Dushanbe, Tajikistan

Location:	Dushanbe
Mileage:	5,733

When Julia and I first rode to the Uzbek / Tajik border last year on the recce it was no problem. At the Azerbaijan border it had been cups of tea, “$5 please” and at the Tajik border, the request was “Any Sex DVD’s?” - but other than that and a US$10 payment for a missing “eco” certificate, all was fine. Not this time. It took six hours to get the group through. Every bag and item of clothing was searched and any cash over the amount declared was confiscated! With the first riders being searched the word spread and cash was counted and declarations changed, but for some it was too late. Having handed in his declaration one rider decided the best thing to do was to stuff a role of $1,000 between his arse cheeks. He gets strip searched! Down to his pants at the border, and if it is discovered then we can all look forward to the same. But they stop at his pants and he gets away with it!

Into Tajikistan still sore from our treatment. This is eased with a brief 5 star stopover in the capital and another day for the support crew to finish off work on the bikes for the next leg. By the time we leave here all bikes need to have the knobbly tyres on, change of oils and a thorough checking over. Most of the riders pitch in to help. It has to be said that the 1200s are holding up well, but the F800s are starting to feel the pace – we’ve got fork seals that have blown, an iffy fuel pump and one whose battery won’t hold its charge. To be fair one bike has 50,000 miles + on it (it did the Trans Am last year too).

In Dushanbe, we’ve heard it’s kicked off again in southern Kyrgyzstan and the town of Jalalabad (where we have booked the group in for the night) has just had a bit of a confrontation along the main street and shot a few more people dead. The FCO has flung out another travel warning and it looks a bit uncertain. It gets quite complicated as our Chinese permits allow us entry only via the Torugart Pass (and we would need to get ourselves through Jalalabad first). Back home Julia is back on the case, re-jigging all the arrangements with our Chinese agent and we find a solution that allows us to change our port of entry in just enough time. This means we cut short the stay in Kyrgyzstan to just one overnight stop in Sary Tash, then get into China 3 days early. It’s a good plan, do-able and brings certainty back into the journey, so we break the news to the team, who naturally are more happy about securing their entry into China than 3 days in Kyrgyzstan.

The next piece of news is that the southern road to Kailikum is closed. This is the road we are due to take tomorrow! The rains have been very bad this year and the road has collapsed. Our local Pamiri guide assures us the northern route remains open and the map shows a nice bright red line indicating main road.  Fingers crossed!