Day 17 Sunday 11 September 2011 Dushanbe to Kalaikhum

Up early & drove through the city as it was dark when we arrived last night. The most striking feature of this city is the pink & grey buildings.

First stop was for petrol. Petrol is dearer here & harder to find. It cost us 365 somani for 55.3 litres. We also bought oil which came in a Sprite bottle.

We saw lots of wedding cars today, all decked out with colourful ribbons & flowers.

One wedding car was stopped by the roadside so we stopped to have a look. The wedding party were all interested in having their photographs taken, especially with the car. The bride didn’t look so happy though. ( groom will also not be happy when he first sets eyes on his bride !!!!!!)

Some wedding cars we’ve seen today were preceded by a tray truck & the whole procession was being videotaped by a guy standing in the back of the tray.

The road to Kalaikhum was our worst nightmare, mostly gravel with large stones. First one of our exhausts came adrift & after tying it with rope, it was still dragging on the rough road so we took the whole thing off & it sat on my lap for the rest of the day.

All day we drove alongside the Pang river with huge mountain ranges on both sides.

Afghanistan was across the river and we could see walking tracks along which people & animals were travelling. ( Marco Polo trail, hundreds of years old ) The villages were mud brick & apart from the trees blended in with the mountains. At one stage we had to get across water on the road. We waited until a local drove through & then followed suit.  Water up through floor boards, or at least what is left of them

Pang River (Afghanistan on left side)

The Morgan then started overheating again & we were towed by the Landrover for the last 70kms, over the very bad roads. There was some passing traffic & a few herdsmen with sheep & goats but mostly we just continued on in the moonlight.

Every so often we came across a group of patrolling soldiers but unlike the other Stans we were not stopped by any authorities.

After 388 kms of the worst imaginable roads we arrived at the Homestay at 10.30pm.

Outside shower & toilet, basic room but friendly proprietor.  Very difficult to be towed for those distances on road like that. At least there was some vodka available to soothe the nerves.