D-15: Security

The website of Paul Clammer, kabulcaravan.com, is just great. The amount of information is huge. Maybe not direct or touristic informations on Afghanistan, but the number of links to other source of information on the culture of the country as well as the news and the safety informations is great.

Yesterday, I printed two reports on security and background on the net.

The first one is the generic security guide the by ECHO. It is a 150 pages long report on security for humanitarian organisations. Since it is mainly aimed to NGO's, their informations are not valuable for independant travelers: How to inform the security staff in case of 'near incident' or the standard documents for security report is not of high utility for a traveler. But the Annexes are much more interesting. They explain basics on how to reacts by checkpoints, is case of bribes or shootings. This part is highly recommended!!

The second report is the BAAG briefing pack. It is also aimed to NGO's, but its informations are generically valuable. It gives a very quick background information on the contemporary history, on the nowadays political situation, but also basics on Islam, traditions and dress code. Quite useful to be read once.

I found an another useful information on the kabulcaravan.com website: A very stupid object which could be useful: A small radio. Since I will stay away from the cities during a week or so before entering in Afghanistan, I do not have access to our God Internet and I can not stay updated on the situation in Afghanistan. One easy solution would be to have a small radio with me to hear news on BBC or RFI. Nowadays, very small and light radios are proposed on the market.

I have to find now the frequencies and schedule of the different international radios in Central Asia...

D-16: Hostages in Irak: A book

Some times ago, I went to my favorite bookshop in Geneva looking for the M. Leeming's book on Afghanistan. As I went out of the bookshop, I saw the book written by Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot . They are two french journalists who were hold hostage during more than three months by the Islamic Army of Irak.

I did not find the Leeming's book, but I bought Chesnot-Malbrunot's one. That's strange. I am fighting against my friends and family to explain to them that the region of Afghanistan where I plan to go to is relatively safe. That the taliban are located in the south of the country. That the kidnapping are until now restricted to the Kabul region and in the south. And so on and so forth. But at the same time, I am reading the book of former hostages. I know why I am doing that. I read this book to know how they reacted to the different events which occurs during the kidnapping. What are the main difficulties and their defensive tactic to survive.

That's ambivalent! I am quite confident about the risks in Badakhshan, but at the same time, I need to know how former hostages reacted to their kidnapping!

That's weird.

D-17: Kabul Caravan updated

On the oxiana Group, we received a message from Paul Clammer advertizing his updated website kabulcaravan. I just had a glance at it. It seems to be very well done. The list of references to other websites or books related to afghanistan is huge. Moreover, his section on Badakhshan is one of the few informations we can find on this region.

A must!

D-18: Kirghiz Visa

I received yesterday my passport with the tajik visa. Looking at my passport, I realized that my kirghiz visa lasts for 5 days. 5 long days.

Obvioulsy, the informations on the net are not updated. The transit visa in Kirghizstan is a 5 days visa. That's good news!

I have sent today my passport to the uzbek embassy in Paris. I hope they will be quick, because I haven't an infinite time until my flight to Bishkek.... 18 days...

D-19: What I will miss there...

I have been asked what the hell I am looking for by travelling in such strange and remote regions of the world. I have been asked if my choice of Afghanistan is a suicide by procuration, why I do not go to the Seychelles Island. All those questions have been asked a plenty of time. And I am not sure, I already gave an honest answer to them. And I will not begin here.

But on saturday, I've got the first interesting question about my travel: What I will miss at most during the 5 weeks of travel in Central Asia. The first thing which came in my mind was Ananas Juice: My "peche mignon", which wakes me up every morning. I will surely miss ananas juice there
Then, I told myself, I could survive without a single drop of ananas juice during those long 30 days. But I was not sure anymore that I could survive without the sweet and sensual rhythm of Tango... ;-)

Pictures from mitte.ch

I do think that some steps of Milonga on the shore of the Sarez lake would be amazing... But I am not sure, I will meet anyone there who could share these moments with me. Or maybe you know someone?!?

D-25: Floods in Tajikistan

I found this article on Irinnews about the situation of the water level of the Panj River. The situation seems to be serious since the water level has not decreased since the beginning of June...

D-26: Afghan Badakhshan III

This weekend, there have been 2 interesting posts on the thorntree of LP.

The first one by Caryatid seems to indicate that the bridge between Afghanistan and Uzbekistan is open for non-NGO's worker. And then for "tourists". It could have allowed me to save 60 EUR from my 2 entries visa in Tajikistan. It is too late, but I haven't yet decided if I would try to cross the border at this point.

The second one by electricnomad. He said that the road between Ishkashim and Feizabad has been reopened. His informations indicate that we do not have to change cars on this road.

All good news!!!

