I'll be honest with you all. I only heard about Tajikistan last year when I randomly chose a country to go to. It was a place that not a single person that I told I was going to said "Oh cool." It was always "What, why?" or "That sounds dangerous." As someone from America, it's just not a place you hear about and even though I did my research and thought it looked interesting and heard how it was safe, I wasn't able to convince anyone that it was. At the end of the day, I was going solo, so it really didn't matter anyway what others felt about this place...that they themselves never heard of. I came back incredibly happy with my choice in going as this was a country unlike anything I've personally experienced before.
I went for 14 days. Essentially 3 days in the capital city of Dushanbe and 11 days on a Pamir Highway Tour.
DAY 1: DUSHANBE
Dushanbe was a really well designed city that clearly people that live there, really enjoy. You got everything you'd want there as it feels like most of the money is being put into that city with a ton of construction happening all around, building up new apartments for people. I walked a ton. A little over 20 miles that first day and was really impressed with the city. I ran into multiple helpful Tajik locals who helped me find the National Museum while I wandered around in a theater that was under construction. I had a discussion with this one local about what was going on in this one area that had a bunch of people preparing for this sort of independence parade and he talked about all the work being put into Dushanbe. The parks were massive and were taken care of and had a lot of pride put into them, but I noticed they were empty. That's because it was pretty hot, close to 100°F. Everyone comes out at night when the temperature cools which makes sense. It was just a great start with this big city that has a bright future and a ton of friendly locals.
THE PAMIR HIGHWAY TOUR
I took a Pamir Highway tour that was doing an 11 day round trip from Dushanbe to Dushanbe. It goes as far as Karakul Lake, which is about 2 hours before you hit Krygzstan. This was an adventure unlike anything I've personally done. I went well out of my comfort zone on this trip with numerous homestays "sleeping" with other people in the same room. I say sleeping in quotations because I barely slept when I wasn't able to secure a single room at a homestay because I'm an incredibly light sleeper so anytime someone snored, got up, or anything, I couldn't go to sleep. So in that sense for me, it was tough including the toilets that were many times just cut out holes in the ground where my body didn't even attempt to go to the bathroom other than pee haha! But even with my lack of good sleep and bloated bowels, I had such a fantastic time.
THE VIEWS INTO AFGHANISTAN
The views on the Pamir Highway are staggering. To put it into perspective, the Pamir Highway is one of the highest elevated highways on the planet and yet still, the surrounding mountains tower everywhere. It is just unbelievable to see with photos just not doing it justice. For a large portion of the trip, you are driving along the border of Afghanistan and their mountains and it's of course, incredibly interesting to see the difference in infrastructure between Tajikistan and Afghanistan. It's admittedly a night and day difference as a lot more work has been done to Tajikistan. And then there's of course the thoughts of the difference of human rights and if a woman was just across the river in Afghanistan, they'd be living a completely different life.
THE TOWNS
We stopped in several locations like Khorog, a surprisingly really nice city considering it's essentially in the middle of nowhere that I enjoyed a lot with it's nice views, park, and food. Murghab is a town that was underdeveloped, but had a great spirit. Everywhere felt safe and you can tell with how many kids would be running around, saying hello. It was honestly surprising to see so many kids just out and about. In Murghab, I had this 12 year old girl show me around her town after her father sent her to get some soda. She showed me where this tasty yak milk ice cream place, a small bridge, the bazaar. It was...odd haha! For context, I'm a 27 year old guy and I couldn't imagine letting a daughter of mine walk around with a foreigner in the US, but it's just...different in Tajikistan haha! At one point, I split away, thanked her, and moved on as I thought it's been too long and she came back like 10 minutes later to continue to show me more places which I thought was hilarious. I even passed by multiple military people and was worried they'd think I was some weird dude and stop me, but no, it was all good. It was just a very unique experience of a guide haha! Another awesome stop was Karakul Lake with this absolutely gorgeous, blue lake that I waited to watch the sunset. It was super cold, but very worth watching. It was a small town that felt like some places had been abandoned, but even there, locals would welcome me, saying hello and asking where I was from and what I thought of Tajikistan.
THE HIKES
In terms of hikes, I've never gone like 1000 meters in elevation I don't think. So to go from not even 1000 to hiking up to 5000 meters was quite a surreal feeling. I wasn't sure if I'd have any elevation sickness as many warned me including family who had sickness around 3000 meters. Thankfully, I didn't really get headaches or anything much. Our first hike was to Jizeu Village, this remote village, that took me a bit over 2 hours to get to. It was my first time hiking like this ever and the views just blew my mind. The village had what seemed like 20 very friendly people who wake up to some of the most gorgeous landscapes ever, but there's a reason I only saw mostly older people with a lack of adults as there's no work up there and it would just be a tough place to live there. I got a lot of respect for the people who live there all year round for sure. The 2nd hike was 4700 meters up Panorama Ridge where you stand on Tajikistan dirt, seeing the mountains of both Afghanistan and Pakistan! That was mind blowing to see multiple countries in one view. It was challenging and very rewarding. The 3rd and last hike was Ortoboz Pass which was the 5000 meter hike. I really wanted to see if I could go up 5000 meters as I had a bit of a headache after hiking down Panorama Ridge. Well, we followed this one group to the top and so in total it was probably 13-15 other people doing this hike and when we got to the top, I thought it was 5000 meters as it was already a long hike up, gaining over 800 meters in elevation, but when I asked, the guide said "No, that's the 5000 meter top" pointing to a way higher and further hike. I had no headache, but unfortunately everyone else around me was going to the other side that doesn't go 5000 meters high as they weren't feeling 100% and would rather stay at that sort of elevation and get a similar view, but I really wanted to at least try the 5000 meters route and so... perhaps....stupidly...I went alone. I took my time, stopping multiple times along the way to rest and eventually did get to the top of Ortoboz Pass. I felt so happy that I managed to do it. You genuinely feel like you are on top of the world at that height (even with other mountains still being higher!). I still didn't have a headache which I was very happy about, but I didn't have a neck strain by the time I went down since I was carrying my camera bag with 2 1.5 L water bottles the whole time. That hike took me almost 6 hours to do. I don't think I'll be at that altitude anytime soon again haha!
FINAL THOUGHTS
Tajikistan was a country that I enjoyed a ton. From the views, to the food, and yes, the people. I feel like going solo on trips, you just meet more locals or other travelers and this place was no different in that way, but here with the lack of many tourists, more people are just more interested to show and talk about their country in the most friendly and welcoming way possible. Even with the language barrier and some rough Google translate, this is another country that shows good people are everywhere whether it be a bigger city like Dushanbe or a small town of Murghab. With this trip, I definitely will be continuing to randomly pick out countries to go next because I just never know what I'll see and who I'll meet. And for me, that's what traveling is all about.