A night in my bivy under the stars... waking up to realise I slept next to beekeeping boxes
He was on his way up the mountain and helped with rolling the bike down the slope from my camp spot
Glad I don't have to cross this
Wreckage
Nice school uniform
Reaching Kalai-Khumb
Wheel barrow her play toy
+++
Peaceful Afghanistan village across the River Panj
Eventually I ended up walking with the little girl on the right as every time I start pedalling she'll run along and sometimes pulling my rear bag to catch up... so I got off and rolled my bike with her for a few kilometre until she turned off into a road back home
Afghanistan village
Afghan house... carpet drying
The sand was so soft that I wanted to chill out like the cows by the river
As close as I can get - I could hear these children from the Afghan side
Afghanistan village
Afghanistan is just across the river on the right.
Afghanistan
Afghanistan: Villagers at work
Camped on a football field (see the goal post on the left?)
+++
Nils from Switzerland caught up with me... met him briefly at Vero's place in Dushanbe where he was unwell
Nils had a candle in his bag and with a cut plastic bottle we had 'candle light' dinner under the stars
+++
We thought we heard explosion... so we stopped to look over the river at Afghanistan side
Turns out there are people working on the edge of the rocks breaking out new path....
life on the edge, limited protection, they could fall into the river anytime
aww... so cute... Nils say they were running behind me for abit when I left...
papa/mama not in sight, hope they are not abandoned pups
Nils super lightweight set up. Tyres as thin as road bike. We bid farewell for now before catching up again at Khorog
Nicely stacked hays on Afghan houses
The roof of a traditional Pamirs house - the skylight in the middle represents Earth, Water, Air and Fire with the latter being the highest and touched first by the sun's rays.
Typical good breakfast if you are lucky... Eggs, salted milk tea and home made bread
Before I left, they stuffed me with more than 2kg of apples & pears from their trees, 1kg of tomatoes from their garden, huge piece of bread and a pair of knitted socks
[*tears*... thank you]
+++
Life above 2000m
Peaceful
Arrived at Khorog
If you don't mind more climbing... Pamir Lodge is a nice place to rest in Khorog
You can pitch your tent or
Sleep in your sleeping bag here or
in a room
Khorog. The bazaar here is the last place I saw fresh, lively veggies / fruits
Met up with Tiphaine & Marco (cyclolenti.weebly.com) again since Bukhara and Nils was still in town for his last night.... so its time for some beer :) Tiphaine even cooked us dinner that night
This is no ordinary yogurt bottle. Its a bottle filled with precious apricot jam. Nils and I were unable to find any jam in town and Marco+Tiphaine's homestay happened to make their own to last through their winter... If not for the 'face value' of Marco, yes the lady says 'Only for you Marco'.... we won't be able to have this little luxury (jam with bread) on the rest of the journey
21 Sept 15: 13.23km [Sunny]
22 Sept 15: 53.20km [Sunny]
23 Sept 15: 46.89km [Sunny]
24 Sept 15: 81.92km [Sunny]
25 Sept 15: 68.99km [Sunny]
No comments :
Post a Comment