After the isolation of Bulunkul, we drove on to Murghab, which is the regional centre of the Pamirs in Tajikistan. We stayed at Ayperi’s Guesthouse while Daniyar went home to his family for the night. Murghab feels like a frontier town. There are only two main roads, one of which is the Pamir Highway. The streets have interesting names like “40 Years of Victory” and “15 Years of the Republic of Tajikistan”. We wandered down to the bazaar, which was a collection of containers and old railway carriages. On the way a couple of women and a boy called out photo! photo! So we took their pic and the lady gave me a two line address to send a copy to her…no name! Ayperi, at the guesthouse translated it into English for me, so we will see what happens there!

We met Daniyar’s mother and three of his children. She invited us in for tea and we said lovely, but please no food! Of course two large loaves of bread, lollies, butter and jam accompanied the tea. We had a very interesting conversation…we would recognise one word and then she would elaborate in Russian. We had no idea, but it was a lovely half an hour!

At the guesthouse we met Johannes a young sommelier from Germany, who was in a bit of a pickle as the banks had no way for him to withdraw money and the ATM didn’t work! So we gave him some cash (thinking about if we were in his situation!) and in the end he negotiated a ride with Daniyar to Osh, so we had his company for a couple of days. We also met a Japanese man who had been riding his bike around the world for almost four years! Everywhere except Australia.