Stop for tea at a road-side restaurant – the sugar is about 9 times the volume of a ‘regular’ lump. The driver takes two, enough for the both of us.

Two? To stock up on enough energy to take him through to the early hours, no doubt. Got a visa that runs out tomorrow, so time say goodbye to Dushanbe and take a night-drive across the Fan Mountains to the border. It’s an eventful-in-slow-motion 12 hour journey – snow chains that take an age to attach as the weather closes in, changing a flat, plus a rear suspension that gives out about 5 hours into the drive – we only avoid more serious damage to the vehicle by crawling along the mountain roads in first. Slow going.

Ditch the car at Ayni and catch a ride to the border from a friendly police officer cum taxi driver.