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Karakoram Highway trip China to Pakistan...

Karakoram Highway trip China to Pakistan...

Old Jan 31st, 2018, 07:01 PM
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Karakoram Highway trip China to Pakistan...

It has been a few years since our last trip to Asia and I'm having a big birthday this year "hello 50", so we're thinking about an epic journey somewhat off the beaten path. To give you some idea our adventurous trip last year was to Sudan, so we are reasonably used to visiting less touristed destinations that may not appeal to others.

I haven't see anything on Pakistan on Fodors over the years but I thought I'd post to see if anyone had been, either on vacation, to see family, or for work? We are considering a trip from Kashgar in China (or possibly Bishek in Kyrgyzstan) through to Lahore which would begin by following the Karakorum Highway. We first thought about doing this ten years ago but decided against it and travelled on a trip including Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan instead.

A British company Wild Frontiers has been running trips to Paikistan for years and we met with them last weekend at the New York Times travel show to hear about a group trip they have which starts in Kashgar, goes down through the Hunzu Valley in Paikistan to Islamabad and Lahore, ending in India ...Amritsar, Kashmir and then Delhi. We don't generally travel in groups but we have done once before when we went to Mali years ago and there may be some advantage to traveling in a group in this part of the world.

So, if anyone has any experience traveling in Pakistan or has anything useful to add I'd appreciate it.
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Old Jan 31st, 2018, 07:47 PM
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My son represented his school at Aitchison College Lahore.He noticed the people were very warm but then an Aitchisonian School Bus in which they travelled in and around Lahore had a different meaning altogether.
My father was posted in that side of the British-India. He talks well of Kohat, Peshawar, Razmak & Miranshah. People were very friendly then.
Do write a Trip report once you return from this trip. It will be interesting reading.
Happy & safe travels!
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Old Jan 31st, 2018, 07:59 PM
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Hi welltraveledbrit - great idea for a celebration trip!

i traveled from Beijing to Islamabad on an Intrepid tour back in 2001. The Karakorum Highway and NE Pakistan are stunning. Unfortunately we crossed the border right after 9-11, so had to skip going on to the Khyber Pass.....

See: Travels Round Asia 2001 -- Wilhelm's Words
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Old Jan 31st, 2018, 08:44 PM
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I've done this route three times; twice from Pakistan to China, and once from China to Pakistan, although none of these trips was in recent times.

I can't think of any good reason to take a tour (unless you just happen to like tours--but it seems you don't). Public transport on this route is plentiful, both public buses and jeeps you can charter for any itinerary you like. Stay independent and keep your flexibility.

Note that Xinjiang as a whole is in an even more problematic state than it was when I spent over a year there. If you mention Xinjiang on your visa application it will most certainly be REFUSED. So don't. You're not required to visit the places you do list, nor prevented from travelling anywhere else. But put Xinjiang or any towns in that vicinity down and you won't be going.

What follows are extensive notes on the route in the Islamabad to Kashgar direction. I've cut out all the Islamabad and Kashgar material, and almost everything to do with prices, accommodation, and similar practical advice. But it should be useful for suggestions on where you'll want to stop, and there's background historical and cultural material. Any remaining information on bus frequencies or prices should be ignored, as it will all be out of date. The tone-marking on the Chinese names is in an ancient format intended for conversion on import to DTP programs, so ignore that (or note that ¨ serves for first tone, and ^ for third tone).

If you're interested in the original printed form, with material on many old trade routes across China and around the Taklamakan as well as into Central Asia, you can find second-hand editions of 'China: The Silk Routes' on abebooks.com or other used book sites.



The Karakoram Highway is the longest roller-coaster ride you’ll ever experience, and the only one with overtaking: Its 1500 kilometres of writhing tarmac are often cut from sheer cliffs, with dizzying drops of up to 500 metres to rocky river beds, and not a crash barrier in sight. Passing several 7–8000m permanently snow-capped peaks (and the 8125m Nanga Parbat), it switchbacks across rivers on bridges incongruously decorated with Chinese lions and ‘double-happiness’ characters. Pieces of it have a habit of disappearing into the void, necessitating off-road diversions by non off-road vehicles. On the other hand pieces of mountain have a habit of appearing on the road, pulverizing the surface and causing tail-backs while bulldozers and engineers with explosives clear away the rubble. They are permanently on alert.

