes an unnatural and lethargic job.

Your body notices the change in altitude at 2500 meters to 3000 meters. My highest before this was on M'Goun at 4068 meters, we are now at four ten. It doesn't matter how fit you are, altitude sickness can hit anyone if you don't acclimatise correctly. The only real way to know is to put yourself in to that environment. It's important to drink lots of water but that's a catch 22 when your on a seven hour long drive.

The road which is now mostly gravel with many holes, plateaus out at four two for a long stretch.

An Agha Khan Foundation jeep passes us. There are many in Tajikistan they do a lot of important charity work in remote environments. There are also many World Food Program jeeps here, both sharing there resources between Tajikistan and Afghanistan.

There is much funding coming from the Europe Union and Japan to build projects to create local employment.

The young child travelling in the car throws up.

We start to go down again to 4000.

The higher the altitude the worse the roads.

The scenery is amazing up here, high mountains dappled with snow. Large open spaces where there is nothing but rock and Yaks grazing on the little grass that is found.

View of mountains, Pamir Highway.

The road disappears to gravel once again.

The clouds disappear and the sun hits us for a short while but not for long.

We reach a village at a quarter past four called Alichur with a Tea house. I had Dumpling soup. Eating at an altitude of 3900 meters is an experience in itself you have to think about your breathing and to stop and slow yourself, but you still get out of breath.

The driver who speaks excellent English invites me to spend two nights in his house. I had asked him that morning did he know of somewhere that I could stay in Murghab.

With 100kms to go we dropped another 300 Meters down to Murghab 3600 just as the sun begins to set.

Our first stop was at a man's home, the second was outside of a military barracks. The man in the front got out and was saluted by four Soldiers. The third was the drivers house where he let me get out before making the fourth drop which was for the old lady.

I was greeted by Tatik's son Akbad who led me into there home and of course there dog Rambo (yes named after the movie). His daughter Safia (like Sofia) immediately started setting the table with the best China from the cabinet. A feast appears with bread, eggs, Cucumber, tomatoes, sweets and green tea.

Tatik comes back from taking the old lady to her house and goes to pray with his son.

We eat.

Akbad's home, Pamir.

The Tatik tells me his wife died five years ago, one of his daughters is in Dushanbe studying journalism, his other son and daughter are still living at home. The daughter clearly taking over the role of there mother, she cooks every meal and cleans the house before and after school.

The driver Tatik tells me he works hard to help his kids, driving tourists up and down his country. On one route he earns $800 for a weeks work, this is a huge amount in Tajikistan where the average wage is $100 a month.

He then shows me where I'm sleeping. I'm given the only bed in the house.

I'm told there is no electricity in Murghab since the 1st of May for the next two years while there working on the new Hydroelectricity plant. The power in there home is generated by solar panels and as he's telling me this, the lights turn out for the night.

It amazing to be in the home of a Tajik family and to just sit and watch the daily goings on. Your not given the tourist snapshot, your watching the documentary.

And yes this is an Islamic family, they are Shia so they pray twice, once in the morning and again in the evening. I was told when I had my sixteen hour drive from Dushanbe to Khorog that the hospitality of the Pamir people is excellent and this is true.

Sleeping at this altitude is tiring. When you sleep your breathing slows, but here when your breathing slows your not getting enough oxygen so you wake up and have to breathe more. But by morning your better acclimatised.

I had one headache in the night.

I woke up at 8.30 and had a breakfast of bread and green tea. I sat and chatted with the driver he studied in Russia and was in the Military for a number of years. There were no jobs in the profession he studied, so he had to become a driver.

My hosts children went to school for nine o'clock and should return by one.

Murghab at first glance is a small, dusty, cold, high altitude village with not much going for it, but on second glance its a small, dusty, cold, high altitude village with a certain charm to it and with the most hospitable people you could meet. They all say hello to you. I asked my host has much changed in Murghab since he grew up here, he's says it has not. They have hand pumped wells dotted around the village for fresh water and each home has an outhouse. The centre of the house is the kitchen where the stove is. There are no seats but thin mattress on the ground and a very low table. This is the warmest part of the house where you talk about the days events. The rest of the house can be cold but its weather proof and there are plenty of blankets.

I walked to the edge of the village to The Yak House, a local Initiative selling products made from the Murghab region and the wider Pamirs. All products sold here are handmade from Yak wool.

