Posts by Perju

In short, a bad choice on our part even though I was on fire! 😄

Uh, 😇... actually, no, I won’t add anything... 😏

Hi there, If they *are* avoidable, but you have to go east via Missour and Talsinnt, then Beni Tadjite.... uh, what? I don’t get it? 🤪 😏

Yeah... so when are you coming to try my vodka? 😉

And us?

Well then... you guys didn’t have vodka on the agenda... didn’t we talk about chicken with yellow wine and morels? That said, vodka takes way less work

Who told you it’s an avatar? They call him the Slav in the village … 😉

Yeah... so when are you coming to try my vodka? 😉

You haven’t overdone the apéro tonight, Perju?

No more than usual... so I’m wondering if that’s why people have been giving me weird looks for a few... years.

Hey, we forgot to visit the Attarine Madrasa this morning.

Uh... not sure if I'm up for it... oh well, let's go crazy...

Here we call it a "bouse"... the crap of Tarine... Yeah, okay, it's a bit of a stretch... we entertain ourselves however we can

I’ve got a top-notch address for pastilla...

At the camel?😇

At the camel???? No no! The restaurant isn’t called that, and besides, it’s not the same animal.. It’s "Collier de la Colombe"... the best pastilla in Morocco 😉

I’ll let Perju ask for them in couscous—I always stick with lamb.

If I understood correctly, you didn’t go to Meknes… for next time, I’ve got a top-notch address for a pastilla…😉

I say she still needs to change one more (last 😏) time... actually, I was just thinking... 😇

I guess in my case, the traveler’s diarrhea came from the drink since my companion wasn’t sick and drinks Coke. My previous partner also stayed healthy.

They both figured they needed an effective antidote...

I’ve always heard that if you want to eat good couscous, you have to go to a local restaurant… only on Fridays… they wouldn’t serve it any other day, and in other restaurants, it’d just be a tourist trap. Oh well, couscous isn’t my cup of tea anyway 😏

It's just a hypothesis... personally, I've asked for pork couscous many times—no way to get one! Yet I saw a photo from a member of this forum—I don’t remember the username 😇—but he was lying on the beach with a very beautiful sow. There must be a way to get it, right?

Hi there! I’m not familiar with this spice, but it might (maybe) enhance a traditional Russian soup like borscht, which is beet-based. 😉

Agnès loves manly drinks. 😏

Well, no, I adapt to my conversation partner... 😏 That said, I live in a (real) chalet... so I knew wall paints and wallpapers still existed when browsing the aisles of Leroy Merlin...

But these non-stop trips have to end soon! Can't you stay home for a bit and take care of this place... Don't you have some flower beds to maintain, lawns to mow, hedges to trim, fruit to harvest... jam to make... and I won't even mention touching up the interior paint and wallpaper...😇

Uh...??? What’s the risk at 3,000 m? 😏

Anzob Pass... I went through it in 2016... I had a particularly tough and disturbing experience there. We were in 3 4x4s, and after trying to take the old pass—due to the long line of cars on the tunnel ascent—we were forced to turn back, as the pass road was impassable because of landslides. It was mid-afternoon, and there were hundreds of vehicles stuck on the climb toward the tunnel entrance.





It was total chaos—everyone was trying to pass, in both directions. After several hours, I finally managed to enter the tunnel... only to get stuck again for at least an hour. Other drivers kept their engines running, and after a while, it became unbearable to breathe.





Eventually, I figured out why we were blocked—when I finally moved forward, I had to switch to the left lane to pass a truck that had broken its axle in the tunnel and was stuck in the right lane. But the atmosphere in the tunnel—no pavement, no lights... and as for ventilation... well...

Unfortunately, that’s when things took a tragic turn for the car right in front of me... When we exited the tunnel, it was nighttime, visibility was poor due to light rain, and we were descending on a dirt road... bordered on the right by a steep drop, certainly several hundred meters deep. Suddenly, I saw the vehicle in front of me swerve directly into the ravine on the right. I had no idea what had happened, but it turned sharply toward the void. Of course, the trucks coming up and those going down in my direction stopped. We couldn’t do anything—some called for help, others tried to climb down, but it was too steep, slippery, and there was no visibility. Even my powerful flashlight (which has a range of 300m) couldn’t illuminate the bottom of the ravine. We waited for at least an hour and saw lights that seemed to come from the bottom of the gorge, likely rescue teams trying to reach the car.

The story doesn’t end there—and this is the really disturbing part. I had gotten back into my vehicle and was discussing with the other two over the radio to decide if we should leave the area. Then I heard a knock on my passenger window and saw a Tajik man asking if I could give him a ride to Dushanbe, the capital. He looked completely different from the locals—dressed in pants with gaiters (like old mountain guides), a cowboy-style hat, and a very *gentleman farmer* jacket, plus a backpack. I told him okay, no problem, and let my friends know I had a passenger. We set off toward Dushanbe, with heavy traffic... and along the way, I tried to talk to him. He managed to make me understand that he had been in the car that had just fallen and had been ejected through the back door before climbing back up the slope!!!! I was, let’s say, a bit stunned... I asked if he knew about the other passengers, and he mimed a knife across his throat, implying to him that they were dead... and he did this without any emotion. I’ll admit the rest of the trip was pretty tense—I had no idea who I was dealing with. We passed a toll booth, and he calmly explained to the attendants what had just happened. They seemed to know him. A little later, he offered to take me to his place. Of course, I said we were too tired from the trip and were going to look for a hotel. He said no problem and called a friend who spoke pretty good English. We agreed to meet in the city. We met his friends, and he insisted on taking us to a hotel he knew—a great place, like a 4/5-star establishment, where the receptionist clearly knew him too.

He gave me his contact info, telling me that if I had any problems in Tajikistan, I just had to get in touch...

End of the story... I can’t shake the feeling that this accident wasn’t really an accident...😕

I recommend the Anzob Tunnel in Tajikistan 😎

😄😄😄

Chicken with morels on top!? (I was expecting Perju to make me eat a steak cooked on a barbecue)

Well, you were totally off... I eat very little red meat, I much prefer fish. But I did make chicken with morels and yellow wine just last week... with homemade morels, of course 😉