Blame Canadia
The morning after the trek we got driven straight to the ACTED office, in the hope that they would have an idea of how we could get to Khorog cheaply. Our little wrinkly man said he knew that some Canadians where going to Khorog in a minibus at 10 am from the market, it was now 11 am. He sent our driver to the market to see if he could find them and within 10 minutes the driver was back with a minibus and a minibus driver. The bus was leaving in an hour and the driver was willing to take us for 40 somani each ($13). The price of public transport would have been 35 somani but would be harder to find, so this was perfect.
Pete went back to the homestay with the driver to fetch the bags and Mike and I went to the market to get some travelling previsions (and got lost on the way back, but this is unimportant, beside the point, and quite embarrassing seeing as we only needed to find one road). We all got into the minibus in time with our bags and our provisions and drove off to find the Canadians. We spent a good hour looking around town, asking at each homestay. Finally we found someone who knew something. A small "nicely dressed" man from Khorog who was "friends" with the Canadians came to talk to us and the driver. He was quite wet and what Mike would describe as "proper bent", in fact, a bit of a girly pants. He said that his "friends" where having lunch and we would leave at 2 pm. We decided to follow suite and went to find a cafe with the help of the nice little man.
Half way through lunch a large, angry Canadian man walked in and put his dusty boot on the carpet. And he didn't shake our hands.
"OK guys, I understand you want to travel in OUR vehicle"
Slightly shocked, we explained that we'd spoken to a driver of a minibus who said that he was taking some other people and would take us too. The Canadian explained that "the situation" was that they'd hired the vehicle for 1000 somani (later proved to be a lie) for the three days, so the vehicle was theirs, so we should pay them and they wanted 350 somani. We said no. They asked of we wanted a ride. We said 120 somani. In the end, after a long explanation of how Mike and I are really quite small and although the Canadian did have longish legs, he didn't really have the right length of legs to demand 350 somani for loss of comfort, he came down to 200. We then sent him and his dusty boot out so we could finish our lunch.
After finishing our lunch (which was very yummy by the way - a kind of dumpling soup) we realized that this guy was being ridiculous, but we did quite need to get to Khorog in the next 24 hours and, after our "unanticipated 3 day break" in Sary-Tash, we wanted to take what we could.
On the way to the minibus at 1:30, armed with various plans to annoy the Canadians as much as possible for being absolute pr**ks, we bumped into an ACTED person who we'd met at the Tajik border who was looking after the Belgian family. We mentioned what had happened to him and asked for advice on who we where supposed to pay - the driver or the Canadians. He said that we where to pay the driver, we should tell the Canadians that we will pay them in Khorog then when we get there explain that our deal was with the driver. He talked to the driver in Russian and he agreed.
We waited in the bus until about 2:30. A Canadian girl came over, shook our hands, introduced herself quite nicely as one of the people we will be travelling with today. We started to feel guilty about planning to con them. Then she said,
"I'm sorry to do this now, but we really need the money now to pay for a few things."
Ha! So, we tell her that we're paying the driver. She then goes on the same tangent of "this is our vehicle". We explain that we'd spoken to a local tour guide who said that the way things work is that we owe the driver, not the hirer. She says that there must be some mix up, goes away and comes back with the Canadian with the dusty boots.
He asks what's going on, we say that we're not paying. He says that it's their vehicle, we say that it's the driver loosing petrol money by taking us. He says that he's loosing leg space, we say "dy Fam" and he gives us a funny look. He goes on about his bloody legs and I get pissed off. I tell him that his asking for money has nothing to do with his giant Canadian legs an he just wants to make a buck from us (because he's a mean man), he says "Yes". I said that they don't need the money, they'd already agreed to paying for the minibus so they're not loosing anything. He agreed to have paid 700 somani, yes reader, 700 somani, not 1000. So, I point out to this man that he'd hired the bus for 3 days for 700 somani and on his first offer was expecting us to pay half of that for only a 8 hour ride. He said "yes". Somehow his job pops into the conversation, he's a humanitarian worker. With beautiful tone of sarcasm Mike repeats his words. Mike then has a go at him for not practicing what he preaches, he replies by saying that it's "only his day job" at the weekends "he likes to be comfortable".
He says 200 somani or don't come, so we unpack our stuff from the bus. As we're unpacking, the drivers right/leftenant agrees to beat them up for us when they get to Khorog. Girly-pants feels pity on us and says that when we get to Khorog we can stay with him. He then gives Mike his home phone number. The other people in the group where talking to the man with the dusty boots telling him to just pay the extra money because they know he has it. We part without a handshake, but we did express the hope that the manage to find the extra 200 somewhere because it would be a shame if they couldn't afford to go.
