Ishkashim District & Wakhan

At first I can barely stand the temperature as I tentatively dip my foot into the steamy hot water, but the crisp fall mountain air hastens my immersion into the thermal springs. My body surrenders to the intense warmth of the spring water and a great sense of contentment and relaxation comes over me. My eyes begin to adjust to the dimness of my surroundings and I find myself sitting in a small cavernous-like pool enclosed by smooth natural calcite rock. To my right the hot spring water flows down into the pool where I sit alongside several local Tajik men engaged in conversation, while the steam rises up to the sliver of natural light coming in from the rock opening above.

Bibi Fatima, named after the Prophet Mohammed’s sister, is the natural mineral hot spring that we came 150km to visit. It sits near the top of a hill 1.5km above the wide Wakhan Valley that separates Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Nearby Bibi Fatima Springs is the ruins of the 12th century Yamchun Fort with views of the Afghan mountains and the stunning 7000m peaks of the Hindu Kush (Killer of Hindus) that mark the borders between the thin sliver of Afghanistan’s north-easterly territory with Pakistan. It’s a unique feeling to stand on a mountain in Tajikistan and be able to look across at the valley and see the mountains of both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The soak in the hot spring and the views from Yamchun Fort are certainly a great reward after the long five hour drive it took to get here.


(Left: Yamchun Fort with Afghan and Pakistan mountains in the background)

Sitting in a van traveling along a very bumpy dirt road at first feels like a fun amusement park ride but all the bouncing up and down quickly becomes quite tiring. It also makes for a very challenging and amusing experience trying to put the camera up to your eye to focus. I came close several times to poking myself or giving myself a black eye with the camera.

The scenery is breathtaking as we drive along the southern Tajik side of the Pyanj River which divides the country from Afghanistan. Along this stretch of the border of our journey south from Dushanbe to Ishkashim the river is narrow and fast moving with many stretches of turbulent white water bounded by precipitous rock formations.
Driving along the river one can see the contrast between Tajikistan and Afghanistan. On the Tajik side there are quite a few communities, with adequate infrastructure including a dirt road, electricity and communication lines. While on the Afghan side, there are only isolated communities that are linked by donkey trail, which in some places the trail clings tenuously to steep rock walls along the fast flowing river.


(Left: Pyanj River separating Tajikistan and Afghanistan)

The “English speaking tour guide” Ergash who accompanied us on this day trip ironically is the same fellow that I had arranged with to provide me a formal Letter of Invitation to visit Tajikistan (a government requirement). Of course, that famous letter was incorrectly administered and landed me in Tajik airport detention for 9.5 hours. Not that I’m bitter or anything... that dumbass!

The only reason we decided to use this individual again was that he was the only tour operator we were able to contact on such short notice to arrange this trip. I thought perhaps I would give him a second chance to redeem himself. We figured that since he was from the area he would be able to provide us with some local knowledge of the sites. His response to that was, “everything you want to know is in your Lonely Planet guide.”

At one point in the trip Emily’s mom asks, “Ergash, what are the names of those two very large mountain peaks that we see in the distance?” He pauses for a minute. “Oh, those are just rocks that have no name,” he replied. We all thought that was curious at the time, since they looked large enough to be worthy of being named. True enough days later as I leafed through the Lonely Planet I saw a map of the region and found out that those two peaks did in fact have names, Karl Marx Peak (6700m) and Engels Peak (6500m).

He proved to be right. Everything we needed to know was in the Lonely Planet! Well, that $20 extra that he charged to accompany us as a “guide” was certainly well spent. For someone who works as a tour operator in the Pamirs he really was a disappointment. However, we very much enjoyed the scenic drive and the soak in the hot spring. Traveling in the Pamir region certainly is worth enduring the bumpy car rides.

The Great Escape!

Should we really be flying this close to the mountains? Peering out the left and right windows of the plane I can see the barren mountains surrounding us. They are all around. We’re flying so close you can almost reach out and touch them. I’m sitting in an old 17-seat Tajik Air propeller plane as it hovers over the Pamir mountain range, at times passing over the Panj River that separates Tajikistan from Afghanistan. The buzz of the twin propellers echoes the excitement I feel as we pass the varied mountainous landscape. I have finally escaped Dushanbe! After two weeks of impatiently waiting for my visa extension and my permit to visit the Badahkshan region I finally received the good news yesterday.

I rushed to the airport just after 8am this morning in hopes to catch the next flight to Khorog. “Are you coming?” asks my friend Emily who is already at the airport with her mom, both of whom are also going to Khorog for a visit. “There’s one ticket left! I‘ll try to save it for you.” Why is there never a taxi when you’re in a hurry. I run down Rudaki street trying to flag down a cab. They’re all occupied. I see a bus coming. The airport is about 20km away so I decide to hop on and see how far I get.

I get three-quarters of the way before an old man sitting next to me starts speaking to me in Russian and pointing eastward. I have no idea what he’s saying, but I assumed that he saw my bag and thinks I want to go to the airport. Right he is! On a hunch I get off the bus at the next stop and frantically flag down a cab in front of Hotel Dushanbe. Seeing the eagerness in my eyes the driver quickly takes me the rest of the way.

