Pamir Highway, Second Gear

• Above Kalaikhum
• 09:30
• 29°C, hot in the gorge

Out of Kalaikhum the tarmac gives up in stages, like it is being honest with you at last. The Cruiser settled into second gear and stayed there most of the day. As a guide I am usually the one reassuring people. It was pleasant to be the passenger and let the road worry Davlat instead.

• Langar, Wakhan valley
• 13:20
• 27°C, dry heat

In Langar we were waved into a courtyard before I had finished asking directions. The grandmothers sat in the shade in their white scarves and asked the real questions: married, children, salary, why not. Nepal to them was a rumour of mountains even bigger than theirs. I showed photos. They were politely unconvinced.

• Ak-Baital pass
• 12:10
• 3°C, thin sun, hard wind

The highest point of the whole road and it announces itself with one modest sign and no ceremony. The Cruiser boiled a little on the last ramp, which Davlat treated as tradition rather than trouble. For scale: this pass is seven hundred metres short of Thorong La, and you drive it in slippers.

• Karakul
• 16:00
• 8°C, clear, cold for July

A lake at 3900 metres with nothing around it but light. Davlat switched the engine off on the rise above the shore and we sat there with the ticking of hot metal and absolutely nothing else. In Nepal there is always a bell, a dog, a generator somewhere. Here the silence is complete enough to be a place.