The only point to be carefull with is the instability. And that's THE point. The secondary points like the roads and border crossing are now ok. I have now to pray for a more or less stable situation before the afghan elections of Sept 18th... C'est pas gagne!

D-29: My plan

I received only today my passport with the kirghyz visa. They needed a phone call from me and more than a week to do it! But anyway: My passport is now in his way to the tajik embassy in Vienna. I asked for a double entry, which costs 130 EUR! It is so expensive. The only positive point is that I can stay 2 month in the country....

I have made a sort of plan for my trip:

I will come from Osh and go to Murghab. Afterwards, I will interrupt my trip on the Pamir Highway by a small hiking between Alichur and Shedzud. In the Khorog region, I have a plenty of possibilities, Bartang, Shakhdara valleys. But I am almost certain now to go down to Ishkashim and continue to Afghanistan. Inch'Allah ! I dream of staying a couple of days in Mazar before heading North back to Tajikistan, Penjikent and the Fan Mountains.

If things are going wrong in Afghanistan, I will spend more time in the tajik shore of the Panj river and then head North to Dushambe and the Fan Mountains.

D-30: Floods in GBAO

First, today is the day D-30. In one month, I will be in the airplane to Bishkek. Everthing begins to come true and to be honest, my head is already somewhere between Murghab and Feizabad...

I read an interesting article on the floods in Tajikistan. Apart the Penjikent region, the Rushan and Ishkashim district are also concerned. It only speaks about washed away highway on a distance of 7 km and high water on the Panj (Pamir) River without any precision on the place where the road has been washed away.

D-31: Roads in Afghan Badakhshan II

Ok, the informations are fluctuating. The last (but more reliable ?) news from the forum of LP comes from "electricnomad":

QUOTE:

I work up in Badakhshan. I made the trip from Kishem to Faizabad 3 days ago with no problems. And Afghan friends of mine say that the road through to Taloqan is open, with no need to change cars at all.

The road from Faizabad to Baharak and Jurm, however, has been trickier for the past month. In at least one place people have had to change cars because the bridge is out. Some days I hear about this problem, other days people don't mention it.

A friend of mine is driving to Eshkashem today and if he doesn't show up in Faizabad during the next day or two, I'll know that that road is open, too.

So yes, the floods have caused a lot of damage, especially to irrigation systems and roads in Badakhshan, but life goes on if you're ready to carry all your stuff past washed out roads and continue your trip in another car.

Having said all that, if the road is closed tomorrow, it wouldn't surprise me at all. The transportation situation here changes as fast as the weather.

Wait and See

But anyway. I think that I will not worry anymore about the different and contradictory informations I can hear here or there. I will just take my time, allow myself to take even more time than planned. If I can go through, beautiful. If not, I will go back to Tajikistan from Ishkashim.

D-32: Roads in Afghan Badakhshan

Caryatid, one of the footholds of the Thorntree of LP wrote today:

Quote:
The road from Taloqan to Badakshan is impassable due to floods sez IOM.

Her source seems to be the UN. Which UN organization? No idea. It confirms however some informations I had from the Oxiana YahooGroup... I would like to get some updated ANSO report on the situation, but they doesn't seem to be easy to find on the web.

ANSO is the Afghan Ngo Security Office. They provide some security reports for the NGO's in Afghanistan. However, they do not have any website or mailing list to my knowledge. Sometimes, we can find some outdated reports like this one.

Anyway... That's bad news for my plan!

D-32: Farsi...

Shame on me! I did want to learn farsi. I bought a Assimil book on persan 6 months ago. I had a good will to go on learning.. I began with lesson 1, with some vocabulary. I found a nice woman who accepted to teach me with her afghan accent some specificities of the Dari language. But my work took all my time. And now? After more than 3 month of semi-"learning"? I am still stuck at the lesson 20 (out of 80) and my understanding of the very easy Assimil-CD is so poor. I am ashamed. Really!

I will have to make one more of this travel where the contact with the population is too poor because of my laziness. I hate that, and I am the only one to blame. I still have 1 month in order to increase my knowledge. Only one month.

In one month, I can at most hope to say that the landscape is beautiful and that I want some Shashlik with even more fat ! (...)

D-33: floods and Badakhshan

Today, I tried to get some informations about the condition of the roads either in Tajikistan or in Badakhshan. My first source of information was the reliefweb.int website, which compile informations about a given country coming from many sources. It is mainly aimed to the humanitarian community, but it is a real mine of information for the off-beaten track's traveler.

The last article about the floods in Badakhshan comes from the UN press service IRINnews. It doesn't speak about road opening, but only about bridges destruction. Nothing more precise. See here for more.

The situation in Tajikistan seems to be clearer. I asked someone on the Thorntree of LonelyPlanet. His answer was quite positive.The roads seem to be open, even if their quality have not become better... See here for some less positive IRIN informations.

