Related Viloyati Mukhtori Kuhistoni Badakhshon Favorites Tips

Favorite thing: Markus Hauser, the one who worked on the Pamirs Map, also has his own website with lots of pictures, descriptions of his expeditions, etc.
Please check Markus Hauser website , with his email adress, if you have further questions (but please only if you plan to trek or hike or climb mountains).

For any other interest, the famous Pamirs Website , which I recommended in the previous tip, gives a huge load of references and books on Pamirs, check their “references, books and links” section (and you need some minutes to scroll down, hihi).

And last but not least, if you plan to hike or need transport, please check the META website to get ideas about what you can do. META stands for Murghab EcoTourism Association, and is a very helpful, very friendly, very reliable and extremely fair company, which helps you to find your way in this gorgeous part of the world (as opposed to Traveltajikistan, which I here again disadvise, as they have the dollar sign in their eyes).

Fondest memory: I don't know when (or if) I ever find the time to update properly.
But I have written an extensive account about Tajikistan, where you find all the additional general information I did not yet transfer to this Pamirs VT page:
* borders, border crossing and procedures,
* helpful facts about Tajikistan,
* what is Pamir, what is Tajikistan?,
* weather and when to travel,
* money, how much and where to change?,
* learn Russian,
* hospitality,
* buy and organise local,
* try to understand Islamic beliefs.

And in the to-do section I wrote about:
* travel Pamir Highway,
* staying in a Kyrgyz yurt,
* geothermal activity and hot springs,
* petroglyphs,
* flora and fauna.

Favorite thing: A permit for Pamir region is essential for any travel within the Pamirs (be it for hiking, mountaineering or any other activity).
Police and Military guys will permanently check you, and if you don’t have it, you will be in bad shape – the less worse thing they’ll do is to fine you. The worse… I don’t know, and I did not try to find out.

GBAO stands for Gorno Badakhshan Avtonomnaya Oblast, or the autonomous region of Gorno-Badakhshan, which was established in 1925 by the Sovjets. The autonomous status remained after independence, but it is still controlled by the russians due to it’s border with Afghanistan. Well, this is politically not correct, it is GBAO people, which control the region, but the further I travelled on Pamir Highway, the more I got the feeling that all is still old times (which theoretically I cannot judge, but…. my Karakul experience was enough to make me not want to know more…)

Well, GBAO permits nowadays are issued by a lot of agencies, some being reliable, some not much. I got mine through Traveltajikistan, for GBP 35, plus GBP 0,53 for using creditcard as payment.
I got a scan copy via mail, just before I left, and picked up the original in Dushanbe.

Update, April 22, 2007:
In the meantime I got the information that Stantours is only charging 40 USD for the permit, as opposed to 70 USD = 35 GBP, TT is charging. So even no reason anymore to get the permit through this rip-off TT - ha !


Fondest memory: When you order the permit, make sure you have all 7 GBAO regions listed there. There is no difference in the price, but you might experience problems when a region, you are travelling in, is not listed on your permit.

On mine, you can see:
Хорог = Khorog
Дарваз =Darvaz
Ванч = Vanj
Рушан = Roshan
Ишкашим = Ishkashim
Мургаб = Murghab
It also shows the date, in my case July 15 to August 25.
Missing is Roshtkala (well, maybe I will ask them why they forgot it.........)

Yes, I can recommend to get the GBAO permit via Traveltajikistan, but otherwise I definitely cannot and will not recommend this “establishment” company for any other service. I have made very bad experience with their so-called other services, it seems that they charge you even for a handshake. More under "warnings & dangers".

I have met trekkers, who got their GBAO permit in Dushanbe, from a local reliable agency. As soon as they are back, I'll get their recommendation and publish it here.

2 more images

Favorite thing: As I wrote before, there are quite a lot of checkpoints where military or police guys will look at your documents. Make sure, you have all of them (Visa, GBAO permit and the OVIR stamp in your passport).
At the time of my travel (July 2006), checkpoints have been at:
Khorog, just 2 km out of town: friendly, no hassle;
Murghab, 16 km south: friendly, no hassle,
Murghab, 2 km south: a bit nasty, but finally, we all could pass,
Murghab, police office in town: yes, you also need to go there for controls, no matter if you have passed and been registered the 2 stations before. The police lady was quite interrogating, and even found that my visa had a tyoing error…. Berlin embassy wrote as date of entry July 15, 2006, but date of expiring July 24, 2005….But well, after some discussions, she finally understood that it was not my fault….
Karakul, 1 km south of town: friendly, no hassle,
but:
then we had to turn right to visit another checkpoint, 100 m away, this time, around 15 young guys (between 15, 16 and 25 or so years old), nicely dressed in camouflage overalls, their kalashnikovs over their shoulder or in their hand, were waiting for us. Some had quite a weird, even dumb look on their face, I was wondering what the selection criteria are…
Well, passports were handed over, this time none was allowed to follow the one who took them and we waited, while the guys were peaking in the car, touching our daypacks and being extremely curious about all and everything (and I HATE it, if people get closer than some 20 cm).
Well, I had a very strange feeling, I never had any kind of gun pointing at me, and even if they did noting, you never know who gets some nervous finger.
I halfway expected the guy coming back with the passports to hand them back only against some bribe – but luckily, this was not the case, well, we had to give them cigarettes before we got the passports back.
Murghab, some 30 km north of: very quick, very friendly, no hassle.

Fondest memory:
I have added 3 map scans of where to encounter the checkpoints - the green arrows pointing.

Conclusion:
Even if you don’t feel like, be patient when you get to the checkpoints, hand over your passport, make sure that one of your travel group is always going with the police/military guy (just to be sure what happens with the documents).
If someone wants a bribe, before he hands back your passports – well, I do not have an answer for this. I was prepared, for such a case, to ask for his boss, nachalnik in russian, but thanks god, I did not need it.