I wouldn't usually give this sort of advice, however...

there seem to be a lot of travellers getting held up in Tajikistan by the soldiers who are supposed to be patrolling the Afghan border.

Now these soldiers although armed quite possibly do not have bullets - they couldn't show me any.
they are very bored and quite young conscripts a long way from home, they are finding it fun to "hold-up" foreigners on the road from Dushanbe to Khorog in the Pamirs and there is also a pair doing it in the Wakhan Valley.

When one pair held me up, I shouted, got angry and just rode on as have other people.

if we let them take stuff from us, we are quite possibly encouraging them to do it more often and with worse consequences, for example the cyclists (and there are quite a few travelling through at the moment) do not have the easy option of revving up and just leaving, and in fact a solo female traveller was held up last week, had her camera and other stuff stolen and the soldiers attempted to rape her - she managed to fight them off.

There is no choice on the route to take as the police in theory are not allowing foreign vehicles to take the north eastern Dushnabe-Kulaikhum route as mujahadden type guys are taking pot shots at passing vehicles. Although I do know one guy who got so desperate that he argued with the police for four hours at K'khum until they let him go that route.

So please if possible, do not give in to the soldiers, they are just strolling along - they are NOT at official checkpoints and so they do not have any jurisdiction to demand documents. I have met several travellers who once they start getting documents out, the soldiers start going through their bags and stealing stuff (one guy who realised his Tetley teabags had been stolen actually rode back and seized the teabags back).

As I said I would not usually give this type of advice, however these are not South American banditos, Indian dacoits, Somalian shifta, terrorists, guerillas whoever. They are bored young soldiers who have no bullets or who will be in big trouble for using any of their valuable ammo without good reason - this is an extremely poor country with a low defence budget - they are not running around firing guns, such as is the case in many other countries.

I have a feeling I will be shot down in flames for this, but I'm only trying to help other travellers -particularly the more vulnerable ones.

__________________
Tiffany
On the road from...I'm not sure any more
http://www.tiffanystravels.co.uk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAUhV1r-kUo