Karakorum Highway: Karakul; Tashkurgan

I had some extra time in Xinjiang so I embarked (along with my new friend David) on a journey up the Karakoram Highway. The KKH is one of the world’s great mountain roads. Several thousand kilometers long, it connects China with Pakistan (via Pakistan-controlled Kashmir). It is one of only a few roads that crosses the Himalaya, thus connecting North and South Asia (the other major road is the Friendship Highway between Tibet and Nepal).

So we boarded a public bus and headed up the highway. We had to sign a release form agreeing that we wouldn’t sue in the event our bus drove over a cliff. After a couple of hours we reached the edge of the desert and started climbing into the mountains. These mountains are part of the Greater Himalaya, but they can be further divided into more localized mountain systems. Our bus was traveling through the Pamir range, near the junction of the Karakoram, Kunlun, and Hindu Kush ranges. K2, the soecnd-highest mountain on earth, is not far from here. The climb begins in rock-strewn valley with a river crashing through it, colored an opaque grey with all the sediment turned up in its fury. Rising up the valley walls are brown and red mountains etched with layers of geological history. At a checkpoint we disembarked to wait in line and present our passports to the guard. Our bus driver was impatient and yelled at us to hurry up while we were in line to get our passports inspected. I don't know what he expected us to do, the last thing we wanted to do was to disobey the border police.

Most passengers were headed to the town of Tashkurgan, or to Pakistan, but we got off the bus six hours into the journey at Lake Karakul. The lake is 3,600 meters, or 12,000 feet high. The lake itself is shallow and blue. It is surrounded by a small amount of grassy meadow, on which about a hundred Kyrgyz people live in yurts, herding goats, sheep, and subsisting off yak and the occasional tourist. China has this interesting policy of defining counties by their predominant ethnic group. In this case, Lake Karakul is in a recognized “Kyrgyz Autonomous County". The yurts here are not collapsible tents, but concrete. There were a few traditional yak hide yurts, as well. There is one small hotel on the lake, which is conveniently adjacent to a ticket booth charging an "entrance fee" to the lake. As soon as we got off the bus, four Kyrgyz men surrounded us and competed amongst each other to convince us to spend the night in his family’s yurt. They showed us testimonials written in English (and French) by previous guests. It was a chaotic scene, and to make matters worse it was pouring rain, a fierce wind was howling, and it was blistering cold. David and I chose one, and we were not disappointed. Inside the yurt, there was a fire going in the stove and it was warm and toasty. The floor was lined with beautiful carpets, and we met the handsome wife and three year old son of the family. We would spent the night sleeping with the family in the yurt. For 30 yuan they gave us a place to sleep (on the carpet and snuggled under several warm blankets) and food (hard bread soaked in tea, yak's milk tea, watermelon, noodles with vegetables, and more hard bread soaked in tea for breakfast). It was definitely an experience David and I are unlikely to ever forget.

No one spoke any English, but we got along fine. The man and his wife were hospitable and friendly. There wasn't much to do at Lake Karakul except walk around and absorb the awesome scenery. Luckily, the storm soon passed and the sky cleared up. The lake was crystal clear. On the grassy meadows around it graze goats, sheep, yaks, horses, and camels. On three sides of the lake rise enormous mountains. Muztagh Ata to the south rises 7500 meters. Its entire upper half is covered in white snow. The lower half is barren rock. To the east are more snow-covered mountains, and to the north is a 7700 meter mountain.

Roger the Australian had told me on the train to Kashgar that he was part of an international expedition to climb Muztagh Ata. Sure enough, David and I found his expedition camped out in their tents just beyond our yurt village. Several of them were from the Bay Area. We chatted with them a bit, reminisced about REI and the Sierras, and they described to me their route of ascent up the mountain.

In the evening, after dinner, some of our host’s friends came over to our yurt for a visit. David taught them how to play Uno. It didn't matter that none of them spoke English. Men in China spend hours playing card games, so they caught on very quickly, and within a few rounds, they were beating us! We noticed that the wife did the lion's share of the work around the yurt. She did the cooking. And the cleaning. She prepared the beds at night. And milked the yak in the morning. She even chased the yak whenever it strayed away. All the husband did was recruit us to stay in his yurt, and try to sell us rocks. The men of the village hang around the highway all day long, waiting for potential guests, and for people to sell rocks to. Meanwhile, life goes on for their wives and daughters, who do the aforementioned chores, and weave shawls and linens.

