Khorugh Things to Do

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The botanical garden was something very much interesting to visit while I was here. LP said that it is the second highest in the world, at 3900 m (all other sources I found said the same, but they most probably have only copied LP). It cannot be that high, as Khorog is 2200 m, and this would have meant a difference of 1700 m, which was simply not the case. My altimeter showed 2200 m for Khorog and 2800 m in the gaden (at the highest point I was at), so maximum 3000 m.
The garden is located west of town, way too long to walk in the heat. Better take a “taxi”, which is, try and hitchike. Passing cars will pick you up, but be aware that you should pay for the lift (around 6 som). Depending on where the car will go, they most probably will drop you off at the garden’s lower entrance. From here, you have to walk uphill, around 500 m higher. I was lucky, a truck came along the road and gave me a lift (uff, I would have ended food for the condors, if no car would have been there).
The garden itself is on a huge terrain, and several roads lead along the different trees. In the higher section (where the main entrance is), I didn’t see any signs at the plants, but the lower I got, the more plants were described with little plates (in Russian and Latin that is). It was mostly trees from almost everywhere (some names I could identify through their Latin name), and even a bit lower in the garden, they had beautiful flowers planted. Oh, and I could fill my belly with very much delicious blackberries (ah, so juicy, I can still feel them on my tongue). If this was good or bad for my still very much present Montezuma, I don’t know – but the heck, they tasted delicious.
You can overlook the eastern section of Gunt valley and I could also see where the next part of this trip – the beginning of Pamir highway, was leading to.

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As I was a bit longer in Khorog than originally planned, I did see a lot of this charming town. One of the real highlights was the visit in the little museum. Well, little is not exactly true, as it is bigger than one would expect a museum in such a little town. It has a lot of objects from the very early days of settling in Pamirs, and shows quite nicely how life was those days. Practically, not very much has changed since then, as the settlings still don’t have running water and electricity (well, that said, I did see a satellite bowl at one of the yurts along Pamir highway). I enjoyed this museum very much, mainly the very creative objects like the mousetrap in the first photo, or crampons.
The most fascinating however was a girl that was obviously called for as soon as the forgeinger has entered the museum. She was around 17, spoke excellent English (way better than mine) and said that she just came back from a year in US, part of the Aga Khan Foundation teaching program. She explained everything in detail (as all descriptions in the museum are in Russian, partly in Tajik) and was (is of course) obviously very proud of being Pamiri (which she can be, as the people were one of the most friendliest I ever met anywhere on travels).

Admission to the museum was 2 som p.p. It is open from 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. (with lunch break from 1-2).