Over the course of the evening we decided that we may as well form a convoy since we were going along the same road over the same period; the other two teams had been convoying together since Europe anyway. They will probably be mentioned in other posts so I'll get the introductions out the way now. Inside the Khan Touch This' Toyota Yaris there is there Australians - James "Huangers" Huang, Stephen "Sharkey" Sharkey and Adam "Vertsy" Vertsonis. They're three friends from high school who are now in their late 20s. James' work is something to do with bikes, Stephen is a mechanic and Adam is a fellow civil engineer. The Nissan Micra with a lion cuddly toy ratchet strapped to the roof belongs to The Lion Rampant, a duo of third year students from Cambridge University - James Brooks and Miles Fan.

 

To kill time while we waited for the sump guard to be fitted to the Yaris we went to get some breakfast. At the cafe there was one other table of people and a collection of waitresses who didn't speak English. The three burly men eating sausage and eggs at the other table didn't look pleased as a table of seven tourists pointed at them while trying to order, they really didn't looked pleased the second and third time either. To avoid being murdered over sausage and eggs we accepted whatever the waitress had to offer, which wasn't too bad anyway, and headed back to collect the car.

 

With our three cars that look like they would have a hard time climbing a multi-storey car park we set off to do some mountain climbing, and complete the transition from travellers to adventurers. Before we left civilization we went to a supermarket to stock up on water and minute noodles. Next door to the market there was a barber who offered to give us all a shave and a hair cut for free, and a electronics shop. We turned down the barber and went to find some walkie-talkies instead so we could be a full on proper trucker convoy. Our set of three walkie talkies worked a treat as we left Dushanbe and decided our call signs. Each car was a colour and an animal, we are now Ginger Panther because 70% of the time it works all the time, the Australians are now Silver Fox because they're the oldest, and the Brits are now Red Lion for reasons I don't really understand.

 

I had heard there was a tunnel in between Dushanbe and the rest of the highway which is 5 km long, pitch black and full of potholes. Needless to say I was disappointed when we somehow avoided the "Tunnel of Death", as the guide book called it, and made some progress along a reasonable quality road. At around 1p.m. something really weird happened, the convoy pulled over in a town and the others got out their cars. Slightly confused we followed them into a building by the roadside, and sat around a wooden object inside. After a bit of wait some edible

objects were carried in from another room by a unknown human and placed in front of those gathered. The other people around the wooden object started to use metallic instruments to lift the edible objects into a hole in their face, this was getting very weird. Feeling very confused I asked what on earth was going on, and was told this was something called "lunch" and that they were the three-meal-a-day kind of people I have heard about. We have only been having two "meals" over the course of a day, but I'm sure we could adjust to our new travelling companions unusual eating habits if needs be.

 

After a nice "lunch" we made slower progress on the progressively worse roads but our sump guard was taking the blows nicely. By the time it was getting darker we had made a small dent in the total distance and decided to look for some place to camp by the roadside. After successfully completing our first river crossing through a trickle of water across the road, we came across a large flat green area by the river at the valley floor. The only problem was a building right next to it, we sent two people over to ask if it was ok to camp on their land. A few minutes later they returned to let us know that the man inside the building didn't know what the hell they were saying and he didn't seem to live in the house anyway. Counting that as a "Sure", we set up camp and watched Miles discover fire. Just before dark a pair of Italian brothers showed up in a Fiat Panda and joined our impromptu campsite for the evening.

Day 21 - Making C.W. McCall Happy

 

Start: Fending off kids in Dushanbe.

 

Finish: Finally successfully wild camping.