Having recuperated from a combined bout of altitude sickness andfood poisoning for a few days in the relative civilisation of Khorog and its stunning environs, and having had the luxury of a hot shower and a couple of decent meals, it was time to leave the Pamir Mountains. If getting into the Pamir had been a difficult job, getting out of them again was to prove equally, if not more, problematic. Khorog lies some 300km to the south-east of Dushanbe a...

Ask where Tajikistan is to the average member of the public and they will give you a blank look or bewildered shrug of the shoulders; even to Russians, for whom it was once a member of their empire, it is very little-known. Tajikistan was the poorest republic of the old Soviet Union, and today it is the poorest republic to have emerged from its break-up; so in that respect very little has changed. A savage civil war followed independence and raged on through most...