Greg and Mandy's Travels

Some times I might embellish a story a little, but let me tell you without exaggeration that today was seriously challenging and rather dangerous. 

There are two major cities in the country, Khujan (koo-yarn) and Dushanbe (doo-shan-bee) which is the capital, and today we had to drive between the two. As 93% of the country is mountainous, this involved scaling two mountain ranges with a valley in between. Up until 2018 the country didn’t have an all-weather road between the two, so the Chinese helpfully constructed a brilliant toll road between them, and two 5km tunnels, one at the top of each range to cut off 1000 metres of climbing. Completed in 2018, it was part of their Belt and Braces initiative. Employed lot of Chinese but few locals.

All straight forward you say. However, today was the first snowing day of Winter. Got to the foot of the range when the first flurry of snow arrived, and were told the roads were fine. By the time we got up to the first tunnel (slowly) it was snowing quite hard. Cars were sliding around but our heavier bus finally made it. Lots of cheering but I figured we weren’t out of it yet. 

Made it slowly down to the valley for a pit stop, then headed up the second range in the heavy snow. The traffic got slower and slower, and eventually just stopped. Seemed like one direction was getting through for a while, then the other. 45 minutes later we came to the source of the problem. A rock slide had closed one lane. There were probably 100 trucks in a queue of 2km being let through one way at a time by a poor policeman standing in the snow.

As we ascended, the snow got deeper and we started coming across more, smaller rock slides, and cars being pushed up the mountain by their passengers. We fell in behind two trucks who were carving a track through the snow, but with about 500 metres to go, a car being pushed had the same idea and cut in front of us. Once we got out of the running line we slithered around and came to a stop. 

Our guide had to get out in the snow and stop the cars being pushed so the we could spin our tyres and actually slide back into the tracks. We found out later that our guide was also at the back pushing. The last 200 metres were a lottery, but 25 minutes later we slid into the wrong side of the tunnel, and gained traction again. Then the fun really started. 

Towards the end of the tunnel we came across a roadblock. It transpired that a B-double had jackknifed as it exited the tunnel, and ran into the cliff wall. The two trucks we were following earlier had a nose-to-tail trying to avoid it. So there was an almighty traffic jam back into the tunnel. A number of truck drivers had decided it was beyond reasonable, and had parked in the tunnel for the night, so they weren’t going anywhere. 

After a recon, our driver headed on to the wrong side of the road in the tunnel and picked his way through the melee. Exiting past the accident zone, we descending gingerly and came across B-doubles in the ditch, trucks abandoned, and cars slithering up the other side. Drivers just parked in the middle of the road to put on snow chains if they had them, while others just slid around them and kept going.

Of course, there were no guard rails on the ravine edges, and cars that had to brake suddenly to avoid others were in danger of sliding over the edge, but we went down in first gear for almost an hour till we could pick out the lines painted on the road, and gradually we increased speed through the 30 tunnels on our way to Dushanbe. Darkness descended just as we exited the last tunnel (goodness knows how the stranded cars were going to keep going in the dark), and it was well and truly dark by the time we got to the hotel.

Well, what did we accomplish for the day, apart from surviving? We all received hugs from the breakfast babushka. Before the snow started we stopped at Istarayshan, one of the important towns on Silk Road founded by Persian King Cyrus the Great in the 7th century, and renowned for its craftsmen. We saw the blacksmiths at work, or at least we would have if the whole town hadn’t lost power and been plunged into the dark. We visited the bazaar by torchlight, saw the reconstruction of King Cyrus’ fortress and fire temple, and the obligatory town mosque.

One of the most conservative towns in Tajikistan, around 3500 went off to Iran to fight for the IS from Istarayshan. They are now starting to bring home the orphans.

After a lovely dinner at a local restaurant, we were taken to our brand new, luxury hotel which was more like a palace, and the best thing – we get to spend two nights here and not have to move tomorrow.

The new, swank Rumi Hotel, Dushanbe