Pamir Highway: Day 2 & 3 KalaiKhum – Jijev – Khorog

From Qalai Khumb we continued along the Pamir river and  towards the Bartang valley for our first overnight hike in Tajikistan to the Jijev village. Driving down southwest of the town, we stay very close to the Afghanistan border. The river is so narrow in certain sections that you could easily imagine someone to just swim across to the other side. Just as we near the tiny settlement of Shidz, the river widens up and more of the valley on the other end is revealed. There are green pastures under tall snowy mountains as far as we could see.  

At Rushan we turned inland towards Bartang valley. We now had the river Bartang as our constant companion but the road itself sadly wasn’t much to speak of. We however only had to drive 30kmts  to get to the start of our hike towards Jijev. The first part of the hike is to get across the raging Bartang river over a wobbly bridge. We arrive at the bridge that marks the starting point of the trail to Jijev, late afternoon at around 5pm. We saw another similar bridge about 5kmts before the actual bridge. If you see a flat patch of green meadow on the far end of the bridge then you aren’t on the one to Jijev. 

There is an old drag pulley next to the bridge which was what the locals used earlier to cross the river, thankfully we  didn’t have to use that anymore. The bridge is about 100mts and sways over the raging Bartang river. We packed a day pack with necessities just to spend the night in the village at the Dascha home stay. The walk over the wobbly bridge, especially if you were to look at the bridge alone, was sort of trippy considering how fast the river below flowed.

The trail past the bridge follows the Bartang river for few hundred meters before veering right where the blue Jejevdara stream emerges. The point where the clear blue waters of Jejev river meets the reddish grey Bartang river is quite a sight. After about 2kmts the trail briefly moves to the left of the river and a small blue lake comes into sight. We continue along the right edge of the lake and at about the  4kmts mark cross a small wooden bridge to the other side and have the stream on the right for the rest of our path towards Jijev.

The trail is mostly exposed to the sun, except for certain sections that are green and provide shade next to the river, a cool breeze soothes the body in such sections. However this part makes up for a very small portion and there is no way to avoid direct sun throughout the trail. So, bring enough water and lots of sunscreen. 

We arrived at Jijev village after about 2.5 hours, just around sunset and found out through whatever Russian was at our disposal, that the family hosting us lived 3kmts further. So, we continued the walk in the dark to the sound of thousands of groaning frogs. Each time we saw a pair of eyes flash with our headlamps it just got eerier. We arrived slightly after 8pm at Dacha guesthouse. Our host Munira welcomes us with a smile despite us showing up so late. She quickly arranged for our dinner and we retired for the day. As the night fell, the electricity free tiny home was a perfect base to admire the snowy peaks around under a moonlit sky.

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The village isn’t connected by road yet people here are self sufficient. They herd cattle for milk, chakka(yogurt) and  grow their vegetables on the foothills of the mountains. For the other necessary household items, they walk to the the nearby town, load them on donkeys and bring it to the village. In the morning, we were served warm breakfast after which we bid adieu to our host family and got to see the landscape around. We walked back along the stunning turquoise green lake and the village of Jijev shined on the far end. The color of the lake was nothing like what we saw so far on the trip, it had light blue hues on the shore that turned into emerald green as the lake deepened. 

We spent a good hour around the lake before taking the trail back to Jijev and onwards to the road. The sun was beating down by the time we approached the car. Our driver, Toorat waited promptly for us after spending the night in the nearby village up the road. He even chilled the watermelon we bought in Qalai Khumb in the chilly Bartang river waters. It made for an excellent post hike treat and tasted much sweeter than what we anticipated. 

 After the hike, we drove back towards the Afghanistan border and headed to Khorog, our stop for the evening. Many people on their pamir highway trip, take a direct flight or a shared taxi directly to Khorog. We can highly recommend taking the slow route, spending a day or two in Bartang before continuing on. 

The military presence increasingly grew as we approached Khorog. We were slightly alarmed by the big presence of Chinese military along with their dozens of choppers. The military people even happened to be there at the restaurant we stopped by for lunch.  Needless to say, it wasn’t the most comforting lunch we had. Later that evening we had multiple choppers circling above the city and overall the atmosphere seemed rather tense. 

The next thing we did after arriving in Khorog was to get a permit to visit Zorkul national reserve which borders Afghanistan, that we had vague plans to go to later in the trip. We however missed on taking the permit to Tajik national park, which we later found was needed to go to Yashikul. However we were able to buy this from the official just before we entered the Yashikul area. But we can recommend getting these in order ahead in Khorog, or in Murghab if starting in Osh to avoid any surprises at checkpoints. We hit up the local market in search of insect repellent and a gas canister, both of which were futile. So, if you are looking for buying any of the outdoor essentials, you are better off hitting the stores in Dushanbe. In Khorog we also gave in to our desires to eat some very spicy food and Delhi darbar didn’t disappoint.