Things are all small, complicated and on the brink of survival,
in the Pamir, - just like on the fantasy planet described by Sent-Exupery.
And only Mountains are limitlessly grand here.

Mysteries of the Pamir
(Through the eyes of motorcycle tour leader.)

The idea to once more return to Pamir came to me after I left the region in my teenage years. Before that, we lived in the Murgab kishlak (Village) of Nagorny Badaqshan, the heart of Pamir (1987- 88-89). It’s been a long time, likewise has the many things, that curbed the implementation of my dream to meet Pamir again. I communicated the idea of the Pamir biking venture to friends that were with me on the Uzbekistan tour last year. The idea enjoyed unanimous approval and support.



In general, all was ready by the set start time, 15th of May – Acerbis boosted tank hooked to bike, as well as flip bags and GPS Garmin. Before that date, another person willing to visit Pamir joined us. Acquaintance on the Internet.) It was a certain Adri from Holland, who was going to take my newly bought Honda XR650L and conquer sky trails. The first Force Majeur happened just one month prior to take-off. Kyrgyz borders got sealed-off for indefinite time. We decided to run through Uzbekistan. I retailored the route and Adri promptly got new visas and retuned himself accordingly. The paramount thing was that the trip would happen. The second, and the SNEAKIEST nuisance, just one week prior to departure, was the collective refusal to go. One of my friends suddenly got head over hills exploited at work by his new boss, the second fell ill, the third just said “I won’t go”. It was only Adri, who was struggling his way through the masses of the Icelandic volcano ash to finally see what Central Asia was like.
Adri – earlier unknown friend from far.

One last luggage inspection – all got settled in a nice and tidy manner, like seen from Photo

I had plenty of room left. Keeping in mind personal knowledge of the hard life, the Pamir kids have to live, I decided to take some gifts – some toys. My wife helped me select things from the toy-deposits of our children. She chose toys in good shape (cars, soldiers, dolls and necklaces) and divided them in two lots – for girls and boys. Eventually, I had two more fat toy sacks. Now we can go!
I has a clear picture of what I wanted to acquire from the trip:
1. Main target – make it to Murgab, visit “old glory” sites related to my wonderful childhood there
2. Recon interesting tourist route for our motorcycle travel club SilkOffRoad (customs and frontier guards checkpoints, roads, tour operators, hotels, motels and others).
3. Visit Fan Mountains and, namely, in the Vertical-Allaudin International Mountaineering Camp, - the place that no wheel of the bike ever touched before. Leave our Logotype there.
4. Find the mountain cave nearby Murgab, where the mysterious light shines.
5. Visit Lake Rongkol.
6. Find a ruby like size a dino egg and become rich and prosperous)).
7. Find the meteorite crater in the Murgab vicinity – the one I found in Google Earth .
8. Give toys to Pamir’s children.
9. And, of course , have fun and make it back safe.

Start!!!
19 May. Almaty-Shymkent. 690 kilos.
Woke up at 6-00 and took off. Today’s section is the longest. So, we just drove like locomotives – without stops.

West Europe-West China new road construction is aggressively underway between Dzhambul and Chimkent southern town of Kazakhstan. long 8 445 km.

Kazakh police



Chimkent’s attractions - Noah's Ark





In café near the border.



20 May. Chimkent-Jizzakh. 350 kilos
We made to Uzbek border by lunch and spent three hours clearing ourselves through border checks. This is a very tedious process. Staff don’t speak English. If you do not know Russian or local language, it may be a very long time. Uzbekistan met us with dull landscape, but fairly good roads, broad ones with concrete dividers and rare vehicles.

Street's exchange money. Black rate is more favorable.




We drove into Jizaq at night. Found ourselves a place to sleep and decided to go eat something. Somebody advised to visit Café Nafisa. There we tried to real Jizaq samsa. Spiced meat rolled into pastry and baked in special clay ovens. I heard about it back in Almaty. Its size is the first thing that makes it famous. Half an A-4 sheet size. Needless to try to describe its taste – I got no words to try, just saline. Adri bit one and saw the fat and said they did not eat fat back in Holland, for it was harmful and he was one of those who did not eat fat either. When he finished his first one, he did not say anything more about fat – he just ate it all. He had his mouth and palms burning but he ate it all. Each of us had three and we wanted some more but could not))

Jizzakh samsa.