Wakhan corridor

The Wakhan corridor (37° 0′ 0″ N, 73° 0′ 0″ E) with views across the Pyandj and Pamir rivers to the peaks of the Hindu Kush in Pakistan; the Wakhan contains many traces of the multicultural history of the Silk Route and the spread of major religions.The valleys of the Shokhdara and Pamir (37° 10′ 0″ N, 72° 0′ 0″ E) rivers; here, in beautiful natural surroundings, there are vestiges of the centuries-long struggle for control of the fertile lands of the Pamirs. Shokhdara lies in the extreme south-western Pamir in Tajikistan's Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province. It runs roughly in the east-west direction between Shakhdara River to the north and Panj on the border with Afghanistan to the south, rising toward Mayakovskiy Peak (6,096 m) in the west and Karl Marx Peak (6,726 m) in the east. Takes its name (in both English and Russian) from the Shakhdara River, and is sometimes erroneously called Shakhdarin Range (or Shakhdarin Mountains), a corruption of the Russian name.

The Pamir Highway (M 41), the lifeline to markets in Kyrgyzstan (and, in future, China); this is the real Pamir: high plateau desert and multi-colored rock formations resembling more a moonscape than mountains; this region used to be at the bottom of the sea and was pushed up by the geological phenomenon of continental drift and the clash of tectonic plates.

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