From Dushanbe I drove North to Khujan. I thought I had seen everything related to bad raods, but this was another thing: No road at all! I climbed a pass on a good road up to 2600m, then: nothing. The only cars venturing here were 4x4 Jeeps and....me. I drove the whole way up in  1st gear until my car finally got stuck in the mud. No way to go on further, not even to go back. So I walked down the pass to the Chinese workers who are constructing the road, and they came up to me with a Bulldozer to flatten a 200 meter section of mud. Finally I could continue, but now my exhaust is broken as well. I set a new slowness record: 28km in 2h45min.

In Khujand I met Javohir who showed me around and offered me hospitality for the night. I heard once more incredible stories from a dictatorship whu plunders its people. So, for instance everybody had to pay a minimum of +/- 50 $ to finance a big hydroelectric powerplant. In exchange they got shares from that plant whose construction started under soviet times alreadzy, and is still not working. 50$ is one month salary for a school teacher. Meantime I heard several times that peole wish the soviet times back.

This morning I set up another record. At the Uzbek border my car was checked for 4 hours for drugs. I must explain that this time I was driving West, and that Tajikistan is one of the majour drug routes for narcotics coming from Afghanistan. Also most of the Taliban are coming from Tajikistan. The reward for killing a US Soldier is 5000$, and many go to war for the money