The border with Kyrgyzstan was on top of those mountains, on the Kyzyl-Art Pass. It wasn’t long before I noticed the road was starting to climb. The asphalt ended and the road continued unpaved. Soon, I was crossing small frozen streams of water. I could hear the ice crack as my tires broke through. The thin gloves I’d bought on the Chinese market in Murghab and that I used as extra layer under my motorcycle gloves again didn’t help much. My hands were soon hurting just as badly as they had the day before, and then they went numb again. I didn’t understand how it could be this sunny while it was so terribly cold at the same time.
I realized that, yet again, I had made a terrible mistake. I couldn’t quite understand: Why was I so unteachable? Was it just a matter of my over-optimism? I had once again allowed myself to be thrown off by focusing only on travel distance. Thirty miles hadn’t seemed like much. Usually I could cover that kind of distance in thirty minutes. But here, on an unpaved Pamir, a road covered in rocks and snow, I barely moved at ten miles an hour. At this pace, I would have to brave the cold for two and a half hours. The icy wind made my breath stick awkwardly in my throat. Even though I had already mastered the even higher Ak-Baital Pass, I once again struggled with a lack of oxygen. I gasped and panted for breath that never came. My teeth were chattering so hard that it wouldn’t have surprised me if the guards at the border could hear me coming already. My numbness had made it so hard to keep the throttle open that I involuntarily closed it every now and then, only to reopen it all the way with a jerk. From a distance, it must have looked like it was my first time on a motorcycle. Suddenly I no longer felt like the badass Pamir adventurer of that morning.
Eventually I reached the border, chilled to the bone. This was the border post of Tajikistan, and I saw a collection of small, white buildings. I stopped Basanti in front of the lowered barrier, right next to a car with luggage piled high on its roof. I awkwardly hopped on my left foot as I pulled my right leg over the seat and got off. I was completely out of breath. Like any other border crossing, some guy approached me and led me to one of the buildings. I stepped inside and was greeted by a border guard. He was wearing blue camo pants, army boots, and a short-sleeved T-shirt. A short-sleeved T-shirt!
“Cold?” he asked in English. My hands and feet hurt so much that all I could do was grunt, but because I could barely breathe, I wasn’t able to say anything at all. “Your shoes,” he said, pointing at them. He wasn’t too stoked about my muddy motorcycle boots in his office. My frenzied gaze went to my boots and back to him, and he knew enough.
“Go on, go on,” he said, having switched to Russian. Davai davai. He pointed at a small wooden bench for me to sit on. There was no way my numb hands would be able to take off my gloves, let alone my boots. While I tried to catch my breath and stop panting, the border guard carefully pulled off my double layer of gloves and then my boots. I carefully peeled my socks off the frozen stumps that only this morning had still been feet. There was a woodstove in the corner of the office, and the border guard placed my boots as close to it as possible.
Next, he focused his attention on my blood-drained hands. He said something to his colleague, who had joined us in the office, and shot another concerned look at my numb fingers. He briefly disappeared outside and returned with a bowl of lukewarm water. He gestured for me to put my fingers in it and said: “Frost.” Was he worried about frostbite? I always thought your fingers had to be black to be talking about frostbite, but I trusted the Tajik’s knowledge more than my own. While I laid my fingers in the bowl of lukewarm water, another man placed a tall glass of steaming tea in front of me and an extra pair of socks on the bench next to me. Delighted, I looked at the thick woolen socks. They were brand-new. He mumbled something and I thanked him three times or more. For an hour that’s how I sat there—with my feet next to the woodstove, drinking hot tea, and slowly feeling my body temperature get back to normal. I was at a loss for words at the kindness of these people. When I’d warmed up enough to carry on, I put on my new woolen socks and stepped back into my boots. The border guard with the blue camo pants stamped my passport and collected Basanti’s temporary import papers. I was free to leave Tajikistan
The narrator has similar accent and phrasing to Peter O'Toole so comfortable listen.
www.theguardian.com
