I’d had enough of driving through Tajikistan.

The two-day dirt-road rumble from the capital, Dushanbe, to the mountain town of Khorog had been enlivened by my sleep-deprived driver, Ergash, lolling dozily over the wheel while his decrepit van careened along a crumbling scratch in the cliffs high above the raging Panj River.

Then, as dusk fell on the second evening, he had stopped to pick up a couple of heavily painted ladies. “Get in, girls. Brian, these are my special friends. Tonight we stop at hotel in the hills, we drink vodka, we party together. You like to party, don’t you?”

The next morning, Ergash had stared at me with furious red eyes. “I’m not speaking to you. I can’t believe you went to bed early — I had to look after both women on my own.”

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So, when Ergash dropped me off, I paid him and, silently, fired him. At the end of the trip, I’d be flying back to Dushanbe.

A decision of little import, you might think, but only if you’ve never heard of the Khorog-Dushanbe hop — by reputation, the scariest scheduled flight in the world.

In Soviet days, it was the only route for which Aeroflot paid its pilots danger money: a 45-minute rollercoaster through — not over, through — the fearsome Hindu Kush mountains.

Its safety record isn’t bad: one flight went down in the 1980s, and that was hit by a rocket from neighbouring Afghanistan — but tales abound of wild turbulence, snow-scraping near misses and rubber-shredding landings.

For more than half the year, the flight doesn’t even try. But it was, for good or ill, a perfect morning when I wandered into Khorog airport. While Tajik Air’s facilities weren’t special — a ticket office and two benches in the scalding sun — it emerged that the ticketing system was cutting-edge.

Ryanair, take note. You could reserve a space only one day in advance — and not a space on a plane, but at the airport. Then, if enough people were milling around, they’d start selling tickets for a flight, which would leave when full. Genius.

It didn’t look good when I arrived — not many millers. “We’ve just filled a plane, it’s leaving now,” explained the tired, nicotine-stained boss. “Stick around, though. If there are enough people at Dushanbe, the plane will come back.”

I stuck, and stuck. The sun rose and roared. My connecting flights home drifted into the distance. The phone rang — news from Dushanbe.

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