Cycling Day 12 - Samarqand to Panjakent
I took off from Samarqand, a little sad to leave such a magical city, but my final leg of the trip was waiting for me. I had a relatively short ride today, only 40 miles. On the way, I passed the first bike tourer I had seen this entire trip, he had ridden from his hometown in China and was also headed to Dushanbe - we rode a few minutes together, but he was much slower than me and also spoke almost no English, so we said goodbye.
First bike tourer I ran into the entire trip
I rode on to the Tajikistan border. Although I would rate this border quite low on the sketchiness scale - it also scored rather low on thoroughness.
Man riding close to the border wearing a traditional Uzbek/Tajik hat
The Uzbek side of the border was typical - my passport and visa were scrutinized, checked several times and I got my stamp.
I walked over to the Tajik side and passed several windows, some had people in them but waved me through, others were closed. I couldn’t read the signs, as the Tajikistan side appeared to quickly drop the Russian pretense and switched everything to Tajik. Photos of the president shaking hands with various people adorned the walls both outside and inside the border station. I was very unclear on where to go and could have easily made it to the other side without receiving a stamp or being checked for anything. I finally made it to a window where the guard quickly stamped my passport. There were several other windows, including a customs declaration form. I was trying to interpret the form to see if I needed to declare anything, but someone came up to me and said it was only if I was bringing a vehicle into the country. It seemed like some random person, although all of the Tajik guards behind the clerical windows were not dressed in any discernible military or other kind of official looking clothing, so it was difficult to say. Even as I passed by the baggage x-ray machine, I was simply told to move along. No one checked my passport or documents and I suddenly arrived at the border gate and walked through. Somehow, the lack of security made me more uneasy than the overbearing security - if I am lacking some kind of document from this border crossing, I will be in for a nasty surprise when I try to leave.
At the border gate, entering Tajikistan
On the way to Panjakent, there was a sign for a UNESCO heritage site, Sarazm. It was just off the rode so I went to check it out. Sarazm is the ruins of an ancient town, likely settled around 3500BC. There was archaeological evidence found that suggests that they began to use metallurgy to forge items around 2700BC, and even independently developed their own method of ceramic production. There was little to see from the ruins themselves. There was also a museum located further inside the village. I went in, but everything was in Tajik and I wasn’t able to see much.
Entrance to Sarazm
There are a lot of billboards on the road, but none of them advertise anything commercial. Instead, they are all just pictures of the president accompanied by a quote by him.
I arrived in Panjakent early in the afternoon when it started to get hot.
Arrival in Panjakent
There was a restaurant at the lake and they set me up at a “tapchan” right on the lake and brought me some food from the restaurant - rack of lamb and some fries.
The tapchan on the lake where I both ate lunch and took a nap
I fell asleep on the mats and had a nice nap. There were a lot of people at the lake - mostly kids running around and playing in the water. When I woke up from my nap, I jumped in as well and cooled off.
View of the lake from my tapchan, I'm not sure why this tapchan in front of me was walled off so you couldn't see the lake, although you were sitting right on it.
Around sunset I needed to find a place to stay. I figured I could camp at the lake, so I asked the owner of the restaurant if there was a specific spot to camp. He said that I could use one of the gazebos located near the lake. The gazebos were more or less tapchans with privacy curtains. Although this did nothing for the bugs, and I didn’t want to get bitten by mosquitos all night. So I set up my tent inside the gazebo and brought the mattresses into the tent. It was comfortable, and mosquito-free.
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