Tajikistan Highlights and Lowlights

The country of Tajikistan is a haven for natural beauty with towering mountains of the Pamirs and Hindu Kush.  The country's neighbors include Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east.  Most of Tajikistan's population belongs to the Persian-speaking Tajik ethnic group, who share language, culture and history with Afghanistan and Iran. 

Highlights:

• Sleeping at homestays instead of hotels and spending time with the locals
• Witnessing the beauty of the Pamir Mountains
• Successfully communicating with our hands due to the language divide
• Seeing ruins and forts from by gone years
• Nan, Sharchai, homemade (butter, yogurt, milk, jam)
• The Badakshan hospitality
• Tajik music
• Caveman paintings and the isolated but magnificent surroundings
• Drive from Khorog to Dushanbe

Lowlights:

• Almost losing our life on the Pamir Highway
• Getting stuck on no-man's land for 5 days
• Almost getting thrown out of a car at the Tajik/Kyrgyz border over a money dispute
• Leaving Kyrgyzstan and then having to turn back around due to the condition of the car and icy roads
• Dushanbe (capital city)
• Soviet style hotels