(English version below)
Un cop caminades Tailàndia, Birmània, Bangladesh, Índia, Pamir, Tadjikistan i Uzbekistan amb aproximadament uns 7.000 quilòmetres als peus, ara ens endinsem a Iran.
Tag Archives: Central Asia
See you next time, Central Asia!
Thank you, Central Asia!
Kyrgyzstan, the Pamirs, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, you wowed us, tested us, and kept us curious.
We bid you farewell… for now. You never know…we may be back.
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Un cop caminades Tailàndia, Birmània, Pamir, Tadjikistan i Uzbekistan amb aproximadament uns 3.500 quilòmetres al sac, ara us volem tornar a donar les gràcies per seguir amb nosaltres, per seguir recolzant-nos i ajudant-nos d’una manera o altra.
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For those of you wondering, we have walked approximately 3,500 kilometers through Thailand, Burma/Myanmar, the Pamirs, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan since we set out in January 2016. It’s been an amazing, challenging, breathtaking, inspirational and not-always-easy walk so far, and we are looking forward to starting our next leg in Bangladesh and India in a few weeks when the monsoon season ends.
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Daily Nest: Uzbekistan
July’s walk through Uzbekistan found us sleeping in strange spots, like most months of our trip.
The Weight of Water
“I get knocked down, but I get up again.
You’re never going to keep me down.”
Ugh! I reach into the daypack draped across my chest, and rummage around for my MP3 player. It has slipped somewhere between one of my water bottles and the ripped baggie with toilet paper, hand sanitizer and sunscreen. I fumble over the fast-forward button and skip through a half dozen songs.
Heading to Uzbekistan
Our time in Tajikistan has come to a close. It has been an amazing 45 days, and it will be hard to top what we found here. It is a place of natural beauty and kind people.
But, we walk onwards, and Uzbekistan is next on the list. We’re looking forward to what another country along the ancient Silk Road will be like.
Daily Nest: Tajikistan
Lately, when it is that time of day when we start thinking about where we will be at nightfall, we sigh with some relief, “We’re not in Burma anymore! We’re in Tajikistan!”
Welcome! Come in! Tea?
“Choi? Chay?”
These Tajik and Russian words will long echo in our ears and our hearts. They are more than an invitation for tea. They are a way into people’s homes and lives. They are reflections of a kind of hospitality people in today’s busy world don’t seem to have time for any more. These words have come to mean “Tajikistan” to us.
Lost in the Long Stretches
We trudge forward. Hours drag on.
Each step brings us to another curve leading to a long stretch of alpine nothingness. It’s just us alone in the world, heads down and walking different paces alongside the Panj River that sometimes meanders a few meters below or rages through narrow gorges.
There’s comfort in solitude. There’s unity between the human spirit and the natural world. There’s also a simultaneous sense of bigness and smallness, being a speck in the shadow of mountainous greatness while having a heart large enough to notice the smallest rock sparkling in the sunshine.
It’s easy to get lost in these long stretches in between Pamir towns. The monotony invites a meditative calm, a peace that comes with moving at about three kilometers an hour. It often, too, stirs restlessness and a string of unconnected thoughts anxious for answers or impatience from feeling like we are going nowhere fast.
Walking the Wakhan Valley
We round a bend on the bumpy road, and I am immediately spellbound. I want to ask the driver to stop the car so I can fall to my knees and bow in honor the beauty before me. My jaw keeps slipping towards my chest with each rock we roll over. My eyes tear up.
“My god. It’s beautiful.” I whisper over the lump in my throat. I can’t make my mouth spit out the words, “Stop, please, stop. We must see this greatness at a standstill.”
I have never before truly understood what compels climbers to summit the world’s biggest mountains, but now I catch a glimmer into their psyche. Staring at the Hindu Kush from the road snaking through Tajikistan’s southern corner, all I want to do is touch these faraway jagged, snowy peaks. Touching them with my eyes is not enough. I want to touch them with my soul.