**GOING-GOING-GONE**

view from our window across the river... As we mentioned in our last blog, we hadn't finished with our long weekend, which, on Monday Nov 8, brought us to the much touted Botanical Gardens (the second highest in the world, does anybody know where the highest are ??).    Sunday rituals, preparing for another magic carpet ride  Another cab-ride along a wild raging river brings you, on the outskirts of the city, to the bottom of a mountain (everything is at the bottom of a mountain here btw) , where we were unceremonously dropped off by the driver. We couldn't see anything which remotely looked like a garden but the signs were directing us towards the top of the mountain and, who are we to not obey, so we started making the long and steep climb. We were all alone; had expected many families and people here on a beautiful holiday afternoon but that didn't dampen our enthusiasm. After a track of 45 minutes, we ended up before a gate whic

The kids (here at a wedding) are all right - always It's Friday afternoon, 4:30 pm and a colleague mentions, by-the-way,  that Monday is a holiday as Constitution day falls on Saturday, 6th November.  A long week-end with places to go and things to see!!  To hell with a two week pile of unwashed clothes!   Here in Khorog, every Saturday morning  there is a cross-border market, which is the closest we can get to actually visiting Afghanistan.   View from the bridge in our village towards Afghanistan At 10 am Jelte, Rod and I hail a 'cab' and for the price of  just one Somoni each (the equivalent of 30c or 20p) we share a 'golf cart' - commonly known as a Chinese van - with 4 other passengers to take us to the site of the cross-border market.  When we arrive, things are just beginning to come alive.   Standing out in the crowd We wander around the few stalls of fruits and clothes and odds and ends. Jelte and Rod sit down to breakfast of 'choi' a