Good chance for the stomach to finally settle down and the first 60 miles out of Dushanbe is surfaced roads under repair. We suddenly find a stretch of road that is covered in Diesel and it goes on for 3 miles and then we come across the culprit at the side of the road. Then a policeman pulls us over and starts pointing at the solid white line and then at us. We all start pointing down at the ground and the rainbow colours on the tarmac and then we point to the other side of the line. He sort of shrugs his shoulders and then salutes us and waves us on.
The next 20 are gravel but ok and the final 20 are potholes and water flowing across taking our speed down to 20 miles an hour. The rain is coming down hard so it will be hard going tomorrow.
Remember this is a main highway and is the only way and if you look at the photo of the map I took this is a red route. Honest the circle in pen between Dushanbe and Kalaikhum is where our homestay is tonight
Still raining and we are all looking forward to getting into some dry clothes and get our bike gear dry, then we arrive at our homestay called “BLUE LAKE”. Our rooms are in the trees and these places are used by travellers when the road is impassable. There is a beautiful blue lake out the back which is ideal for bodily functions and nothing else and the rooms were sort of dry, o heating and I decided that I would be sleeping in my sleeping bag on a thermorest and not in the cold damp linen provided.
Dinner was provided by the homestay and was the usual bread, a meat and potato soup and a pasta style/noodle soup. Tasted good as we had not eaten all day just we have to have our boots off and it on mats on the floor.
Absolutely nothing to do so it was to bed early 9:00 pm and get a good night’s sleep as we are promised a very hard day tomorrow
6050 miles – somewhere on the M41 Tajikistan
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