Chinese explorers may have come this way via the Karakoram route as early as the Western Hàn dynasty of 206 bc–ad 9, and from 1958 about 30,000 of them came to join 15,000 Pakistanis in carving one of the world’s less likely roads. Twenty years in the construction, it cost nearly 900 lives. It follows the Indus, Hunza and Khunjerab rivers, cuts through the spiny Karakorams, and crosses to China at the 4934m Khunjerab Pass, the highest metalled border crossing in the world on one of its highest surfaced roads. The highway then slides down the somewhat gentler Pamirs along lush well-watered valleys to Kashgar.
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Old Jan 31st, 2018, 08:46 PM
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Rawalpindi/Taxila to Gilgit

From Taxila (or from ’Pindi if you visited Taxila as a day trip) to Gilgit the road, rather than the places through which it passes, is the star. If you take the 17-hour direct bus, much of your trip will be in darkness, and much of your body will be in pain. It is better to break the journey up into sensible parts. The best stops of any size are Abbottabad, Mansehra, Besham and Chilas. Abbottabad is a fairly unexciting town divided into a quiet and neatly laid out cantonment area and a more typically rowdy Pakistani bazaar. More than anywhere else on this route you get a clear picture of how the Raj isolated itself from its subjects by creating the Home Counties in miniature; lawn sprinklers, the club, and the Book of Common Prayer. At 1220m (4000ft) above sea level, Abbottabad is pleasantly cool, reached by a steady climb from the plain, passing through Havelian, which marks the formal beginning of the Karakoram Highway. It takes two to two and a half hours by bus from Taxila (Rs15), a little more from Rawalpindi. Equally cool and a better choice of first stop after Taxila is Mansehra, 20 minutes by wagon beyond Abbottabad (Rs5). Mansehra can be reached directly from ’Pindi, but from Taxila you take a wagon from the bus station which drops you on the KKH below Mansehra, and a Rs1 Suzuki takes you up into town and past the Errum and Zam Zam Hotels successively—all the drivers know these places. Near where you get off the KKH are the Ashoka Rocks, one of several places where the Emperor set out his ideas of good behaviour and good government following his discovery of Buddhism. Unfortunately the script is now almost illegible. Of a digestible size, Mansehra almost feels more like a village.

The next morning, refreshed, you can catch a Suzuki back down to the bus stand on the KKH, walk 100 metres further up and cross over to find the NATCO office and departure point. Buses leave for Gilgit and places in between at 7am, 2pm, 4pm, 8pm and 11pm approximately. To go all the way to Gilgit will cost Rs137 ($4.50) and take 12 to 13 hours—it’s better to take another break. The obvious choice is Besham, which is more or less the halfway point between Gilgit and Rawalpindi, taking around three hours to reach for Rs35 ($1). Unfortunately it has nothing else to recommend it at all, being noisy and somewhat agressive. There are far too many guns in evidence, and if you take a bus going north that passes through the area at night, you will probably pick up an armed guard at this point. A better stop is Chilas, reached from Mansehra by bus in eight to nine hours for Rs96 ($3). An alternative is to take a wagon for two hours (Rs16) from the Mansehra bus stand to Batgram (various alternative spellings), and another to Besham (Rs16, 1.5 hours). From where you are dropped you can catch another wagon to Chilas. Book a seat with the driver and get a ticket, then have lunch. By the time you have eaten the wagon may be full enough to depart. Chilas is five hours away; Rs110 ($3.50).

