Travelin' Man

It seems that we pretty much skipped spring and have gone straight to Summer in Dushanbe. For the past couple of weeks, we've had temperatures in the 90s almost every day. Even the dryness doesn't make 90+ feel comfortable. Luckily, my travels over the last week got me out of some of the worst of it.

On Monday morning, I got home from my morning run, had breakfast, showered, and got a phone call from on of my travel staff telling me to get in a cab and come to the airport. The weather was clear and I had a ticket on the flight to Khorog. Since the flight only goes when the weather is perfectly clear between here and there, they don't even sell tickets until about an hour before the flight.

I said a quick good bye to Stephanie and hopped in a cab for the airport. When I asked the guy how much it would cost, he said 15 somoni - I had to ask him twice because I thought he was saying 50 somoni (the cost is normally about 30). But I heard right and thought that a deal like that had to be a good sign for my trip. One big area of uncertainty was how soon I'd be able to get back. If the weather changed, I'd have to wait for another clear day to fly back, or worse, take the dreaded 16 hour car ride!

My trip to Khorog was unbelievably smooth. As I mentioned in my last post, this flight is nothing if not uncertain. But we took off right on time and I got to enjoy the incredible views from the air.

Apparently, the plane flies low enough that cell phone service is still available.

It's definitely lower than some of the mountain tops as we flew between the peaks. Looking at the pictures, I still can't get over it. Some of them look like I was standing on the mountains. It's a little scary, but well worth it.

In Khorog, I had a bit of a scare when an airport official asked for my diplomatic passport and then got away from me. For about 10 minutes, I wandered around before I found him and got it back. Then I made my way to the guest house where I was to stay - the same one my family stayed at last fall - and made myself comfortable. I asked my hosts for advice on where to get lunch in town and whether I could find a place that would serve yak for dinner. The owner of the guesthouse gave me pointers for lunch and told me that he'd have his staff prepare me a yak dinner right there at the guest house!

I had a little bit of time before my presentation, so I wandered down to the park to enjoy the fresh, cool air and beautiful scenery.

At over 7,000 feet above sea level, Khorog offered much more pleasant temperatures than Dushanbe. When lunchtime rolled around, I made my way into the bazaar and found the restaurant that was recommended to me for a hearty meal of plov and lagman.

From there it was time to do my Earth Day presentation. We had a good group of students, but this was another case where I had to do a lot of translating into Russian. There were some tough questions as well, such as "If the United States won't sign the Kyoto Protocol, why should we care about the environment". I was definitely kept on my toes and was tired by the time I was done.

So I moseyed on back to the guest house and spent the evening reading on the porch until my yak feast was dinner.

With the trees blooming in the garden and the light of the setting sun on the mountains, I wished I could have stayed longer. Dinner was delicious and I went to be well fed.

Early the next morning, I got a phone call from Dushanbe saying that there would be a return flight and that I should get to the Khorog Airport asap to make sure I'd get a ticket. Flying up one day and back the next would be unprecedented luck, so I scarfed down a breakfast of blini and eggs and hightailed it to the airport. It looked like I was the first person there and the guy told me to go around back to the cashier. When I got to the indicated place, however, all I saw was an empty room with no doors or windows. Perplexed, I wandered around until someone else came in and pointed me to a 4 inch hole in the wall, which turned out to be the cashier.

While I was waiting for my ticket, another man came in and passed a plastic bottle of something smelling suspiciously like vodka to the cashier. I was hoping that he wouldn't turn out to also be the pilot. You never know.

Tickets in hand, I sat outside to read and wait for the registration to open. Everything went smoothly, aside from a short delay when we had to wait for a helicopter to land. The passes are too narrow for two aircraft to pass safely. When we were on board the plane, some guy who obviously thought himself a bigshot (he had a cop shining his shoes earlier), demanded that the pilot tell him why we were waiting. The pilot responded that we could wait a few more minutes or crash into the helicopter. I think the point was clear.

I got to enjoy another hour of incredible scenery before landing in Dushanbe.

I worked the rest of the day from home, and packed for my next trip, which was scheduled for Wednesday evening.

I left work on Wednesday a little early to get to the airport for my flight to Khujand, in the north of the country. This turned out to be the worst flight I've ever experienced. The plane to Khorog is the smallest plane I've ridden in, but at least there was a place to put my feet. On the plane to Khorog, I literally couldn't move for the entire time I was on the plane. I swear I could feel the woman's kidneys in the seat in front of mine. Add to this the fact that the plane was boiling when we got on, so I was sweating all over myself and the woman next to me. And to top it off, my seat belt had two of the same endings.

I guess it wouldn't have mattered anyway given the age of the plane, but it was just one more thing.

Getting off the plane into the cooler air was one of the best feelings ever. I got a cab to my hotel and met up with some other embassy colleagues for dinner. The lady at the reception desk was a real character. She insisted on personally escorting me to my room and showing me all of it's features. This included turning down the bed to prove that the sheets were clean, showing me the inside of the toilet, showing me how to open and close the windows, and scalding my hands to show me how hot the water was.

The next day, my presentation wasn't scheduled until the afternoon so we had the morning at our leisure. After breakfast, we headed out of town for lake Karaikum, also called the sea of Tajikistan because of it's huge size. There, we went to an unlikely looking place to buy fresh smoked fish. The proprietors wanted us to tell them how much fish we wanted and to bring it to us, but we insisted on going in and picking out the fish ourselves. I got to sample some and it was excellent, so I bought three fish for 10 somoni ( a little more than $2). It turned out to be a steal, because we found the same fish being sold at the bazaar for 25 somoni each!

Unfortunately, the fish sellers didn't have any plastic bags, so we all ended up smelling strongly of smoked fish by the time we found a store that would sell us some. Despite repeated washings, I didn't entirely get rid of the smell until the next day.

The lake itself was hard to take in as it was very hazy. It was also kind of disappointing because it was heavily littered with plastic bottles. More fodder for my Earth Day presentation...

After the lake, we headed to the main square where the mosque is located and spent some time at the bazaar.

I picked up some white honey and a special sausage called a Kazi, which I've never seen in Dushanbe. I was told that this sausage is especially for use in making plov. That reminded me that my favorite plov was in Khujand, so I asked that we go back to that restuarant for lunch. It was just as good as I remembered. Complete with stuffed grape leaves, boiled eggs, and sure enough, kazi.

Lunch took a little long so we had to rush to the American corner for my presentation. I also had to rush the presentation a bit because it had been planned from 1-2pm and my flight to Dushanbe was at 3 pm. My colleagues told me that it would be fine if we got to the airport by 2:30, but we didn't.

The presentation went well and I even finished a little early. But then one of my colleagues decided to buy a bunch of bread and sambusas on the way to the airport. We got there about 2:40. For someone like me, who likes to plan ahead, this was close to torture. But everything worked out. The airport officials hustled us through and onto the plane. I even lucked out and got a seat at the bulkhead exit row so I even had room to move my feet.

By the time I got home, I was pretty tired. In the last two weeks, I've been to five cities around Tajikistan. Three of them requred overnight trips and two of them involved flights. It's been amazing though, and I've gotten to see a lot of great scenery.

On Friday, I gave my last Earth Day presentation at the American Corner in Dushanbe. We had a good turn out and even the Ambassador attended.