I posted some time ago a question on the YahooGroup Oxiana, which is specialized in for Travelers in Central Asia. But I got no answers: it seems to be difficult to get informations on the Afghan's Badakhshan...

Let's see...

D-33: Kirghiz elections: 89 % for...

...BAKIEV...See here for more informations on the kyrghyz democracy

D-34: Trekking routes

I went through the very well made trekking page of the website pamirs.org to find some good but not too difficult trekking routes. Some would be just beautiful, like the Sarez lake from the South, but I haven't planned to take big equipments with me. I have then to restrict myself to easier routes. Two of them are of particular interest: The first one would be

Alichur - Bulunkul - Badchor

It starts at Alichur, on the Pamir Highway between Murghab and Khorog. From there, I will go to the West to Bulunkul and go further at the northern shore of the Yashil Kul. The map of Hauser indicates a possible "sightseeing" place after some kilometers. Afterwards, I will go on in the direction of the Gunt river to finish my trip in the village of Badchor. I will then have to join the Pamir Highway in the village of Shadzud, 22 km downhill. This route has a big advantage. It is almost flat. Almost no pass to cross. From Alichur to Badchor, pamirs.org propose 2 days: a good first trek in the region. The big disadvantage of it is that I will have to hitch from the middle of nowhere (Shadzud) to join Khorog at around 100 km...

The second route will be in the south of Khorog between the valleys of Shakh-dara and the Ishkashim district. (Panj valley or further Wakhan valley).
The easiest possibility would be to start from the village of Parshed, 10km south of Khorog and join Nishusp in the Panj valley. Pamirs.org proposes 2 days for this trek, even if the distance and the unevenness (1000 m) doesn't seem to be too important. But to sleep not far from the top would allow me to make some beautiful pictures in the early morning. Some other possibility would be to start from the Roshtkala, 100 km south east from Khorog. From there, there are many possibilies, like trekking west in the direction of Garm Chashma and south to the Wakhan valley trough Badomdara. (out of the map. ). The disadvantages of obvious: the pass are higher, the unevenness stronger than in Alichur, but the advantages are numerous: There is a daily UAZ (public transport) from Khorog to Roshtkala, the region should be just amazing and I will lead to Ishkashim, the goal of my trip in Tajikistan... (even if here, it is less sure that public transport would exist)

The maps presented here come from the interactive map of the University of Bern

D-35: From Osh to Murghab

I think I was too optimistic. I only took a transit visa in Kirghizstan, which lasts only for 3 days. But the way from Bishkek to Osh takes at least 15 hours by raod. I have to go to the Osh's bazaar to get some somoni from my Uzbeks soms from last years, because I have been said, it is harder to change money in Murghab.

Then, I have to visit the Agha Khan foundation, to know if some trucks go to Murghab or to enquire for some bus, since David Jennings saw some bus connecting Osh to Murghab. The Russian army doesn't seems to be a solution anymore since they left Tajikistan. But this information still needs to be checked. And I can be sure that the trucks, or the bus are not leaving the following day!!! That's the so called Murphy's Law!

For all this good reasons and after the genial comment of a friend of mine, I decided to look for a flight from Bishkek to Osh. I looked at the beautiful website of the Manas Airport. Five flights are scheduled on sunday:

8.20am/ 8.45am / 9.20 am / 11.20am/ 5.50pm

Lonelyplanet pretends that the prize should be at around 40-45 $. I have now to find a way to book a flight... Here begins the fun!

D-36: GBAO-Permit and Osh-Murghab road

I received today afternoon a very positive email from the head of the META program in Murghab. He responded to my question about the GBAO permit. Since I travel from Kirghizstan, I can't get my permit in Duschambe. And I don't want to pay 100 CHF to get it from a travel agency like greatgametravel. I wanted to know if it is possible to enter the GBAO region without the permit when we come from Osh. Here is his answer

Quote:

According our sources of information any foreigner travelling to
Murghab, GBAO via Osh may cross the Kirghiz-Tajik border in Sary Tash
without the GBAO permit. They can get it in Khorog, but they should tell
on the check point that they will get it in Khorog as soon as they will
arrive. In Murghab tourist has to register in OVIR in local police and
KGB.

It is not possible to get the permit in Murghab.

This answer confirms the stories which can be found on the net, like here or here.

That's good news!

D-36: Registan.net

I had already read the registan.net blog as the kirghiz "revolution" took place. I rediscovered it today. It is a mine of information about the whole region, with a lot of links to other blogs or news website related to Central Asia.

A must!

D-37: Elections in Kirghizstan

This week end, there will be elections in Kyrghyzstan. The interim president of the country since the non-revolution of March will win the elections. That's the way democraty works in Central Asia: You can tell who wins the elections before they take place!

