Tajikistan is a country in Central Asia known for its rugged mountains, ancient cities, and rich cultural heritage. This 10-day Tajikistan tour allows you to experience a range of sights and activities in this diverse and fascinating country.
10-day in The East - Tajikistan tour
10-day East Tajikistan tour: Dushanbe, Khujand, Kulob, Panjakent, Istaravshan, Kalai Khumb and Ishkashim. Airport transfers, 3-star hotels included.
Product SKU: TJK10/ DYU/ DYU
Product Brand: RJ Travel - Tour Operator
Product Currency: USD
Product Price: 1955
Product In-Stock: InStock
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Dushanbe
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Dushanbe
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3-star and 4-star hotels
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Included
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4x4 vehicles
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Dushanbe, Kalai Khumb, Iskanderkul, Khorog, Ishkoshim, Qalai Khumb, Panjakent, Khujand, Istaravshan
10-day Tajikistan itinerary
Met at Dushanbe and driven east, straight into the mountains, along the Panj river that forms the border with Afghanistan. The road is spectacular and slow. Kalai Khumb sits in a gorge where the river turns, and from the guest house you look across at Afghan villages on the far bank.
Overnight: hotel / mountain guest house.
A gentler day in the Darvaz: the bazaar, the river, and the small fortress the town is named for. This is Pamiri Ismaili country, and the houses are built to a specific design — five pillars for the five holy figures, and a skylight of four concentric squares for earth, water, air and fire. Ask to be shown inside one; people generally say yes.
Overnight: hotel / mountain guest house.
The full day on the Panj with Afghanistan on your right the entire way — donkey trains, mud-brick villages, a man on a horse, and no road on that side worth the name. Khorog at the end of it: capital of the Pamirs, 2,200 metres, with a university and a botanical garden that has no business existing at this altitude.
Overnight: hotel / mountain guest house.
South from Khorog to Garm Chashma, hot springs that have built their own white travertine terraces out of the hillside — you can get in. Then into the Wakhan Corridor at Ishkashim, the strip of Afghanistan deliberately left between two empires, with the Hindu Kush rising on the far side of the water.
Overnight: hotel / mountain guest house.
The Wakhan in full. Yamchun, a 3rd-century BC fortress on a cliff edge with the Hindu Kush filling the horizon. The Bibi Fatima hot springs in a cave just above it, which Tajik women visit for fertility. The Buddhist stupa at Vrang, from the centuries when this valley was a Buddhist highway to China. And Afghanistan, thirty metres away across the river, all day long.
Overnight: hotel / mountain guest house.
Out of the mountains and west to Dushanbe — back to plane trees, teahouses and the tallest flagpole in Central Asia, a title the city holds and is quietly pleased about.
Overnight: hotel / mountain guest house.
A full day in the capital: the thirteen-metre reclining Buddha in the National Museum, the Persian-poetry monuments of Rudaki Park, and an afternoon at Hissar, the fortress gate that has stood on the Samarkand–India road for 2,500 years.
Overnight: hotel / mountain guest house.
North-west to Panjakent, the Sogdian city the Arabs destroyed in 722 AD after its last ruler chose to fight. The frescoes recovered here — banquets, harpists, a scene from the Iliad — are the best surviving Sogdian painting, and the civilisation that made them was gone within a generation.
Overnight: hotel / mountain guest house.
North over the Shahriston pass and down into the Fergana Valley to Khujand — Alexandria Eschate, the furthest city Alexander founded. The Panjshanbe Bazaar under its blue-tiled hall is one of the great markets of Central Asia, and the fortress museum tells the story of a place besieged in turn by Alexander, Genghis Khan and the Tsar's army.
Overnight: hotel / mountain guest house.
Istaravshan is 2,500 years old and still has its craftsmen — knife-makers above all, working the same steel in the same lanes. Alexander stormed the place. Then back over the pass to Dushanbe and your flight. End of our services.
