I know it has been incredibly quiet here and in fact friends who have asked whats happening next have been asked to politely wait a little bit until I sort everything out and then I will tell everyone everything.

This wait I am sad to say is not quite over yet, so stay tuned for another week or so, but have faith it's almost done now!

I have been very busy with work lately so I have not had any time to edit videos from South America nor do any weeklies. However as usual I promise to be a good boy soon, there is just soooo much on my mind right now!

Last Thursday I went to Tajikistan with three Finns, we took a turboprop and the sound led me back to all the Indiana Jones movies, together with the dim cabin lights I slept and dreamed of times passed. Once in Dushanbe we started by having a beer at the airport before we took a Lada to the hotel and checked in.

Hotels in Tajikistan are fairly expensive at 20 Euros per room, per night. Our hotel looked absolutely majestic on the outside and had fantastic double staircases, all very grand. But like so much else in Tajikistan it had been left to disrepair and the rooms where not what I would call top notch (faaaar from it).

In general There is lots of buildings in exactly that state, but anything done the last 10 years is very shiny and you can see that the economy has really picked up.

We hit the town and were amazed by the wide boulevards with parks in between and wide parade streets. Very impressive feel.
Then the Finns realized vodka was €3 per 0.5L bottle at any restaurant (the expensive vodka mind you, very tasty). So we all drank waaaay to much before finally hitting the bed.

Friday was spent realizing we didn't remember much from yesterday and then hitting the bars again, this time however I kept to the shisha only. We also did walk a little in the city but none of us were reeeeally in the mood for exercise.

On the Saturday we took a taxi about 15k's out to a fort where the king of the greater area had once ruled and even tho there was not that much left you still got a feel for it. The Russians had shot most of it to bits during the last defense however the main gates had been rebuilt.

The taxi driver we had to take us there also guided us around even tho he had never been there himself nor spoke a word of English :-)
When we told him we were living in Kabul however he showed us he's scars from a bullet that went straight trough his shoulder. He had been part of the Mujahedin it turned out. He claimed to have killed 51! and it would not surprise me if that was the truth. Very nice guy though.

In the evening we were lucky to get the last table in a super cozy restaurant I had spotted, it turns out it was Halloween and not even in Tajikistan are you safe from such monstrosities. The place was very cozy with a feel like "St markus vinkällare in Malmö" for those who have been there. It was also our most expensive dinner at €11 per person (which included starters, beers, mains, vodka and whatever else we had).

Sunday was spent strolling trough the city a bit more extensively while eating every 50m :-)
Amongst other things we got to see the presidential palace and the park in front that hat very cool lights set up everywhere.

Finally Monday was just relaxing all day and going to bed early to catch a really really early morning flight back to Kabul where I then spent the day working before writing this.

So all in all, there is not much to do, and 3 or even 2 full days would be more than enough but I needed a break from work and it was a very nice and calm destination. In many ways it felt very European in it's style including the food offered in food stores. I could definitely see myself living there. The light plays and evening displays were in many ways much cooler than most stuff in Sweden.