Murghab is a far flung outpost in Tajikistan in the easter Pamirs, 'THe roof of the world'. I travelled there with Peregrine Adventures. of all the places we visited this was the most far out, though very close to the chinese border. the surrounding landscape is grand and elemental, but the town itself was as you see - blocky adobe architecture, sometimes whitewashed and trimmed with sky blue, replete with biscuits of dried yak dung stacked on the roofs for winter stove fuel. THe people were fantastic - very friendly and fun to be around. The only other travellers we saw were some French cyclists riding from Paris to Beijing. There were plenty of Kyrgyz men wearing their traditional felt hats, pointy leather boots and long cloaks too - the population is half Pamiri and Half Kyrgyz. the town was established as a Russian Military garrison early last century, but is likely to grow doe to an open trade pass between Tajikistan and China 70km away. plenty of chinese trucks head through Tajikistan but few go the other way. the other purported trade in town is ferrying drugs from Afghanistan -the border to the south is very porous. the thin seam of green before the town is the Murghab Piver, Murghab meaning river of birds in Persian. we saw some petroglyphs further along the valley -apparently they are very common in the area. it was a bit chilly even though it was summer and i yawned alot from the altitude. In Winter it is bitterely cold (-50 degrees) and chockas with snow.
