Asia Tour 2026 - Day 11/25 - 20th August - Khujand, Tajikistan - City 8/15 - Country 5/9
Updated: 1 day ago
I woke up with "Dushanbelly" and could only eat half an egg and a small piece of bread. The toilet also became clogged and I needed to use the loo at the reception.
I opened the "Jura" taxi app and ordered a taxi which he accepted straight away for our journey to Khujand for 1227 Somani thats about 120 euros. Our driver was very friendly and had great English but I also got to practise my Tajik. Pretty much immediately after starting our journey, we had to charge the battery.
We had started our journey at 10 am and after charging yeh battery we left the city and entered the mountain range with spectacular bends, climbs. The road itself climbed to 2000 metres while the surrounding peaks towered at 4000-5000 metres. At a certain stage our driver said "no signal, no water, no toilet for 200 km". We travelled through tunnels including "The Tunnel of Death", up and then down, through spectacular artificial gorges cut through the mountains for the road with shear walls on either side.
A bit later we stopped in a small village in a road side canteen. I took potato and ayran (dugh) apple juice and pasta and very nice bread. I decided to treat the driver and Stanislav.
We continued across the mountains and at one stage we were very close to the Uzbek border which was marked by mountain peaks. Eventually the mountains just tapered off and we found ourselves in a different world. There were entire families in rickshaws, and we even saw a road accident with smashed watermelons all over the road.
We were safely delivered to our hotel, allegedly 5 star and said goodbye to our driver. The hotel didn't hold back on the "bling-bling" with marble everywhere and gold rimmed mirrors and lifts.
After a shower and a rest, we took a walk into the city and got chatting to a Filipino from Australia. In the park we caught a free traditional concert with everyone in fool costume.
Just outside the gardens was a fortress which had been beautifully rebuilt, the original had been destroyed by the Russians. We bought some souvenirs then went for a bite to eat.
The restaurant was very slow but the food was actually quite alright. We both had the roasted veggies I had chips and Stanislav had roasted potatoes. I had "Baltika" beer which was rather unremarkable. The bill was 210 somoni which was about 10 euros each so it wasn't too bad. After the meal we took a short walk before going to the supermarket and the hotel.
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