Pamir Highway - Part 2

So we have finished the Pamir Highway. We have crossed the length of Tajikistan, risen to altitudes of over 4,600m and have made it to Osh. Luckily the road going out of Khorog was better than the road going in and so we managed to make some good miles. Whilst the road was hardly the M1, it did have some stretches 'sans-pothole' and so we were able to climb 2000 meters in just three hours. Now at this height altitude sickness can become a problem but it seemed more of an issue for the car than us. Whilst the Subaru was understandably low on power, it's quite difficult to feel out of breath when sitting in a car - the joys of the internal combustion engine. The scenery at this height was amazing. Endlessly straight roads ringed by mountains made the miles fly by as we headed towards Murgab, a small town near the Chinese border. Its difficult to gauge how big towns like these are going to be. Murgab according to the map had an airport and so we made the reasonable assumption that such a town was likely to have some sort of shop in which we could buy something for supper. Well having been to Murgab, I can assure you that they haven't had any jumbo-jets coming in for land recently. There was no such shop and so we looked to be in for another night of ration packs. However, such a fate was avoided when in return for helping a local car out of a ditch, we were invited in for tea. Despite the locals having very little, we were shown incredible hospitality and given a meal of bread, lentils and some sort of yogurt. At least I think it was Yogurt; it was slightly smile and force it down you. Having camped the night at around 3,700 m, we headed for the border with Kyrgyzstan. We crawled over a pass of 4,655m and soon arrived at the Tajik side of the border. This was all very pleasant and the only thing of note was the customs official telling Charlie that Subaru's were rubbish and that we should have a Toyota Landcrusier. Then it was over into no-man's land. At most borders this stretch typically lasts for about 10m, perhaps even less. Well due to a bit of a balls up from the Russians, the stretch of no-man's land between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan is 17km. Given that no-body owns this road, there's very little incentive for either of the two governments to maintain it; this results in 17km of the worst road conditions that we have had so far this trip. Almost an hour later we arrived at the Kyrgyz side of the border. We were met by a customs official who asked us whether we had any drugs. Obviously we replied no; this was met by the reply 'why not, everyone has drugs here.' There followed an amazingly surreal 30 mins as the border official joked about all the kilos of heroine that we could have stashed in our car and the sacks of cocaine we could have put in our sleeping bags. After a two hour wait due to the immigration system being down, we left the border and headed to Osh. Here ended the M41 and so the Pamir Highway. Its now a few days in Kyrgyzstan and then to Kazakhstan. KBO.