border line

After leaving the lakes and the Fann Mounains we drove down to Dushanbe the capital. We only had the one night there and it was over 40 degrees when we arrived. We spent the last couple of hours of sunlight wandering around the city centre but found it fairly uninspiring (perhaps all the natural beauty of the Fanns spoilt it for us.)

Early the next morning we set off for the Afghan border and the Wakhan corridor.

"The corridor is in part a political creation from The Great Game between the United Kingdom and Russian Empire. In the north, an agreement between the empires in 1873 effectively split the historic region of Wakhan by making the Panj and Pamir Rivers the border between Afghanistan and the Russian Empire. In the south, the Durand Line agreement of 1893 marked the boundary between British India and Afghanistan. This left a narrow strip of land ruled by Afghanistan as a buffer between the two empires, which became known as the Wakhan Corridor in the 20th century." : wikipedia

The 9 hour drive from Dushanbe to Qalai-khum started well with decent roads but halfway along the roads turned to the worst kind of potholed dirt and mud.

     Our guest house in Qalai-khum was pretty basic, the bedroom full of flies and the beds hard and old. But it was only for one night. Dinner was spent on the balcony that cantilevered over a fast flowing glacial stream.

(Click on pix to see full size - then hit back button to return to blog.) 

From here we drove south along the Afghan border to the town of Khorog for the night. The scenery was beautiful as we followed the swift flowing Panj River that twisted and turned kilometre after kilometre. Each projecting bend on either side seemed to be populated with a tree and field filled village.

From Khorog the next morning we continued our drive along the border to our next nights stay at Vitchkut. We stopped at the ruins of Kha Kha Fort:

(Move along...nothing to see!!)

A couple of hours further along and we arrived at Vichkut, checked into our guesthouse and went up the hill behind our accommodation to visit Yamchun Fort: