Where CHINA Meets TAJIKISTAN – The Pamir Highway 🇹🇯🇨🇳 I S3, EP21

Where CHINA Meets TAJIKISTAN – The Pamir Highway 🇹🇯🇨🇳 I S3, EP21

we are a bit unlucky it snowed only until recently and it will be like this unfortunately the road in the coming 40 km good morning everyone welcome back and welcome to our season 3 silk road overland so today we’re right now in osh the oldest city in Kyrgyzstan also a very important post on the ancient silk road and today we’re going to start the most epic ride of the whole ride that is the Pamir highway osh is a gateway to the Pamir highway and today we’re going to ride towards Sary Tash which is a mountain town on the Alay valley and there is also a road leading to China to Kashgar so there is a border crossing called Irkeshtam but we’re not going to cross a border because we’re going to continue riding to the south to the pamir plateau and then along the Afghani border and all the way to dushanbe so we’re going to ride the pamir which is over 3000m and the weather i don’t know i hope the weather will be fine because now it’s the 3d of October and it might be snowing and this morning we just got everything packed we got a lot of clothes and some food as well and Flo is checking the bike I’m just going to have a cup of tea before leaving and in the past three years I have been traveling and filming non stop from the outside it’s like a dream and most of the time it is but sometimes when the views fade and when the camera’s off I feel quite lost like I’m not sure if I’m good enough anymore the pressure of creating and the ups and downs of numbers can really make you question yourself even with supportive friends and families some thoughts are just so hard to figure out on your own that’s when my paid partner BetterHelp connected me with a credential therapist who helped me to sort through my thoughts and be more present therapy didn’t fix everything but it gave me tools to find ways back to myself such as some mindful techniques to stay present instead of focusing on the numbers getting started is easy you can fill out a questionnaire and BetterHelp matches you with a therapist if it doesn’t feel right you can switch anytime at no extra cost and choose between video calls phone or messages if you’d like to try you can use my link for 10% off your first month of therapy and now let’s back to the journey Hello this is the 7th herd that we encounter on the road hello it was the first cold wave after summer the air was crisp and along the way we kept meeting herders on their seasonal migration the temperature kept falling and soon rain began to fall across the valley hello hello hello i touched them most of the road was still easy to ride but as we climbed higher into the mountains snow started to fall and the road turned soft and muddy i don’t know how high we are but it started to snow and my windshield is a bit frozen it’s all ice I cannot go very fast because the visibility is low so we’re going to go quite slowly it feels crazy the cloud is just so so low and it’s moving so slowly you can see it it’s slowly moving over the mountain hello i just wanted to turn around and look for you i did some drone shots so i want to fly the drone cause it’s got yeah here it’s amazing okay let’s look for a guesthouse i’m at the gas station okay now we’re going to guest house just now at the gas station there is no gas at all but a guy just pulled over telling us that it’s very hard to get gas here and he happened to be the owner of a guest house so now we’re going to his guesthouse oh man it’s freezing it’s freezing cold but it feels so unreal this village look at those clouds they’re going so low Is something wrong? good good thanks here we are we did some drone shots so we only got the small dji mini but this drone shots is so incredible i think some of the my favorites i’ve ever had you know with all those clouds of tiny houses it feels so unreal hello welcome welcome welcome Yan yes come your name is shamela shamela shamela shamela this is toilet and shower shower this is your room our room okay good good good no problem no problem view to mountain thanks this is a very cozy homestay we’ve had in a while we paid 4400 Kyrgyz Som (40 USD) which is not that cheap but considering the remoteness of this little town i can understand and also two meals are included one dinner one breakfast but do you also have like horses sheep sheep no i don’t have no my parents they have and i help them to look sometimes i’m a ski i’m a ski guide okay i’m an alpinist oh wow yes where are the ski resort here we don’t have ski resort in this part we have in Karakol in north part of Kyrgyzstan Issyk Kul it i’m free Rider okay we are skiing up and down so anywhere anywhere even here? yes how can you get up by ski ski tour ski Touring yeah yeah ski Touring wow maybe your husband know better because it’s ski Touring is special ski wow it’s really cool you can ski ten kilometers non stop very good are there schools here for the kids yes ah middle school like primary school middle school even high school yes i study here wow how many people are there in this village? officially 2000 but there live maybe 1200 something 1200 people but there is high school that’s incredible do you live here all year yes of course we traveling in tajikistan and guiding in tajikistan our dinner is also quite generous we got really warm meal that is very comforting this is a soup with carrot and potatoes and then a cold dish with noodles meat cucumber and then some potatoes with meat and cabbage and this have you done planning Let me repeat one more time Flo is having an intensive planning for what to wear tomorrow answer my question how many layers do you have where depends on the part of the body my blue jacket yes this jacket yes which has a feeding and and the rain jacket above okay so four layers pants those those with filling and this so three layers and then the rain pants i’m a little bit worried if two socks is enough i should wear three you can wear three too you can as i suggested you can put plastic bag inside outside your socks inside the shoes we just got a very important information from our host he said that we have to leave very early tomorrow because on the kyrgyzstan side the border control all have power shortage after 8 am so it’s the first time that i heard things of this kind apparently there is something under construction on the border control and if we go after 8 am we won’t be able to cross the border into tajikistan and the tajikistan is all fine the problem is on the kyrgyzstan side so we have to get up quite early i think at 6am or 6 30 because the host told me that he’s gonna make breakfast at 6:30 so if you want to have breakfast we should be there at 6:30 and then leave at around 7 00 and then it should take maybe half an hour to reach the border but i’ve heard that from another traveler we met in osh that they had to wait 6 hours because the border was closed because of an electricity shortage so yeah i hope that works out tomorrow i hope we can get up tomorrow hope so too oh my god it snowed yesterday well oh the snow is quite heavy it’s all snowy look there are a lot of big trucks i really hope that we can make it because the border closes at 8 am we have to hurry up but meanwhile we cannot drive that fast on the snowy road so Sary Tash is very close to China about 50 kilometers away that is Irkeshtam and if you go over it then it’s the kashgar prefecture keluzisu kyrgyz autonomous county over there and this valley is the most taken route by the caravans during the soviet time so the caravans normally cross the border cross from Irkeshtam and then Sary Tash and then descend into the Fergana valley and another route would be from Kashgar to Tashkurgan Wakhan corridor to Afghanistan and then either to Iran or to India but that’s a different story oh I hope we can still make it though we have to be lucky worried we might not make it across the border i asked Flo to go ahead with my passport it’s 80 kilometers to cover before 8 o’clock so at least they could start checking his document first i was afraid that if the snow got heavier the next day it would be impossible to reach the Pamirs i was anxious but all i could do was keep going what fast our document yes go and go hello passport here? yes it’s cold Korea? China yes yes i was so afraid we wouldn’t make it but eventually we were lucky because apparently the electricity is cut off as of 8 a m i think we reached at like 8 15 or so but i still saw the lights were on so i was like man let’s be quick and luckily it worked out yeah i actually went the wrong way and i turned a little bit but i’m so glad that we finally made it so starting from here 20 kilometers it’s no man’s land and then while we cross the border we’ll see some kilometers away we will reach tajikistan checkpoint that’s the kyrgyzstan border crossing and now we are in between kyrgyzstan and tajikistan and i think the tajikistan border crossing is after we climb those mountains and Flo is now preparing for the ride he put two layers of plastic bags hope it helps it’s 8:30am i think more than 8:30 now and we are still in the shade of the mountains look the mountains are so majestic later we will climb a mountain pass that is over 4000m the road now is getting a little bit bad when we are about to climb the road is getting bad but luckily it’s gravel so it’s not that easy to slide away now we are slowly climbing up to that 4000 meter mountain pass it’s not even the deep winter now it’s the 5th of October we’re a bit unlucky it snowed only until recently and it will be like this unfortunately the road in the coming 40km it became the hardest ride i’ve ever done we were both struggling with altitude our bodies weak our hands frozen the melting snow mixed with the dirt turning the slope into a slippery mess Flo dropped his bike a few times and mine got stuck in the mud i tried again and again but it wouldn’t move. Exhausted i broke down and cried Flo came over helped me and said don’t worry it’s just a few more kilometers we will make it oh okay yeah slowly oh yeah oh this is some of the worst ride i’ve ever had oh my god this 10 kilometer is just so hard it’s snowy slippery sometimes there’s a river and now we are at over 4000m altitude yeah at 4300m this is the border line there it says tajikistan and there it says kyrgyzstan for the guys who come from the other side yeah and it’s freezing freezing i hope the road will get a little bit better there is less snow now which is good oh it’s a hard day give me a hug baobao okay let’s go baobao we won’t make it without each other so now we say “Tajikistan Bapesh” finally we are at the border crossing mine thanks Tajikistan Bapesh the procedure is uncomplicated they just stamped our documents and we’re now officially in Tajikistan after we got our passport stamped there was still another checkpoint ahead they checked our gbao permit gbao permit the Pamir region lies along the border and travelers need special permissions to enter the officer took a 10 USD “service fee” from each of us and waved us through now we’re good heading towards um Karakul lake and then hopefully a bit further Bye Bye finally we see the lake Karakul Lake the road was pretty crappy for some section and but still it’s a paved road it‘s very uncomfortable here because of the altitude I have a slight head ache beyond that point the landscape opened up vast, silent and frozen as desolate as the Tibetan plateau the wind howled across the plains and we shivered as we rolled on towards the Pamirs is it warm? okay the shoes off okay okay wait let’s get the luggage here Thank you ah oh god there is a heater good oh my god this is a lifesaver there is a sauna okay good oh oh my god it has been a freezing freezing ride and now i just want to stand next to the stove for 10 minutes and look baobao is sleeping so sweet and now i figured out something really cool i will show you in a second take my towel and look this guy is the owner of this place he told me that they have a sauna and he actually recommended me to go now look at this so i think this is the changing room quickly gonna get undressed and then here is a nice steamy sauna how cool is that the thing is i also got some back pain because of the riding i still have it i tried several things just doesn’t go away i think that probably today was a little bit too much riding as well so i don’t know but let’s see and now i think sauna is the best thing i can do to treat my back pain i think it’s gonna be amazing all right everything’s off now let me go in i think the first thing is i need to put some water here oh what a nice steam bath exactly what i want yeah gonna be honest with you it’s not the hottest suana ever but it’s more than enough and look at this so here are the stones i don’t know if you see that actually here are the stones and this is super hot water so i just at some point started pouring hot water over my neck it’s so comfortable it’s the best thing you can do after such a day my fingers were frozen you cannot imagine i felt like an itchiness in my fingers i don’t know at least half an hour after we reached so more than glad that they have a sauna here that’s such a luxury in such a remote place there’s no electricity but there’s a sauna so that’s awesome 90% blood oxygen according to my apple watch we are now at 3900m in altitude in a small village near the Karakul lake and yeah so far i’m feeling more or less good how do you feel? i start to feel the altitude i have a slight headache and today’s ride is extremely exhausting but i’m glad that we did it and finally end up in a room with a heating which is great and tomorrow we’re going to have another mountain pass that is over 4600 m i just hope things will be alright and keep the fingers crossed so that’s all for today thanks for watching and we’re going to sleep now and bye bye

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We’re embarking on one of the most challenging, yet most rewarding, journeys along the ancient Silk Road: a ride through the Pamirs.
Our adventure began in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, and led us to Sary Tash, a tiny village on the Pamir Plateau, right at the border with China and Tajikistan. The next morning, we set out to cross from Kyrgyzstan into Tajikistan, unaware that it had snowed overnight. What should have been a short 20 km stretch turned into a grueling three-hour climb to the border, sitting at 4,300 meters above sea level.
Battling altitude sickness and freezing temperatures, we pushed through exhaustion, and were rewarded at last with the breathtaking sight of Karakul Lake, surrounded by the raw, majestic beauty of the Pamirs.
Join us on this adventure through the Tajik Highlands of Badakhshan province 🎬

0:00 Intro
3:55 Sary Tash Kyrgyzstan
15:08 Leaving Kyrgyzstan
24:30 Entering Tajikistan
27:50 Karakul Lake

#kyrgyzstan #tajikistan #pamir #travel #silkroad #pamirhighway

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Where we stayed 🏡
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