And the winner is Kurmanbek Bakiev

D-38: Kyrghiz Visa

I sent today morning my passport to the kyrghiz embassy in Geneva. They ask for 2 filled application forms, 2 recent pictures and a passport whose validity lasts for 3 more month. A transit visa, like the one I asked for, costs 40 CHF (30 USD) and is valid for 3 days. A 1-month visa would cost 100 CHF. Of course, if you want your visa done in 1 day, you will have to pay more... 50 CHF for a transit visa and 150 CHF for a 1-month visa. For your information, a double entry would cost 25 CHF more and the visa is free for children under 3. ;-)

Community Based Tourism: PHIP project

Lunch break: What's new on the net about Tajikistan?

One of the few website on Ecotourism in Tajikistan. The french NGO ACTED seems to do a good job in the Pamir region, in collaboration with UNESCO and the swiss governemental organization SDC. They are involved in many aspects of the economical development of the region, in particular tourism. They are quite active in the region of Murghab through the

PHIP Projet

Their project is related with the successful community-based tourism organization CBT in Kirghizstan. The basic idea is to develop the tourism in the different region of the country in such a way that the revenues would come directly to the inhabitants. On contrary to the travel agencies based in the capital, the organization is local. You can find informations on homestays, horses, guide or transport in each regional cities. The major part of the prize you pay goes directly to the families. You therefore help directly the people of the region, not by charity, but by trade. The second positive aspect for the traveler is the prize. It is much lower than with the big agencies.
Last but not least: the contact with the locals. When you sleep in the people's house, you have a more direct contact with them. And the journey becomes much more authentic.

However, unlike the CBT organization, this kind of tourism is not very developed in Tajikistan. I could read in the PHIP report of october 2004 that in the year 2004, they had 255 visitors! We do not know how many of them were tourists!

It will be Bishkek - Tashkent

Due to the different floods and political developments in Central Asia, I decided to change the path of my travel. It will be

Bishkek - Tashkent

I booked yesterday the flights Geneva - Bishkek through Moscou on August, the 13th. And return on Sept, the 18th from Tashkent. I will fly with Aeroflot, like last year through the airport of Sherementyevo in Moscau. This airport is quite weird. It has two terminals, the international one and the domestic one. The flights for Central Asia start at the domestic one. To go from one to the other, we have to take a bus, which runs through an aircraft cemetery, full of big Antonov or Tupolev. The first time you see it, you ask yourself if one of these aircrafts is the one which will bring you to Bishkek... ;-)
I will arrive in Bishkek at 4 am, as usual, on the airport of Frunze, which is also one of the US military airbase. This is also weird to land on an airfield whose taxiway is occupied by C-130 and F-15...

Geomatic - Map

I went through the internet looking for precise informations on the Pamir region and I found a small jewel.

An interactive map of Tajikistan

This one has been done by the university of Bern, in Switzerland. You can find satellite (the precision is not optimal, but who cares!), topography and biophysical maps. They are all based on the old russian military map . But what makes its high quality is the highlighting of the rivers, road and even trails. I do not know how reliable is this map, but I am already sure, I will make an extensive use of it, since it is more precise and low scaled than the one of Markus Hauser

Training session

This weekend, I had an intense travel-training.

I was in the swiss montains, fully loaded with all luggages I plan to take in Tadjikistan: 55+10 backpack, tent, sleeping bag, and enough unuseful weight added up to simulate the weight of my backpack during my journey.



After a trek of about 4 hours, I reached to bottom of the peak Revedin, at the altitude of 2500 m. The sky opened up at around 7pm, allowing me a picture session. (Pictures will follow...). I slept there. There was frost in the morning. Furtunately, even if my slepping bag is attested for temperatures above 0 degree, I had my winter clothes with me.


It wasn't the most comfortable night of my live, but it was a good test for me and my equipment.

The second day, I went down to the village of Orsieres. It took my about 4 hours. Beautiful trek!

Pictures should come soon

Afghan visa

I just phoned to the afghan mission at the UN in Geneva (Yes, I am swiss). The visa for afghanistan costs 40 CHF per month. So cheap in comparaison with some other countries in Central Asia. For example, the visa for Tajikistan are much more expensive. A multiple entry costs 130 Euros, whereas a single entry costs "only" 80 Euros for one month! For Uzbekistan, the single entry costs 80 Euros for one month. For each additional entries, you have to add 10 more Euros.

In some travel forum like voyageforum.com, it has been said that the afghan embassies ask for a travel insurance to accept to deliver visa to tourists. It is obviously not the case for the afghan mission in Geneva.

But if I add all visa, their costs will be expensive...Let's see!