Fan mountains - massive failure and massive success!
A very strange public transport system (where a taxi driver hovers on a particular corner and raises 3 fingers to indicate he's the number 3 taxi (??)) got us to a hectic shared taxi stand, which eveeeeentually took us through some famously terribly made tunnels to the village of Servoda, at the foot (actually 40km from) Alaudin Lake, which was supposed to be our first destination. A very unethical taxi driver said he'd take us half way for what turns out was about 5x the price and we set off walking with over 20km still to go and light threatening to go!
It doesn't sound like the trip is going very well does it? Ha! However, the moment a little girl we passed stood up quick and thrust her hand to her heart with a solemn 'salam', our fortunes (sort of) changed! We walked through some amazing villages of small flat roofed houses were surrounded by farm lands and happily working people, everyone hilariously surprised to see us.
In the end a big slow heavy truck with 2 guys in the front trundled behind us and obliged our waving hand with a ride up the steep climb (literally 1 hr of driving and we were still 5km from the lake!).
Where they dropped us was a hostel thing that an NGO we're currently working on (the trucks was delivering their fencing :)). They spoke a little english and basically asked what we were doing there - 'it's off season?'.
We still trudged up to the lake to have a look, as the light was fading the rain began to fall and we pitched our tent just in time right next to the lake, 'sheltered' as best it could be underneath a big tree.
Rain didn't come through the tent... But it was so so very air tight that condensation collected at a rate of knots, basically having the same soggy effect. Most hilariously, we woke in the morning to find ourselves wheezing and struggling to breath - altitude sickness?, we were at 4000m? It turns out no! The tent is so air tight, we actually couldn't get enough air to breath ha!! Opening the fly net when the rain stopped put to bed that mystery!!
Even more ridiculous, the rain may have slowed but looking up we could see that the pass we had intended to take was a metre deep in snow, even at the bottom.
We packed up the tent, walked a little - we saw the main Alaudin lake and stuck our feet in some snow, to then return to the workers at the hostel.
They took us in, forced vodka on us, tea, even let us partake in their potato and chicken lunch outside in the sunshine. We had asked if they might be able to help us get a lift to the road to get round to another lake - Iskanderköl. They said yes yes yes, later, later we will give you a lift down.
After about 8 hours with them (!) we crammed in their van (they picked up a few extra shepherds on the way down the pretty terrifying road too)... After most drop offs they stopped at a village about 6 km from the road. We thought, fair enough, they've done us a big enough favor they don't have to take us all the way down! One of the nicer older guys starts beconning us and leads us through all the village streets past bemused looking children and loads of sheep and lambs. We assume of course he's finding us the path down. Nope. He's inviting us to his home - a carpenter by trade, his house is small and flat roofed like all the others but full of feature carved ceilings! He welcomed us (no options given!) so we gave the children sweets and played with them for a while before they served us plov and bread and soup ( all the women of the house must have had a heads up!). Sweets, tea, vodka, then they brought out an old soviet ripped up map and tried to get us to explain where we'd been! In the end they (the father and the son) were keeping us awake until the youngest son (who arrived from studying to be a medic in Dushanbe) could practice a little English with us.
In the end, we slept in their spare room on comfy mattresses on the floor (the central Asian style of sleeping!). We were woken to find eager children's faces poking in our window and as soon as we showed signs of movement breakfast was set out for us! And the view!! We had thought the star filled sky was impressive from the door, turns out the morning view from the toilet was even more impressive! It was so so kind of Sadillo and his family, Tajikistan hospitality at its finest!
We walked down the hill after farewells and thank yous and photos, wandering through the village famous! Finally down to Servoda and we were stopped again by a group of school children doing some outdoor performances for VE Day. Then we got a good price (this time) for a taxi round to the other lake - Iskanderköl. We stopped on the way in a village for Sam to have an impromptu kick about (a big group of boys were playing and when they saw us they shouted 'touriiiists, touriiiiists!') - adorable!
We camped in an idyllic spot by the lake (no rain this time!), walked round to a waterfall, tucked into our bread and cheese lunch, and it was already time to be back in Dushanbe with a hitch and taxi combo :).
