Hello everyone!
In three weeks, I’ll be travelling independently from Dushanbe to Penjikent. Could you please advise me on how best to plan the trip to Penjikent? Is it possible to find a guide locally who could take me to the Seven Lakes? Ideally, of course, I’d like to join a group.
Shared taxis to Khujand and Penjikent leave from the Chorbog Station in Dushanbe. I think it’s around 150 somoni per person. If you stay at a local hotel in Penjikent, the hotels can help arrange a trip to the lakes (Artuch or the Seven Lakes). It’s also easy to find other foreign travellers at the hotel to share the trip with.
Thank you very much, that’s more or less what I expected. I’ve booked a hostel where foreign tourists mostly stay, so I think I’ll be able to find some people to team up with.
I’ll try different options. I was also thinking about going to Khujand instead of Penjikent, especially since there are even flights from Dushanbe to Khujand, but in the end I decided to go to Penjikent.
If you’re interested in excursions, then Penjikent is better. You have the Seven Lakes, Iskanderkul and the Alauddin Lakes there. Then again, the Varzob Gorge is closer to Dushanbe.
From Khujand, you can visit the Kairakkum Reservoir and the mountains (although there is also a lake in Shahristan). So it really depends on what interests you more.
By the way, there are also waterfalls near Varzob. Unfortunately, my excursion fell through. Otherwise, I would have gone hiking there. There are two of them — one is a longer route, the other is shorter. Roughly half a day and a full day.
I booked my trip to Iskanderkul through Tripster. After Tajikistan, I’m going to Tashkent, so my route goes through Samarkand, and then I’ll travel around Uzbekistan, visiting all the cities and eventually making my way to Nukus.
In that case, it would of course be easier to go from Samarkand to Tashkent through Tajikistan))))
And by the way, from Dushanbe I would still recommend going to Norak (Nurek) and the pomegranate orchard, as well as Hisor. One day is enough for both places, if you have the time, of course.
Well, there’s one big one and a smaller one, Ojok (the second one). There’s also one near the fifth bridge, but you have to walk farther.By the way, there are also waterfalls near Varzob.
So yes, there are quite a few of them there.