From Mansehra the road winds sinuously through terraced agricultural land and pretty conifered valleys, but as you approach Besham the mountains close in, and the Indus and the road are squeezed tightly together, the one high above the other. At Thakot the road drops to meet the river and switches sides. The Chinese-built bridge is incongruously decorated with lions which, in an eerie echo of the damage done by Muslims to murals at ancient Silk Route sites, have all had their faces vandalized. At Besham a narrow winding road leads over the Mingora Pass to the Swat valley, but the KKH sticks to the Indus, sometimes tens, sometimes hundreds of metres above it. Long detours are made up the valleys of tributaries until a place to cross is found. The murky Indus looks as if it has been ejected from a washing machine doing a load of particularly dirty non-fast coloureds, while the tributaries are a chilly blue, and briefly add a splash of colour as they join the main river. Many tons of silt travel down the river each year, and form beaches along the banks.

Chilas Below the highway at the police checkpoint, a ten-minute walk down a stony jeep track towards the river leads to the Silk Route equivalent of ‘Kilroy was here’, a series of inscriptions or petroglyphs by travellers dating from the 1st century onwards. This site is signposted as Chilas II and there is a second site, Chilas I, four kilometres further up the highway, also signposted. Both can be a little difficult to find; get clear directions from your hotel, rent a jeep for a short tour, or get someone to show you on foot. There is no shade, so go early in the morning.

You can flag down passing vehicles on the highway in the morning, but to be sure of a seat take a Suzuki up to the village and catch a wagon from the bazaar. Gilgit is 135km, three hours, and Rs50 ($1.50) away. From Chilas the highway is not quite so constricted, but the scenery is increasingly barren and moonscape-like, with only occasional cultivated areas. The lower peaks obscure the great masses behind them, but eventually you catch sight of the snow-capped 8125m Nanga Parbat (‘Killer Mountain’), helpfully signposted to the right. Just before the road recrosses the Indus on the Raikot bridge there’s a road up to the expensive camping grounds of Fairy Meadows, and further on after Jaglot there’s a track to Skardu. Passing the confluence of the Indus and Gilgit rivers, the highway follows the latter. Finally the mountains step back for the green oasis of Gilgit itself, with gossamer suspension bridges across the Gilgit River. The wagons terminate at the stand on Domial Link Road, close to the Mir’s Lodge hotel, passing the Hunza Inn, the PTDC Chinar Inn, and the Mountain Refuge on the way. NATCO buses terminate at the stand opposite the Madina Hotel.

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Old Jan 31st, 2018, 08:47 PM
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Gilgit

Slightly schizophrenic, Gilgit is the meeting point for smiling Ismailis (who, luckily for travellers, run most of the hotels), other Shias, and Sunnis from neighbouring valleys who vary from aloof and dignified to somewhat hostile. There is a strong, armed, military presence on the street to keep discord between these groups to a minimum, with soldiers in sandbagged emplacements. This sounds alarming, but isn’t. Nevertheless, the town quietens down soon after dark.

Gilgitis are used to changing their religion at sword-point. Early pilgrims from China found a thriving Buddhist culture, the remnants of which can be seen in a cliff-face carved Buddha not far outside town. Hinduism took over in the 10th century, followed by Shia Islam in the 11th. Ismailism, their current faith, is a branch of Shia, which they adopted from the 14th century.

Gilgit’s position at the meeting point between two major rivers made it also the meeting point of trade routes that followed the valleys down from eight or nine different Central Asian passes in the Hindu Kush and Karakorams. Today heavily-loaded Chinese trucks can still be seen conducting complicated manoeuvres in warehouse yards, and the lock-up shops of Gilgit streets are full of Chinese silk, thermos flasks, and tea sets.

The first documented modern European visitor was Dr G. W. Leitner, an arrogant German ethnologist and linguist, who arrived semi-disguised as a Mohammedan mullah in 1866. At that time ownership of Gilgit was somewhat ambiguous, but a Kashmiri garrison was defending itself against attacks by the various local tribes, collectively named ‘Dards’ by Leitner. Following his visit he claimed expert status, although he spent less than two whole days in Gilgit. He did bring back two locals from whom he set about eliciting the vocabulary and grammar of their language, and subsequently collected natives from other valleys at his bungalow in Lahore. On visits to London he took the first Yarkandi (1868), Kafir (1873), and Hunzakut (1887) to be seen in Europe. According to Leitner, ‘We kill all infidels’, and ‘Beat him now, kill him afterwards’, were conventional Dard greetings. Later he built Western Europe’s first mosque in Woking.

