I’m happy to report that as I am typing this final passage - a coda composed in melodramatic fortissimo - I’m flea-free, overfed, and well-rested at the historical Kopp family estate on the autumn plains of central Missouri, listening to the soothing nighttime calls of the migratory birds, and wistfully thinking back over the last month of my travels spent in the mountains and valleys of Tajikistan. To begin at the end, it was at a remote outpost on the Tajikistan/Kyrgystan border shortly after an encounter with some charmingly corrupt Tajik border officials where, in a paroxysm of nostalgic longing for the land of my birth (an overpowering fit of homesickness, if you will) I decided to hang up the weary wheels that had already taken me further than I had any right to ask them. It was there that I fatefully clicked my fatigued cycling shoes together three times, and after thrice confirming verbally, “there’s no place like home,” found myself in a daze on a helicopter threading its way southwest through the Garm Valley back to the capital, Dushanbe. It’s taken some time to get around to posting this last update – since my homecoming it’s been such a whirlwind of excitement followed by intense sloth, followed again by tempestuous reunions with kith and kin that it has been hard to sit down in front of the computer to write this final farewell. Although it’s not everything I hoped for, nor is it everything that I wanted to give you, I endeavored to make this final installment of mikesbiketrip.com the emotional tour de force that you deserve.

So I believe you were left some time ago in Samarkand, Uzbekistan . . . *

Mosques, minarets and mausoleums of Samarkand vanished into the yellowing distance, along with fond memories of the prior evening’s uncorrupted transaction with an honest innkeeper, as I made my way along the passage from Uzbekistan to Tajikistan. Upon crossing into the Tajik territories, an unscrupulous border agent well-tutored in the ways of perfidy – a man as keen to do a villainous deed as he was disinclined to pursue honor - attempted to extract payment from me in the form of a purported duty on my bicycle. Although I am the first to embrace folly of most any sort, I felt compelled to decline to participate in or to reward his income supplementation customs caper. But after the bitter always comes the sweet. Just across the border on the road to the ancient Sogdian capital of Penjikent, the Tajiks had strewn long golden ribbons of wheat across the asphalt to be threshed by the passing traffic. Autumn, that quiet harbinger of the harvest and slaughter, of winter’s approach, a season of contemplation folded back upon itself, a precursor to solitude, was upon this nation.

In Penjikent I overnighted at a decaying Soviet Intourist hotel in a room plastered with giant posters of Tropical Thai flora and waterfalls. In the bathroom a slow trickle of water could be eked out of the faucet of the stained tub at a certain hour in the evening after repeated inquiries with reception (staffed by a Russian in a stained and sweaty tank top). What I found so tragic about these visits to the former USSR’s tourist facilities was the speed with which this world empire evidently had fallen into decay, these remnants of the once grand Bolshevik state decomposing through disrepair and abandonment. At the only tea house in town it was once again shashlyk and dilled tomato onion salad for dinner and then off to an undisturbed and peaceful night of rest.

Dirt roads and dust, drops and climbs, twists and turns occupied most of the next day of riding to the town of Anij, with a stop in the shade at a watermelon stand where I gorged along with a resting convoy of Tajik truckers who were also headed into the heights of the Fan Mountains. The dirt and gravel road ran along a river valley, with some sections perched precipitously high on a ledge above the waters. After a day of riding through grand canyon and mountain scenery I pedalled into Anij at dusk where I located the village's only hotel. That night I was treated to a flea infested bed in a room with outdoor pit toilets. In spite of liberal applications of toxic DEET over the course of the night, the flea circus on my bed would prove to be my trusty travel companions for the next several days. That evening I went out in search of dinner and found one operating tea house where there was one meal option available - what was currently in the pot - fortunately that was rather filling. I remember trying to buy some Cyrillic stamped frozen confection from some giggling girls at a street stall, but they could only laugh and run away. It was a little wierd. In the morning as I was loading my gear on my bike I met two German women who were working for Welt Hunger Hilfe, one of the many aid organizations in the country. I found out that one half of the hotel was occupied and renovated by the agency and its staff, but that it was otherwise abandoned. I was the only person staying in the non-agency flea-pit section. The Germans gave me some breakfast and invited me to one of the mountain lakes where they would be vacationing on the weekend, but I was set on staying the course to Dushanbe, and it was going to be a long slog climbing over the Anzob Pass.

Early in the morning *

*