After successfully overcoming endless mountain passes and military checkpoints, our Soviet minibus finally starts to descend into the Wakhan Valley in Eastern Tajikistan. For about three days, our driver Valerij had skilfully manoeuvred us from Osh in Kyrgyzstan to here – and although probably one of the most dangerous roads in the world, rarely had we felt so safe sitting in a car in Central Asia.

Flanked by imposing Pamir mountains, the road would from now on lead us back towards vegetation, agriculture and constant human settlement – a welcome change after the inevitable altitude sickness and the freezing winds of the high plateau rising behind us us like a wall of ice and rock.

The Wakhan Valley has always been a contentious stretch of land in geopolitics. Across the border lies Afghanistan’s namesake Wakhan Corridor, an artefact of the 19th century Great Game, the imperial rivalry between Britain and Russia involving polyglot spies with long fake beards and a bagpack full of cartographic material. The British Empire in India and Tsarist Russia did not want to share a common border, thus they carved out a thin corridor from their territories and arbitrarily attached it to Afghanistan.

Today, the border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan is one of the world’s most trafficked drug smuggling routes. Opium, produced in Afghanistan’s unruly regions, is illicitly being shipped across the border rivers on its onward way to Europe. The military presence here is accordingly stepped up, although the Russian army has withdrawn its 201st Motor Rifle Division two years ago, making way for young and inexperienced Tajik conscripts.

Interaction between the Tajik and the Afghan sides, only a stone-throw apart, is limited. While inhabitants on both riverbanks share a common Ismaeli heritage, trade remains centred around a few bridges spanning across the fast and torrential river roaring down the valley to finally join the Amu-Darya further downstream.

“We used to trade with the town on the other side”, a Pamiri from the valley tells us. He and his fellow villagers owned a speedboat that could traverse the river in just a few seconds. “But one day, the Afghans stole it.” Skilful negotiation in this part of the world is often unheard of, especially with the other side’s anarchic relatives. So what did they do to get their boat back? “We kidnapped their Mullah”, the tradesman replies.

Although the bullet holes in their beautiful Pamiri house showed that it was not that peaceful a deal, the Afghans finally gave in after two weeks. Evidently, they chose a prominent Mullah, the Pamiri tells us. “We weren’t so sure after a week had passed and no one got into contact with us. People began to start laughing at us because we were so naïve in thinking that those on the other side would really trade a valuable boat against their Mullah. They would simply get a new one and keep the boat!”

Further down the road, we take a sidetrip up the mountains to our right and pay a visit to holy Sufi springs named after Bibi Fatima, the daughter of Prophet Mohammed. Although claimed to increase female fertility, a bath in the hot sulphuric water is good against any ailment, the local doctor assures us with a cigarette hanging between his teeth.

On both sides of the road, mainly women harvest the yields of the fertile land. The men, the cashier of the holy springs had told us, work in more responsible, administrative jobs. Even if that means staring idly at the wall most of the day.

Largely dependent on humanitarian assistance during the Tajik Civil War from 1992 to 1997, the Wakhan Valley is slowly recovering from the turmoil of the 1990s. Instability in neighbouring Afghanistan is scaring tourists away, however. Currently, only around 200 tourists per year take on the trip between Osh and Khorog, the capital of Tajikistan’s eastern Gorno-Badakhshan region.

Hopefully, this is going to change. Unparalleled hospitality, breathtaking landscapes and the opportunity to occasionally wave at Afghan herdsmen on the other side of the river make travel in this part of Tajikistan an experience never to be forgotten.