18 & Travelling solo on the Tajik-Afghan border
#ComeBimbleWithMe
by Kayla Kim
Bimble is for great little places, whether they’re around the corner, or on the other side of the world. It’s for everyday life AND for far-flung adventures. Here’s one of those: Kayla’s journal, hitchhiking in central Asia by herself. Anyone else feeling the call of the wild? 🐗
‘I’m going to hitchhike the Pamir highway.’
It’s an idea that’s thrown around over a few drinks with some strangers, something that you might say but never really expect to follow through. I first made the statement in a hostel in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan. I said (with great authority) that I read on the internet that the route was heavily trafficked by Chinese truck drivers headed from Europe back to China who might be willing to pick up a wayward Westerner. And what could be cooler than hitchhiking over the mountains with Chinese truck drivers?
A saner audience might have said, “That’s crazy! You’re an 18-year-old American girl. You can’t hitchhike hundreds of miles by yourself.” But this crowd was different. One had come from India on a motorcycle and was planning to circle the world. Two had cycled from Germany. One was driving from Beijing back to their home in England. This was just another Tuesday for them, and they thought that hitchhiking was a fabulous idea.
The next morning I hit the road with nothing but a backpack, some somoni, and a permit for the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast in my pocket.
I took a marshrutka out to the edge of the city, figuring that once I was on a highway, I would be picked up more easily. I was wrong. Hundreds of cars passed me by, as I stood feeling like an idiot with my arm outraised, being thoroughly ignored. Finally, a man in a small truck picked me up. He was concerned, and asked me if I was lost, if I needed food or money, if I needed to be taken someplace to stay. I realized then exactly how strange I must appear: a tall foreigner in ratty Western clothes creeping alongside the highway. I wouldn’t have picked me up!
Regardless, I was overjoyed: I had found my first driver! Then, just a mile down the road, the hood started smoking and the car sputtered to a stop. I had the dubious honor of experiencing an authentic Tajik auto repair shop for the best part of an hour while the driver repaired the truck and we chatted about family and home in remedial Russian.
He took me no further than the city of Kulob, a dry and dusty place. I walked until the city disappeared in a cloud of dust and I saw mountains rising in the distance, The sun was starting to sink, and I started thinking: ‘This is it. I’m going to have to sleep on the road.’
I’d bought a trashy Chinese tent from a shop simply labelled ‘SPORT’ in the centre of Dushanbe. The guy selling the tent had been interested in practicing English (or maybe just in American women?) and had taken me out to a restaurant selling qurutob, the national dish of southern Tajikistan at the edge of the city. I was busy treasuring this memory of going out to eat at an actual restaurant in an actual city as I emotionally prepared myself to set up that tent in an abandoned, crumbling stone building along the side of the road and munch on a piece of bread.
Then, a pristine, black SUV with tinted windows rolled by. I waved my arms in a last-ditch effort to hitch another ride — and the vehicle stopped. A man opened the door and told me, in perfect English, to get in!
The car’s driver was a Tajik guide, and the two men in the backseat were from Iran. They told me that they had entered Tajikistan to hunt. As in, hunt wild animals.They told me about the wildlife you could find in Tajikistan (and about how much the permit cost to kill each type of animal) and we came to another stop just as the road turned from pavement to gravel and we began to rise into the mountains.
We all exited the car (me having absolutely no idea why) and climbed a hill overlooking the mountains and the border with Afghanistan. At the top, we found a hastily constructed mud hut with a bedroll and a jacket lying inside. A man approached us sporting a pair of binoculars. He shook hands with my Iranian friends and spoke in rapid Tajik as he scanned the horizon through the binoculars. I asked the Iranian who had led me there whether the watcher was scouting the mountains for armed militant groups or something. “No,” he said. “These mountains are also home to the Markhor,” a goat with massive horns that twist like screws. “He’s protecting the noble animal from poachers.” We left the man to his binoculars and his task.
They left me at sunset at the base of the road up to Dashtijum. I left the highway, planning to walk to this tiny Tajik town, and then caught my final ride of the day with a family returning home. By the time I reached the village, the sun was down. I would resume my journey the next day.
If you’re interested in doing the same (or you just want to know where on earth one would stay on this trip) I’ve made a list of all the places I hit here on Bimble 😊:
