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Note - the photo has nothing to do with where we are.
I was having a think about the blog. The readers I am sure do not want to hear another tale of differently clean Eastern toilets. So I am not going to whitter on about the restroom facilities of Khorog, which looked like they had recently been visited by the Tajik national gymnastics team - only individuals well practised in headstands could possibly have projectiled their offerings so high onto the wall and ceiling...look out for these guys at the next Olympics, as I think they really do have the makings of potential champions.
So instead of talking about that, I am going to mention the Tajik scenery. Where Kyrgyzstan was Alpine, Tajikistan is lunar. The road connecting the two countries reaches almost 15,000 feet, and passes through some barren, rugged and snowy scenery....home of the rare snow leopard, Marco Polo sheep and ibex (don't get too excited - the most exciting fauna we saw was a fricking magpie). Not many vehicles pass this road. Fortunately for us, a lorry was also going the same way, which was handy because we needed its help to drag our jeep out of a snow drift into which it had slid after a section of the road gave way. This was extra fortunate, since it was the only other vehicle crossing the border that day according to the bored Tajik border guards, and saved us from a moribund night snuggled in a jeep next to out excitable driver.
The road into Tajikistan offers stunning views of a lake formed in a meteorite crater, called Kara-Kul. It's a breathtaking sight. It even shut the driver up for a couple of minutes. We all just stood there, gawping in awe. A real highlight of the trip.
A few hundred feet to our left was the Chinese border, marked out by a jagged looking fence. Not sure it was entirely necessary, as there was no one for 50 miles in any direction.
The road is called The Pamirs Highway, or The Road On The Roof Of The World, but locals call it by its catchy formal name, the M41 - that's Soviet creativity running wild (it was built in the 1950s).
I am about to hand over to Laura to say some more now, but before I do I will include one more anecdote that it is possible she will miss out...on our last night in Osh, a local thought I looked like a professional footballer he had seeing playing in the Champions' League. I didn't disabuse him of this notion.
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