Day 21 Thursday 15 September 2011 Murgab to unknown village

Left the Homestay after doing some running repairs to the front upper suspension cross tube. Many of the seven have altitude headaches & finding it difficult to do anything strenuous.  I nearly passed out after doing some work on the car, altitude somewhere around 13,000 ft.

The place where we stayed with the local family who put us up for the night

Found an Esso pump in town but it had no petrol. We were then directed further down the village.

Found 80 octane only and it was poured out in buckets. Wherever we go a crowd appears. Many of the older men in this village wear the traditional cone hats.

Filling the car with benzine...from a bucket. We paid for 70 litres but the tank only holds 60!

Worst 80 RON benzine that money could buy. It could be used for putting out fires.

These hats were common in Tajikistan & Kyrgyzstan, mostly by older men. I bought Phil one for his birthday.

We drove about 72 kilometers, came over a bridge, hit a large pothole & all power to the ignition went. Tried to repair for an hour or so, couldn’t fix it so the Landrover put us under tow.

We had 3 large mountain passes to get over today & we had to make the border as our visas expire today.

The third mountain pass was full of hairpin bends and it was snowing. Dangerous at the best of times but in the dark, in snow & on tow it was extremely so. We made the Tajikistan border crossing Delayed whilst an official extracted money for not having the right car paper. The on to Customs & Passport Control. It was freezing and each of these posts entered the same data into their books.

Once through we discovered that No Man’s Land between Tajikistan & Kyrgyzstan was 20 kilometers. Eyes on the clock in case the next border closed at 5pm, we found the road was shocking. In one place the road had completely washed away & we had to find an alternative route including across a stream. What a nightmare!

At one point under tow, I lost control of the car and pulled alongside the landrover, whilst still connected, I was not sure whether we were going to stay on the road at that point, apparently they in the landrover also had the same thought, and that if we went, they would go too.  It didn’t help that 2 days earlier, we lost rear brakes when the bolt securing the front of the drivers side rear spring sheared again, this time the spring taking the brake line with it.

There is a 20km no man's land between Tajikistan & Kyrgyzstan which neither country upkeeps.

A few rocks on the road alerted drivers to the fact that a large part had been washed away.

The border of Kyrgyzstan was closed but they agreed to let us through in 30 minutes which they did.

The next part of the night drive was where the real nightmare began. Up & down hairpin bends in the snow, at altitude of around 13,500 ft. I realised that our front brakes had also now failed, and since there was only now continual down hill for some time, decided to signal a stop, naturally we ran into the rear of the land rover and the front of Puce Goose was badly damaged. We decided to return to the last village & see if we could find a Homestay. Jim knocked on the door with the most lights, was bitten by the family dog but more importantly was shown a large room full of blankets where we could spend the night.

The family had 4 children, parents & several brothers & sisters all living in the house.

They kindly fed us bread & tea & we asked whether there was a truck which could take us to Bishkek. The senior man of the house said he would take us there for $1500. Exhorbitant price but we had no choice. Again the squatting toilet was out in the back yard but fortunately the dog had accepted us.