My recent trip to Tajikistan: Dushanbe and Hisor

Last year I decided to visit Central Asia, as I have always been fascinated by this part of the world. After Kazakhstan, Krygzstan, and Uzbekistan, my final stop was in Tajikistan. I took a ride sharing app to the border crossing. The soldiers were yelling at me in Russian and I couldn't understand what they were saying, eventually they took my suitcase from me and dug through it before giving it back to me. When I got to the other side of the border, I was swarmed by taxi drivers who were all trying to get business from the only two white people in the crowd. Unfortunately there are no meter taxis so you have to negotiate with the drivers who will upcharge foreigners. They were yelling lower and lower prices, but I picked one and stuck with him after confirming the price. Other taxi drivers were knocking on the window to get my attention. Then the driver doubled his price and I argued with him for a bit but just wanted to get away from the mob so I accepted. The driver tried to take an unnecessarily long route (presumably to try and increase the price) and I had to use a map to show him the correct way to go.

Dushanbe has some nice Soviet-style monuments mixed with a Turkic/Persian influence. I did not particularly enjoy the city because there isn't too much to see there and I guess I felt like things were getting repetitive after visiting the other countries. I also took a trip to Hisor in order to see Hisor fortress, which I loved. It looked like something from a fantasy movie with the beautiful castle and buildings contrasted by the bright vibrant clothing.

The cuisine is very meat-focused and so it can be difficult to find meals if you are a vegetarian like me. Google Maps and Google Translate are highly inaccurate in the region and so I recommend downloading Yandex Maps and Yandex Translate which are used more commonly there.

Overall very cool experience for a few days!