I run to the airport terminal and see Emily and her mom. “Is this the guy?” asks the ticket lady. Emily nods. I can’t believe my luck, I actually managed to get the last ticket.

My face is pressed up against the window and I’m snapping away with my camera. We come up to a dip between two mountain peaks and the plane steadily navigates through the gap at what looks like just 100m above the ridge. As we lurch over the ridge I find myself wanting to lift my legs up just so I don’t clip the mountaintop with my feet. The planes only fly when the weather is completely clear as the pilots fly by sight and must be able to navigate through the mountain passageways. As we pass the last ridge and quickly descend towards Khorog I am very glad we had a smooth flight.



Nicknamed ‘The Roof of the World” the Pamirs is one of the hardest places to access and is home to some of the highest mountain peaks in the world. Ismoli Somoni Peak towers at over 7400m. It is fall and three quarters of the peaks I see are bare. However, there are still some white mountain tops and glaciers. I can imagine the entire range covered with snow in the winter.

About an hour after we left Dushanbe we land in Khorog, a beautiful town nestled along the turquoise-coloured Gunt in between two mountains. At approximately 2200m, the scenic town is situated at an elevation just slightly above the highest peak of Whistler mountain.

As we exit the plane the air feels crisp and clean, while the warmth of the sun is comforting. I already feel much more at home here than in Dushanbe.

Tajikistan's National Motto: "You Wait!"

Not one for having much of it, patience is something that I have had to acquire ever since arriving in Tajikistan. From the 9.5 hours I waited to be sprung from airport immigration, to waiting to get my 2 week visa extended and waiting for another permit to visit the region where Anne is currently living, I have done quite a bit of sitting on my butt.

"Here in Tajikistan, you wait!" says Manucher my Tajik-born friend. Having experienced the waiting game over the past couple of weeks I wholeheartedly agree. Back on September 29th we stood outside the local registration office, frustrated as we waited to get Manucher's wife and I registered with the local police. We both hold foreign passports and foreigners must register with the police within 48 hours of arriving in Tajikistan. It would make perfect sense to have it done at the airport upon arrival at the same time one gets their visa, but that would be too easy. Instead we had to trek to some local office in town to get this done ourselves.

Normal tourists can get this registration competed by the hotel they are staying in, and people working or volunteering for an NGO can get it done easily by the host organization. But because I came on my own without help from an organization and because I am staying with friends I got to experience Tajikistan's bureaucratic maze firsthand.

After much confusion and discussion with various office staff we submitted our passports along with a 105 somoni fee and a requested additional "handling fee" (bribe) of 20 somoni each (a combined $36US per person) so that we could get out passports back the next day. In the end they provided us with a little piece of paper stapled to our passports that basically mirrored the information on our visas. Money well spent!

Having had my fill of navigating Tajikistan's bureaucracy on my own I decided to enlist the help of Anne's host organization, the Aga Khan Foundation, to help me get my 2 week visa extended for another month. Organizations such as AKF have full time staff and logisticians dedicated to dealing with such government bureaucracy so I was glad they agreed to help.

As well, in order to visit Anne, who is currently working in the south-east region of Tajikistan called Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO), I needed to obtain a separate permit. But of course in order to get this permit I needed to get my visa renewed first. Requests for both have been submitted and the waiting begins again for the efficient Tajikistan government bureaucracy springs into action.

The bureaucracy is something to behold, even for a Canadian! All this waiting rivals the time I went to the Passport Office in Vancouver at 3:30am on a wet and cold morning in May to line up just so that I could make it into the office to get my passport renewed. I feel like I'm home!

First Taste of Tajikistan Bureaucracy

Nothing says "welcome to Tajikistan!" like being detained by Tajik immigration soon after arriving at Dushanbe airport. After three days of flying via London and Istanbul I arrive in Dushanbe airport at 3:30am on September 27th.

In order to visit Tajikistan, one has to obtain a letter of invitation from a local NGO or tourist agency. Unbeknownst to me, the tourist agent that I used in Tajikistan did not know that he had to follow the proper channels and also inform the government that I was arriving. The invitation letter that he provided to me in the end was only good enough to wipe my ass and give my Tajik friend Manucher a great laugh, especially the sentence in the letter that said "Please be assured that I shall provide all the help needed to make your visit comfortable".

Without a formal invitation letter I was held in detention for several hours because it was 4am and none of the NGO contacts that I had were awake at that time. I had to ask my Tajik friend who I traveled with to contact someone once it was a decent hour. Meanwhile I sat in the officer's lunchroom and cursed for several hours until Komiljon from the Aga Khan Foundation (Anne's employer) came to bail me out....but not after more bureaucracy and negotiating. Within 9.5 hours I was a free man, but with only a 2 week visa.

After this little adventure foreigners much register themselves with the local police. Even with the help of my friend Manucher who came with me to register it still took some bureaucratic maneuvering and a small kickback to the office staff to get me registered. The government doesn't make it easy for people who want to come to Tajikistan on their own. So to all of you clamouring to come here (I know you all are!) get invited by an NGO.

Having experienced the first of what I am told will be many more bureaucratic obstacles, I have to say I am enjoying the first few days here.