The Perfume of Love

Eating abroad can be one of the greatest pleasures of travel, and global foods (be it pasta and pizza or a chicken tikka masala) enrich our daily diets. For those of us whose linguistic skills leave a little to be desired, however, ordering something you actually want to eat in a foreign restaurant can be somewhat of a challenge, especially at the end of a long day.

 On the many occasions when an English menu is not forthcoming, you have two options: point at a dish that happens to be passing by on its way to someone else's table or, as we were once reduced to in an empty restaurant in Xinjiang, risking the "eeny meeny miny mo" approach, keeping our fingers crossed that what arrives on your plate is neither dog nor lizard.

In Khorog, Tajikistan we were quite pleasantly surprised to be handed a bilingual menu although, as it would soon be apparent, the English made even less sense than the Russian. We felt cautiously optimistic about the identity of "Thai Meet", but the "Perfume of Love" and "Surprise Vaqt" kept us guessing even once they had arrived on the table. There was nothing discernibly Thai about the meat, though meat it certainly was. With the other dishes we may as well have been playing the guessing game "Animal, Vegetable, Mineral".

Unfortunately for Tom, he was to discover the "surprise" in the early hours of the following morning and it was to stay with him for several days. When in reach of a flushing toilet, sofa and daytime tv, food poisoning is unpleasant but sort of bearable. Trying to keep a bung in both ends whilst driving through the wilderness of the poorest country in Central Asia is quite another entirely.

On the road again...

After six days waiting for the Afghan embassy staff to return to work after their various holidays, and a further seven hours sat sweating in their airless, smelly waiting room, we have finally been able to collect our $100 Afghan road pass and set out on the drive south to Afghanistan. Rarely has the prospect of a long, uncomfortable car journey been so eagerly awaited.

There are two ways to reach Khorog from Dushanbe. The shorter northern road (my previous route) is closed in winter and has a surface that largely seems to be made from hardcore that has fallen erratically from the back of a dumper truck. The southern route is longer by distance but has a similar journey time as a number of Turkish road crews have begun to tarmac key stretches, allowing drivers to increase their speed beyond a fast walking pace.

Not desiring to shake the Land Rover to pieces so early in the trip and, in my case, keen for new vistas, we drove south to Kulyob, a fair-sized town by Tajik standards Kulyob itself is nothing to write home about and the Soviet concrete is unusually depressing, but the Baltica beer was cold, the shashlik (kebabs) freshly cooked,and it was a convenient place to break the journey.

We rose early the following morning and were driving shortly after six. The driving was physically and mentally exhausting - roughly levelled avalanches do not make a pleasurable road surface and, for reasons best known to itself, the car had lost all acceleration. One wrong turn required a painful two hour detour as we picked our way through ploughed fields and the occasional mud hut village. Mongrel dogs snapped at our wheels and we trudged on in what we hoped was the right direction.

The scenery alongside the road is stark, dramatic if not actually beautiful. Mostly it hugs the river path through deep, deep gorges so steep that you must crane your neck (or look through the sunroof) if you want to see the sky. Afghanistan is almost within touching distance across the waters of the Panj (historically the Oxus) but the rocks, fast rapids and occasional Tajik border patrol ensure it remains, at least for the time being, out of reach.

It was not until nightfall that we drove in to Khorog,but even through the gloom it appeared green than the valleys before. Korog itself is a bustling trading post at the foot of the Pamir Highway, and a pedestrian suspension bridge allows people to cross back and forth to Afghaistan with their wares. A handful of guesthouses, restaurants and well laden bicycle panniers attest to the gemtle stream of forign tourists passing through the town, many of whom stop, as we did, to sleep and exchange information at the popular (if rather basic) Pamir Lodge.

The Pamir Lodge was established to fund the running of a small Sufi madrassa (Islamic school) - an unusual sight in a formerly Soviet state. As we prepared for bed, the sounds of a traditional music concert wafted from the madrassa and across the courtyard. Though not exactly to my taste, it proved the perfect lullaby.