The next day David had to go back to Kashgar but I had an extra day and decided to continue up to Tashkurgan, the last town before the Pakistan border. I waited by the side of the road for 1.5 hours hoping a bus would come, or at least a minivan or taxi, so I could share the ride with someone already en route. I knew the public bus wouldn't come for another 2.5 hours and I was tired of waiting, so I decided to hitchhike. One of the first trucks to pass by stopped and offered me a ride. In China it's customary to pay your driver when you hitchhike so we agreed on a fee – 20 yuan - which I thought was fare. The truck driver and his mate were Pakistani. I sat in the passengers' seat. My leg room was entirely taken up by two large ceramic pots carrying small trees. There were more plants behind me. What they were doing transporting trees from the Chinese desert to Pakistan I do not know. Anyway, the first couple hours were extremely awkward for my legs, which somehow contrived to stretch around the plants. I created more leg room by carrying one of the plants in my lap. At first I thought everything would be alright, as the road up until this point had been mostly paved, and not too terribly steep. But then the road become dirt, and we started climbing up the side of a mountain. I glanced at the spedometer and we were literally moving about 2-5 km/h for nearly an hour as we climbed that mountain. We didn't pass a single vehicle the whole time I rode with the Pakistanis, but we were passed by several other vehicles, including buses. The truckers were very friendly. They shared their lunch with me (hard bread and a peach), attempted to make conversation, and the guy in the middle seat offered to buy my watch (he thought I was "Canadian" and that the watch was "Canadian" too, even though I tried to explain to him that the watch was just a cheap knockoff I bought in China). The trip to Tashkurgan takes 2 hours according to Let's Go. It took us 4 hours.

At the edge of Tashkurgan there was another checkpoint (this being very near the Pakistan border now). I'm afraid something went wrong here, though I'm still not sure what. At first, the two truckers got out and gave their passports to the Chinese checkpoint guards. They told me to stay where I was, essentially hidden behind the trees in front of me (sounds like something out of a bad caper movie). Then they drove on. Then there was yelling from the checkpoint guards. The truck stopped again. I got out my passport and asked if I should go give it to the guards. They motioned me "no" but to get out and stay in front of the truck, out of view of the guards behind the truck. They went to talk to the guards. This went on for 10 or 15 minutes. When I started to walk towards the checkpoint the trucker saw me and motioned for me to stay where I was. Then a local Tajik boy walked by. He spoke some English and he seemed to say that the truckers were in trouble with the police for giving me a ride. I didn't seem to be in any trouble (the Tajik boy told me so), but I felt awfully bad for the truckers. I hope the truckers didn't get in too much trouble. I hoped it was a good sign when the driver fetched a watermelon from his truck to share with the guards.

I never saw the truckers again. I walked into Tashkurgan, which is the last town on the Karakoram Highway before the Pakistan border, and the westernmost city in China. Tashkurgan is in a Tajik county, so most of its residents are Tajiks. There are many hotels, catering to travelers and Pakistani truckers.

It's amazing how different the Tajiks and Kyrgyz are. Tajikistan and Kyrgystan are right next to each other on the map, but they are both extremely mountainous countries, each with their own identity and culture. The Tajik language and culture is more closely related to Iran and Persia, whereas the Kyrgyz are more like other Turkic-speaking Central Asians. Both groups where distinctive hats. Many of the Tajik men have blonde or brown hair, and most of the women seem to have red hair. The women wear lots of red in their clothing. Men women wear round, flat-topped hats tied to their heads with scarves around their necks. This combination of hat and scarve reminds me of the fashion during the Italian Renaissance!

There is one main boulevard in town. Follow it to the end and you’ll reach a beautiful green valley dotted with livestock and yurts and ringed by rocky and snowy mountains on all sides. The valley is much larger and greener than the one at Lake Karakul. The meadow is very marshy in places, with the grass sinking beneath my feat and meandering streams posing minor obstacles.. A very friendly donkey took a liking to me, nuzzling me and following me around.

I heard techno music coming from the direction of a cluster of yurts and, curiosity piqued, went to see where it was coming from. What I found was some sort of Tajik youth center. Boys were playing soccer on the meadow. Girls were gossiping and giggling. And sure enough techno music was coming from one of the yurts. Tajik techno music. I wandered inside and found a beautifully decked out yurt with red carpets and a big screen TV on which were playing Tajik music videos. Some Tajik teenagers, both boys and girls, invited me to join their folk dancing circle. It was impromptu. It was real. It wasn't there for tourists. No money was exchanged. It was fun.

Afterwards I climbed up the hill between the town from the valley. Atop the hill were the ruins of an old fort dating to AD 502. Another breathtaking site, with views of the valley and mountains all around. No ticket booth in sight, nor souvenir stands. It’s nice to know not everything has been incorporated into a formal (i.e. monetized) tourist infrastructure.

Tashkurgan being so close to the borders with India and Pakistan, there is a large and noticeable military presence here. Soldiers drill and march through the streets both day and night, chanting in unison. The soldiers look to be all or mostly Han Chinese, as opposed to the local ethnic groups. A lot of them look really young. Younger than me, anyway.

Ran into the group of Americans from Kashgar at my hotel, and the next morning we all boarded the public bus bound for Kashgar. The return journey was much quicker (being mostly downhill) although we still did run into a couple of hiccups. At the shore of Lake Karakul, near where I had stayed the previous night, the road was closed due to a construction detour. The bus drove around the obstacle on the meadow along the edge of the lake. I don't even want to think about the environmental repercussions. One truck had fallen right into the edge of the lake, and the Kyrgyz men who the day before had been making a living selling rocks were now employed with shovels attempting to dig the truck out.