Walking back in the direction of my guesthouse I met Tatik in the market, this market is made of truck containers used as stalls. Tatik had organised my lift to Osh for tomorrow it will cost 250 Somoni for the front seat and should take about twelve hours depending on the border.

Earlier that day we had talked about the typical food that we eat in Ireland and I had said that there are other influences from the likes of Italy with pasta dishes. For dinner that evening we had pasta which I'm sure would cost a lot here in Murghab as almost all food has to be brought up in trucks from Khorog. You can not grow food up here but there are plenty of Yaks, sheep and goats.

I paid Tatik that evening as I was to get up early the next morning.

The trouble with these home stays is, you almost forget to pay them when your leaving. Your invited into there homes, treated like family and given the best of everything.

414kms to do to day and one border crossing to a new country, Kyrgyzstan, my thirteenth country on this trip.

We started out at six in the morning leaving my acclimatised 3600 meters. After last nights rain I hope the road is okay, rain at lower altitudes means snow up higher and we are going very high today 4655 meters.

As we were picking up one of the passengers there was a cow with its head in the washing line and a pair of trousers draped over its horn.

As we made our way up the pass we were greeted with snow on the road but this was no problem for the jeep or driver. When we created the pass at 4655 the thermometer hit -4c

Up here there is 46 percent less oxygen then there is at sea level.

On the way down there were some cyclists at 4200 going up the pass heading towards Murghab. It will take them many week to cycle this route.

The snow disappeared from road at 4200. After the snow we hit a nice gravel road which is a smooth as it sounds. The road is fine again at 4000 meters with a tarmac surface.

We then passed by a frozen lake at four thousand meters.

Passed by Kara-kul Lake which should be deemed as the highest navigable lake in the world at 3900 meters but lake Titicaca in south America has this title for some reason, but it over a hundred meters lower.

We arrived at the Tajik border post at 9.50 at 4200 meters. The driver got out with the bundle of passports and went to the three different offices. I didn't have to leave the car like you usually do so they can look at your face and match it to your passport, you know for security and all that. It all took 30 minutes.

I think I almost passed out a little bit but I'm not to sure, the man behind me asked me if I was OK. Everything was quiet then I snapped out of it. Brain function does slow a lot up here (I had to go back and edit this whole piece so much, I generally type these as I'm moving so for this one I was writing it at altitude and it wasn't autocorrect it was me, it all looked perfect) if your not used to the altitude. It could all so be a combination of the lack of food this morning, little sleep with getting up early and the high altitude.

Its 20kms to Kyrgyzstan border post which is quite a distance up here it takes about forty minutes to get there.

I had to get out this time and go to the first office where they give you your entrance stamp. He was taking his time for a while but then he noticed I was from Ireland and Connor McGregor came up. He is very popular in these parts loads of people wearing UFC t-shirts. It's always great to find common ground with the border police it makes things a little easier.

We then drove on a few meters to customs, the officers had a bit of a look at the car and then came around to the front seat where I was and had a look at the glove compartment he took out a thing wrapped tightly in newspaper fiddled with it for a bit and put it back. I think it was more for show. The driver must of paid them well.

Road to Osh.

The worst roads were leading up to the border and in between. It's some of the worst mountain road I have ever come across I don't know how the trucks do it. The road is better past the Kyrgyz post with proper tarmac taking us all the way to Osh for the next seven hours.

We stopped in Sary Tash not to far from the Border and got some food I had Mustava soup it had rice, meat, veg and coriander in it. Thankfully they took Somoni.

The rest of the people ordered Bacon, the one thing you can not have in Tajikistan due to there religion.

We wound our way up some switchbacks to a place called Thankful Pass at 4280 meters.

When you drop down a thousand meters there is such a difference in the vegetation, there is grass and trees everywhere. With sheep and horses grazing in the fields. Coming through the valley down to Osh there are amazing colours of greens, oranges and browns.

On the way to Osh for the last hour we were stopped four times by the police. The police here are incredibly corrupt they will stop you for stupid reasons, they don't even need one all they want is for you to pay the bribe an be gone. Bribes here, you don't have to worry about but your ticket price will be a little more then it should be, this is to pay off about ten different officials along the way from the road cops to the border guards.

I arrived in Osh for 16.30, the driver stopped at the edge of the city and of course I still had no local currency but the taxi did take Tajik Somoni.

The temperature in Osh was 27°C, so from - 4 to 27 passing through many different seasons in the space of ten and a half hours.

And that, is the Pamir Highway.