My travel diaries
Wednesday 1 August, 2007 - Tashkurgan, Xinjiang, China
A huge lie in this morning, because the border check post doesn't open until 9 o'clock. We take breakfast at 8 and wander over to a yard just down the road from the hotel where our baggage is supposed to be inspected. On the way Geoff admits to me that he might have made a small error of judgment. He has brought several packets of hydrated food consisting of a fine white powder, which you add water to to create a meal. In an effort to cut down on packaging, in his wisdom he decided to transfer the contents of all of them into clear plastic bags. If his bags are searched and the packets are found he thinks he might have some explaining to do. Fortunately the only bags searched are mine and David's. After a cursory rummage through mine, the customs officer opens up David's, sniffs his pee bottle, decides that's enough and declares we're free to move on. There's no queue in another building where we go to get our passports stamped so we're free to leave Pakistan at 9.30. Sadly this is by no means the last inspection we have to go through today, but it's a nice start.
Khunjerab National Park
We bid goodbye to Sharif, who is returning to Islamabad to meet a trekking group, climb into a different bus and depart. Starting at an altitude of 2800m, the road climbs up a narrow rocky gorge bereft of vegetation and with no views except grey rock walls and a milky river to our right. After a short drive we stop at the entrance to Khunjerab National Park, where we have our passports inspected and permits issued at another checkpoint, a small tin shack by the side of the road among scrubby trees and bushes. It's hard to believe much wildlife lives up here in these barren surroundings, but the national park was opened in 1975 at the instigation of the naturalist George Schaller to protect the local population of rare Marco Polo sheep.
The road is flooded
We climb steadily to 3500m but then have to stop when we reach a place where the road ahead of us is flooded. A group of scouts who have walked all the way from Gilgit is camped by the side of the road. They have put down stepping stones to allow us to walk along the flooded road and assess the feasibility of getting through. They have been there some hours and say although quite a lot of people have been turning back, several have driven through without difficulty. A lorry has turned rather dramatically on its side and lies in a shallow lake formed where the flooded road meets the river. The driver strayed too close to the edge of the road while driving through the water and drove off a very small bank large enough to turn his vehicle right over. I talk to a scout who witnessed the accident; he says that although the driver was unhurt, he was crying because he knows he's going to get in a lot of trouble with the Chinese authorities, who are very strict. I guess just how much trouble depends on what he was carrying. If, for instance, he has several ounces of dehydrated food in clear plastic bags then he has reason to be nervous.
But the accident makes the road look more dangerous than it is. Abdullah and our driver roll their trouser legs up and go wading through to see how deep it really is. The driver's fairly confident he can make it, but to be on the safe side he drives through passengerless to keep the weight down, while the rest of us take our shoes and socks off and go walking. The water is freezing and the ground beneath my feet jagged, but I'm most concerned about the current, which is strong. Although it's not severe enough to sweep me very far, it frequently puts me off balance, and I'm worried about making a fool of myself by staggering into the current and falling over into the knee-deep water. Happily I manage to avoid providing any entertainment for the others. Regrettably, everybody else does, too. The whole incident has delayed us by about an hour, and we're driving away again by 12.
The Khunjerab Pass
The road begins to zig-zag up above the river and we climb relentlessly up to the Khunjerab Pass. Although we checked out of Pakistan several hours ago, the pass marks the true border between Pakistan and China. The terrain opens out into a much broader grassy valley as we approach the top. We stop at the pass and take photographs, but it's very cold and, despite my furry Afghan pakol, I'm dressed for the much lower altitudes of Sost, so I get back onto the bus pretty quickly. We drive about 100 yards further down the road but then have to stop at the first Chinese checkpoint, just a rotting wooden shed by the side of the road where we have to get out and have our day packs inspected. It's clouded over and started snowing. They make us stand outside in the snow while one by one we disappear into the hut to have our bags checked. We try to huddle under the eaves, but an inspector makes us stand in a line facing the door. I feel more like a convict than a guest, standing outside shivering in the snow. Once through the hut we have to wait and shiver in the snow outside the other door while all the people behind us pass through in turn.
This isn't even the main Chinese border check post; that lies a further 2½ hours down the road in the town of Tashkurgan. To prevent us handing over our contraband to accomplices hiding in the hills between here and there, we have to drive all the way escorted by a Chinese customs officer in a smart green suit.
"If every bus that passes through needs to be escorted to Tashkurgan by a customs officer then aren't they going to run out of people at the checkpoint?" asks Toby.
Someone points out that this is China. One thing they're not going to run out of is people.
The Pamirs
Crossing the pass we don't just enter a different country, but a different landscape entirely. On the Pakistan side the land was steep, narrow, grey and rugged, and the road in very poor condition. Beyond the pass we drive along billiard table-smooth Chinese tarmac in a wide flat valley, dotted with grass fields, yurts and the occasional camel. The hills in the distance on each side of the valley are light brown and gently rolling as we descend very gradually from 4900m to 3300m.
The Khunjerab Pass also marks the boundary of mountain ranges. Behind us we leave the Karakorams, with their huge jagged pinnacles, and as we cross the border into far western China, to our right the Kunlun Shan mountains stretch all the way across northern Tibet, while ahead of us, stretching through the republic of Tadjikistan to the west, is the smaller Pamir range, of which Muztag Ata is a giant outlier. Sven Hedin summed up the local geography neatly when he passed this way in 1894. He said the "Pamir is like a knot of enormous, clustered masses of snow-covered mountains, from which radiate the highest and mightiest ranges of the earth: to the northeast, the Tien Shan, to the southeast, the Kuen-Lun, the Mustagh Range, or Kara-korum, and the Himalayas, and to the southwest, the Hindu Kush. It is thus properly named Taghdumbash , or "The Roof of the World." ( Sven Hedin, My Life as an Explorer )
Tashkurgan, and more border fun
We arrive at Tashkurgan at 5pm, Pakistani time. It takes us over an hour to pass through customs. We have to unload the bus completely so that every piece of luggage we're carrying can be scanned. Being a well-equipped mountaineering expedition team planning to spend three weeks on Muztag Ata, this takes some time.
Tashkurgan is a curious mix of the old and the new common in China. Mud brick houses share space with spanking modern buildings. The former are owned by the local people, Muslim Uigurs from neighbouring Tadjikistan and Kyrgyzstan, who lead a subsistence farming life. On top of this the Chinese Communist government has imposed a 21 st century infrastructure, run and managed by native Han Chinese who are posted here for short periods or have moved here from elsewhere. We check into the Pamir Hotel, and I have what I imagine to be my last beer for some time. We also meet another expedition team member, Orna, an Israeli who was unable to obtain a visa to travel through Pakistan.Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Next
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