In Khorog our car got new rear brake pads, we bought some bread and water, and changed money (in Tajikistan only banks with strange opening hours are allowed to change, you can easily end up without cash.). Since there were still a few hours of daylight left, we decided to continue and to find a place to sleep somewhere enroute. Tajikistan is only 3 hours ahead of central Europe, meaning that the sun rises around 3am, but it sets already around 8pm. Not very convenient.

The road was unpaved but much better than the first part and we were quickly ascending to 4200 meters. We found a small lake and decided to put up our tents there (well, the others decided, I sleep in the car and save the effort of putting up and packing away the tent). But then all of a sudden, just a few minutes after having admired the millions of stars, a snowstorm arrived.

Wet and cold we jumped into the car, and after half an hour of trying to fall asleep, decided to continue. There was not too much to see anyway. It took us another 12 hours to get to the Kyrgyz border, passing beautiful mountains and a dark blue lake, but also villages where you cannot find anything to eat.

This is where we wanted to sleep but had to change plans because of the snowstorm:

And this is the border crossing between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. The border posts are several kilometers away, but similarly simple.

We arrived at the Kyrgyz border post around 2pm. It was cold, raining and sleeting alternately, we were cold and tired. I hoped for a smooth border crossing and a quick descent to Osh, the second biggest city of Kyrgyzstan. But things were to turn out quite differently.

Before even entering the fenced Kyrgyz border post, we were asked for some travel permit, which we had never heard about before. At almost 4000m altitude, without mobile network and Internet access, I was pretty lost. It was Friday afternoon, I saw us spending the weekend in no-mans land between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan already. With a few liters of water and two pieces of dry Tajik bread.

But in Central Asia most of the problems are smaller than they look. One of the officers of the border post knew whom to call and soon we had an offer for an emergency road permit, which would be issued by 6pm on the same day, for only 250 USD.

In lack of alternatives (and in lack of food and water) we decided to pay. We have never seen the permits, but at 6:30 we were allowed to pass the border and go to Osh, where we arrived around midnight. The shawarma at Lavash Center, a fast food chain in Kyrgyzstan, and the only open place after midnight, was one of the best meals I had during the whole trip.

From Kulob we only had to cross one mountain pass before arriving on the valley of the Panj river, the border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan. There is hardly any difference between both sides, the most striking ones are heavy traffic and huge road construction sites (by Chinese companies) on the Tajik side.

There is also the occasional Las Vegas style amusement park on the Tajik side.

Due to the bad road conditions and lots of traffic it took us 12 hours to make the 400 kilometers to Khorog, which is the beginning of the high altitude part of the Pamir highway.

…via Boston. The day started with a visit to Kushoniyon Bazar, a immense 2km long area with shops from building materials to car parts. I have never seen anything like that before. At the gate I was asked what I was looking for and sent to road 11 for a balon (tire in Russian).

To mount the tire I was sent to another road, yet another section had all kinds of auto parts shops. Separate shops for each part, e.g..one for wheel bearings

another for V belts

After the car and weather related delays of the last few days we wanted to catch up with our plan today, but plans are there to be changed, so we spent another few hours in a garage. The replacement coolant tank I bought two days ago turned out to be a cheap Chinese one which could not hold the pressure. Unfortunately this only became obvious uphill at higher speed today. Luckily we found a brilliant mechanic near the town of Boston, who knew of a wrecked Hyundai Starex with a compatible coolant tank.

In the afternoon we were on the road again to the South. After crossing some nice mountains

we arrived on some kind of plateau with the biggest cereal field I have ever seen, one single crop for tens of kilometers on both sides of the road.

We spend the night in Kulob, which looks like the Las Vegas of Tajikistan. Huge brightly lit kitchy monuments, most of them dedicated to the current or to former presidents of the country, amusement parks, a zoo (kind of) and a fairy tale fort are just a few of the attractions.