A walk around Penjikent

The name Panjakent is derived from "panj" (five) and "kant" (settlements), meaning "five settlements". Rudaki, the founder of Persian-Tajik literature called "Adam of poets", was born in Panjakent. Around the modern town and in its museum you will find remains of the pre-Islamic, Zoroastrian civilization. The remains of this then important Sogdian trading city on the silk road are just out of town, on a hill overlooking the valley. You can wander around the site unbothered, it is totally unprotected from anything including joyriding cars and broken  bottles such a shame!

The remains of ancient Penjikent 

view from the ancient site to Penjikent today

Most visitors to Penjikent used to come from Samarkand Uzbekistan, but in 2009 the border was closed after government disputes, I cycled to the border to see what was there, this is the closest photo I managed to get as the border guards were not that pleased to see me there! 

Not the most interesting photo in the world but a glimpse of Uzbekistan!

Since the border closure Tourism in Penjikent has suffered as the only way to get here is from Dushanbe a grueling 5 to 6 hours drive, half on untarmaced roads. I have been working with the Zarafshan Tourist Board for the last 6 weeks to find ways of increasing tourism and offering advice to local restaurants and hotels on hospitality, the population here in Penjikent of 30,000 are friendly and very welcoming with a real community feeling about it. Sitting next to the Zarafshan river it is beautiful location if you like things quiet.

I hope that Penjikent and the people here keep pushing to get the border crossing open again as soon as possible and return to a day trip location, because they need it.

I return to Dushanbe next week not knowing my next move, until then I will leave you with some Photos of my wanderings around penjikent. 

Roof of the world

The end of Ramadan means two things, happy fed and watered Muslims and a holiday. Time for another adventure and a visit to the 'roof of the world' the high Pamirs. Once again I joined my new friends at Welt hunger hilfe the German based organisation working on agro projects in Tajikistan. We set off on what was to be a very long journey. This mountainous area, a large part of which is located in Gorno-Badakhshan in Tajikistan, is one of the most inaccessible in the world. The word pamir in the language of the region denotes the high undulating grasslands of the eastern portion of the mountains, especially where they abut Afghanistan and China. Deep river valleys mark the boundaries of the Pamirs in the north beyond the ridges of the Trans-Alai Range, and the valleys of the Vākhān region (Wakhan Corridor) of Afghanistan form the southern limit. We were heading for an area near the Fedchenko glacier, this glacier is the largest outside the polar regions at nearly 80 km long, on route the terrain was tough, here we see some of the typical terrain we had to cross.

Joachim our master driver and gentleman Bavarian 

  
Joachim has more gadgets than Nasa and is a master with a Toyota land cruiser, I don't think I have ever felt safer in a car!
The tracks slowly got worse and finally and very reluctantly Joachim threw in the towel so to speak. Luckily for us our track halted near a homestay about 18km from the destination we were aiming for, the owner of the homestay just happened to own a 50 year old Russian military vehicle called a 'Gas 66' easy to remember as it was a good year for English football which I took great pleasure in reminding my colleagues ha ha.

The Gas 66

After a pleasant evening in the home stay which included pasta with garlic and bacon cooked by me of course! and a number of beers we made ready for a early start. 6.30am the Gas 66 was warming its cylinders and ready to go, the 18km left took us 2 hours to cover, the following pictures are what we found when we arrived, less than 60 people a year get to see this awesome landscape, it was a privilege......

  

The pictures above and below are of the RGS glacier a tributary of the Fedchenko Glacier, covered in stones and dust its difficult to tell its a mass of ice.

It took us three days to get here and didn't really want to go but the shower was calling me and some people here work for a living! The journey back was immediately interesting as the road we drove in on was no longer there! washed away in the night by the high water levels, no problem for the land cruiser of course. It was also cattle moving time and this resulted in a few delays, we also found the highest bus stop in Tajikistan, picture below, bye for now.