Hello everyone,
I was wondering if anyone could tell me about the road condition from Penjikent to Dushanbe, and how long it might take driving it? It looks like it can easily be done in a day, but I was just checking to make sure. Has anyone done this recently?
Thanks for the help!
Jonathan
ImTrav1579
1
jpyrek
I did this in 2009. The road conditions varied. There was a LOT of construction on some very long tunnels through the mountains that were all leaking a lot. It can be done in a normal car, but something with more ground clearance would be a lot nicer. I want to say that it took about 6-8 hours or so, but I could be a bit off on that.
At the time they were closing off sections of the highway from 8am - 8 pm for road work so you had to drive it at night. I would imagine that has been completed by now, but according to folks, this was common practice. There are a lot of bridges too that are in need of work but all in all not the worst road I've ever been on. One of the things I do to find out info like this is to search on flickr or picasa for images of specific roads...and check the dates to see how recent they are. I know i have a few of the a244? (i think that's the road) on my flickr account.
2
onrrbike
Not sure if you plan on crossing the Ubek border here, but check to see if the border crossing is actually open.
We crossed north of Bekabod last year as the Penjikent one had been closed, for everyone for at least 6 months, with no hope of reopening in the near future.
3
jpyrek
that's odd. when was that? I felt bad when we crossed as it was about 2am and we woke up the guards. They were very friendly though and we hung out with them for a bit...drank some tea and then we showed them how to smoke cigars and shared some bourbon with them. Good times were had by all. We ended up running into one of the guards in Penjikent a few days later.
5
etc4ca
The Uzbek / Tajik border near Penjkent is closed to tourists (and many others) due to the continuing and worsening political tensions between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Don't expect it to open in the near future.
Instead, travel from Tashkent into Khujand or go further south in Uzbekistan and then travel directly into Dushanbe via Hissor. Both of these borders were open at the last time of inspection...
Pro tip
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