Samarqand to Dushanbe (2/X); 6th June

Shortly after leaving the campspot, we left David who planned to hitch to Dushanbe, to meet up with Pierre and Tjalen, in order to ride the Bartang valley together. He found a lift after some time, and sent us a video of him overtaking us later in the day. 

Maylyn and I cycled to Sangistan and stayed in a clean and comfortable hotel. When having lunch on a bench, some women who had been tending to the fields came over to chat. One of them let MayLyn to her field and gave her a bunch of herbs. 

Later in the day, we stopped to buy some roadside fruit. Delicious and juicy apricots and some fruit which contains almond seed — I hadn’t realised almond was a seed, but the guy showed you need to eat the flesh of the fruit, which exposes a stone — then get a rock and smash the stone to reveal the almond seed. 

As we were leaving, some kids ran up to us and grabbed onto the panniers. When we stopped they asked for money. When we refused and tried to move on, they would grab into the panniers again which was quite annoying. We stopped and had a bit of a stand of, not saying anything. A couple of teenagers boys noticed and told the kids to go home, which was nice of them.