We went back to our homestay where we had a banya (sauna with bowls of hot and cold water for washing), I painted a picture and at night Pete took pictures of the stars. The Canadians must have left about 4 pm, arriving Khorog in the dead of night.
Pete went back to the homestay with the driver to fetch the bags and Mike and I went to the market to get some travelling previsions (and got lost on the way back, but this is unimportant, beside the point, and quite embarrassing seeing as we only needed to find one road). We all got into the minibus in time with our bags and our provisions and drove off to find the Canadians. We spent a good hour looking around town, asking at each homestay. Finally we found someone who knew something. A small "nicely dressed" man from Khorog who was "friends" with the Canadians came to talk to us and the driver. He was quite wet and what Mike would describe as "proper bent", in fact, a bit of a girly pants. He said that his "friends" where having lunch and we would leave at 2 pm. We decided to follow suite and went to find a cafe with the help of the nice little man.
Half way through lunch a large, angry Canadian man walked in and put his dusty boot on the carpet. And he didn't shake our hands.
"OK guys, I understand you want to travel in OUR vehicle"
Slightly shocked, we explained that we'd spoken to a driver of a minibus who said that he was taking some other people and would take us too. The Canadian explained that "the situation" was that they'd hired the vehicle for 1000 somani (later proved to be a lie) for the three days, so the vehicle was theirs, so we should pay them and they wanted 350 somani. We said no. They asked of we wanted a ride. We said 120 somani. In the end, after a long explanation of how Mike and I are really quite small and although the Canadian did have longish legs, he didn't really have the right length of legs to demand 350 somani for loss of comfort, he came down to 200. We then sent him and his dusty boot out so we could finish our lunch.
After finishing our lunch (which was very yummy by the way - a kind of dumpling soup) we realized that this guy was being ridiculous, but we did quite need to get to Khorog in the next 24 hours and, after our "unanticipated 3 day break" in Sary-Tash, we wanted to take what we could.
On the way to the minibus at 1:30, armed with various plans to annoy the Canadians as much as possible for being absolute pr**ks, we bumped into an ACTED person who we'd met at the Tajik border who was looking after the Belgian family. We mentioned what had happened to him and asked for advice on who we where supposed to pay - the driver or the Canadians. He said that we where to pay the driver, we should tell the Canadians that we will pay them in Khorog then when we get there explain that our deal was with the driver. He talked to the driver in Russian and he agreed.
We waited in the bus until about 2:30. A Canadian girl came over, shook our hands, introduced herself quite nicely as one of the people we will be travelling with today. We started to feel guilty about planning to con them. Then she said,
"I'm sorry to do this now, but we really need the money now to pay for a few things."
Ha! So, we tell her that we're paying the driver. She then goes on the same tangent of "this is our vehicle". We explain that we'd spoken to a local tour guide who said that the way things work is that we owe the driver, not the hirer. She says that there must be some mix up, goes away and comes back with the Canadian with the dusty boots.
He asks what's going on, we say that we're not paying. He says that it's their vehicle, we say that it's the driver loosing petrol money by taking us. He says that he's loosing leg space, we say "dy Fam" and he gives us a funny look. He goes on about his bloody legs and I get pissed off. I tell him that his asking for money has nothing to do with his giant Canadian legs an he just wants to make a buck from us (because he's a mean man), he says "Yes". I said that they don't need the money, they'd already agreed to paying for the minibus so they're not loosing anything. He agreed to have paid 700 somani, yes reader, 700 somani, not 1000. So, I point out to this man that he'd hired the bus for 3 days for 700 somani and on his first offer was expecting us to pay half of that for only a 8 hour ride. He said "yes". Somehow his job pops into the conversation, he's a humanitarian worker. With beautiful tone of sarcasm Mike repeats his words. Mike then has a go at him for not practicing what he preaches, he replies by saying that it's "only his day job" at the weekends "he likes to be comfortable".
He says 200 somani or don't come, so we unpack our stuff from the bus. As we're unpacking, the drivers right/leftenant agrees to beat them up for us when they get to Khorog. Girly-pants feels pity on us and says that when we get to Khorog we can stay with him. He then gives Mike his home phone number. The other people in the group where talking to the man with the dusty boots telling him to just pay the extra money because they know he has it. We part without a handshake, but we did express the hope that the manage to find the extra 200 somewhere because it would be a shame if they couldn't afford to go.
We went back to our homestay where we had a banya (sauna with bowls of hot and cold water for washing), I painted a picture and at night Pete took pictures of the stars. The Canadians must have left about 4 pm, arriving Khorog in the dead of night.
posted by Lowri @ 3:38 pm
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