..kind of. We are struggling with car breakdowns, rain, landslides and road closures. Mobile internet still not working. Yesterday we made 200 kilometers in 12 hours, just to end up in front of a 3m high mudslide blocking the road. No way around. We had to go all the way back to Dushanbe today again. Tomorrow we will try the southern route along the Afghan border, let’s see if it is viable. At least the rain has stopped and the roads are drying quickly.

This was the first landslide stopping us for 4 hours:

At least we had time to enjoy the stunning landscapes:

The next landslide had a bigger impact, we had to turn around and take an alternative road, 2 hours of delay:

At nightfall we were still a few hundred kilometers from our destination and decided to continue. Neither the roads nor the rain have gotten any better.

At 3am we were stopped by this landslide:

Which did not look any better or any more passable in the morning, so we decided to go back to Dushanbe to take the only alternative route (which is 400 kilometers longer).

The next mishap was Janos hitting a rock and destroying a tire. Not a big deal, unless you are in the middle of nowhere in the mud, your car jack is too short for the raised suspension of your car, and everybody is dead tired.

Finally, around 120 kilomteres from Dushanbe our new coolant tank started to lose pressure. The engine was overheating and we had to ask a truck to tow us into Dushanbe. I was too tired to make any photos.

At least the coolant tank seems to be fixed now, with the help of a new cap and after some carving with a swiss army knife it seems to keep the pressure. Fingers crossed.

We left Uzbekistan yesterday and made a shortcut to Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, skipping the capital of Uzbekistan, Tashkent. It would have been a long detour, and we have accumulated 3 days of delay already.

Dushanbe is a modern city with multi-lane avenues, modern buildings and lots of greenery.

Since the bonding of our coolant tank never survives for more than 2 days and our consumption of two-component epoxy glue would soon drive us into financial ruin, I spent the morning chasing a replacement tank. Mitsubishi Delicas are so rare here, it is impossible to find an original one. Fortunately the expansion tank of the first generation Hyundai Starex can be fitted into the Delica. It was not easy to find one, but after some hours of searching I was successful. I had very friendly help from a guy who devoted the whole morning to our problem.

And finally we found the coolant tank section (hidden under a 20 foot container)

and with the help of a drilling machine and some wire the new tank was quickly mounted:

In the meantime my friends organized the special permit for the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province where we are going tomorrow.

More mosques, madrasahs, and mausoleums, an ancient observatory, and the best bazaar until now – for me Samarkand is the highlight of Uzbekistan.

The tower you see in one of the photos above is indeed leanin, but much less than before it was set upright in 1922: