This is the second part of a six-part series recounting my misadventures on the Pamir Highway. Pamir Highway: Jizew-Khorog
Jizew
In today’s edition of jam, we had apricots and blueberry. I would need all the sugar rush I could get, for we were trekking 6-8km by foot into the mountains, to an isolated village called Jizew. Villagers regularly walk this path to refill huge bags with supplies, but I died multiple times carrying a single backpack.
There is no plumbing or electricity in Jizew. The toilet is an outdoor shed several meters from the house, inside of which are two triangular shaped holes dug side by side (so that two people can go at once?). Even in broad daylight, the moment the door shuts, the inside becomes an abyss. Not to mention, the stench is now etched in my mind forever. It is a race between holding one’s breath and finishing up one’s business.
To keep warm, chopped wood is burnt in the middle of the house, while carbon dioxide is channelled up and out via a chimney. In the middle of the night the wood ran out. There was another pile beside the fireplace, but I was too cold to get up and light them. Without the fire, I continued to freeze even under the thick sheets. A real catch-22 situation. Yet, I still would not trade this for anything else in the world at the time. There was something about just fulfilling level one of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs that puts all my worldly pursuits into perspective. My first world problems seemed so distant and foolish. Pamir Highway: Jizew-Khorog
En route: Rushan-Jizew
Back to the trekking; not all that glitters is gold. Well it is actually ice. They look pretty when the sunrays reflect off of them, but are extremely slippery and one wrong footing could send you plummeting down the side of the cliff. The melting snow turned the ground into mush, forcing us to take an alternative route midway up the side of the mountains. Once in a while we would hear the sound of rocks tumbling down from the peak, so we had to keep a lookout to make sure they weren’t aimed at us. No big deal, just your routine trek to Jizew.
An hour and fifteen minutes later, the first sign that we were close to civilisation was a handmade wooden bridge. My thighs weren’t just screaming anymore, they were eating me alive from inside. Perhaps the thin air made me delirious too. We were greeted by a herd of goats near the village, and I proceeded to lose it. The sight, sound and smell of dozens of them in the middle of nowhere was both startling and hilarious in equal measure.
Arrival in Jizew
We reached the homestay of Gulsha absolutely breathless. He served tea, biscuits, bread and jam (apricot and fig!) for lunch. Jam for two meals in a day? To die for. After our souls returned to our bodies, we ventured out to seek entertainment in the form of children and farm animals.
A larger percentage of the Pamiri people have light features as compared to the Tajiks, although both belong to the Iranian ethnic group. The girls in Jizew had dirty-blonde hair and hazel eyes. They all looked angelic, but were as mischievous, if not gutsier, than any other children I have ever met. I was trying to catch a chicken for fun, but they took it upon themselves to help me catch one seriously. Sticks were thrown with surprising accuracy, and in the end, between the small palms of the boy was a tightly grasped chicken flapping for its freedom.
Come night-time, armed with DSLRs and iPhone cameras, we went outside hoping to catch stars. Surely no place else had less light pollution? Ironically, the moon was so bright that the sky was not completely black and we could still see the outline of the mountains ahead of us. Pamir Highway: Jizew-Khorog
Khorog
Morning came the dreaded trek back to the main road where our driver waited for us at the end of the suspension bridge. Imagine falling asleep in the car from exhaustion and waking up to this sight out of the window.
En route: Jizew-Khorog
Next up was a 100km drive to Khorog, the capital and by far the largest city of GBAO. It is quite fascinating how 30,000 people make their living here, despite the lack of decent transportation infrastructure to other major cities. Dushanbe is a good 12-hour drive away on the narrow and bumpy Pamir highway. That is still your best bet though; as of the date of this post, airplanes no longer serve Khorog airport, only helicopters. The city gets its food and other supplies overland from neighbouring China, which are favoured as they are cheaper than local produce.
Arrival in Khorog
If you miss international cuisines, Khorog is the place to find and eat them before you continue your journey in either direction of the Pamir highway. It is the largest settlement for many miles. There are also banks and money changers here if you need more somoni. They only change USD, Rubles and Euros, so be warned and be prepared. You can spend them at the bazaar, or the tourist and handicraft centre at central park.
We checked into our homestay which had spotless, indoor Western-style toilets. After Jizew, I felt undeserving of such a luxury. I hate to transit straight into dinner, but buckwheat is a popular choice of carbohydrate here apart from rice. I can see why- it is nutritious and gluten free (intestines, rejoice!), and according to my roommates in Almaty, it only takes ten minutes to cook in the rice cooker. Breakfast the next morning was a dream (sweet tooth-ers, rejoice!). The porridge was sweetened, with sugar of course, and the blin (pancake) was already pre-loaded with condensed milk. If you don’t like sweet stuff, don’t be misled by my biased reporting, as for most mornings we also had eggs and sausages, your usual savoury stuff. Pamir Highway: Jizew-Khorog
Hi! I am Joey, a University student from Singapore, attempting to show my appreciation for the world’s most powerful passport by literally milking its visa-free benefits one country at a time. I describe my travel budget as shoestring and travel style as audacious.
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