The British dithered over Gilgit for some time, finally establishing a permanent political mission here in 1889. The territory did not seem promising for Pax Britannica. In the previous fifty years, control of Gilgit had changed hands twice, and the neighbouring valleys were hostile to each other let alone to alien rulers, indulging themselves in the plunder of caravans and slave trading and seeming to like nothing more than a good fight. Scarcely any two valleys spoke the same language, and even today their fierce independence means that Pakistan central government control over many of them is little more than theoretical.

Following the British subjugation of Hunza and Nagar in 1891–2, the route through Gilgit to Yarkand became more favoured than that from Leh, although passing explorers, adventurers and archaeologists such as Aurel Stein (who first passed through in 1900) complained that the road built by British engineers was still little more than a narrow bridle path over dizzying heights.

Gilgit’s appearance as part of Pakistan is the result of a last-minute coup that wrested control from a Kashmiri garrison in 1947, as India and Pakistan both gained independence from the British Empire.

.George Hayward’s Grave

Not much to look at, but a must for Great Game enthusiasts. Hayward was an enthusiastic player of the Game and a winner of the coveted Royal Geographical Society Gold Medal for his pioneering travels. His headline-grabbing death at the hands of men of the Maharaja of Kashmir led to him being portrayed as a martyr, and eulogized in an apalling piece of doggerel by Sir Henry Newbolt (a schoolfellow of Sir Francis Younghusband), He Fell Amongst Thieves. Some of those who met him had different views, seeing him as unreliable and scarcely able to take care of himself. Robert Shaw, the tea planter turned Game player who in 1869 was the first Briton to visit Kashgar and to meet the rebel leader Yakub Beg, found his carefully planned expedition compromised by Hayward’s insistence on taking the same route, and by his breaking of an agreement to give Shaw time to make the delicate negotations needed to pave the way. Hayward later exposed appalling butchery by the Maharaja of Kashmir, who then controlled Gilgit, by publishing his findings in a newspaper. He then foolhardily returned to the area and camped solo in a remote spot, with deadly results. The headstone was put up by the Royal Geographical Society following Hayward’s murder in July 1870. Shaw, incidentally, was to bring back news that he had been beaten to an audience with the man he styled King of Chinese Turkestan by a Russian emissary, who had brought a gift of 1000 rifles, further fanning British anxiety about Russian intentions and an invasion of India.

In 1869 when both were effectively prisoners of Yakub Beg at Kashgar, Hayward smuggled a note to Shaw: ‘I shall wander about the wilds of Central Asia, still possessed with an insane desire to try the effects of cold steel across my throat; shoot numerous ovis poli [Marco Polo sheep] on the Pamir, swim round the Karakal Lake, and finally be sold into slavery by the Moolk-i-Am n, or Khan of Chitral.’ In fact this individual was indeed suspected of being the instigator of Hayward’s murder.

Polo

A thrilling spectacle, polo is essential viewing if you happen to be in Gilgit at the right time. Pounding hooves throw up clouds of dust that almost obsure the colourful uniforms of the riders and the sweating horses. A noisy band encourages the players, and strikes up the theme tune of the team in possession. The game is played full tilt with riders often barely pulling up their horses before crashing into the excited crowd. The backdrop is the steep cliffs of the valley’s sides and the snowy heights behind.

The main tournaments are in April and at the beginning of November (the time when Gilgit celebrates is independence, some weeks after the rest of Pakistan), but there are frequent practice sessions in the weeks leading up to these tournaments. Gilgit sports two polo grounds, the main one at the west end of town in Rajah Bazaar opposite Bank Rd, which is where tournaments take place. Practice sessions are held there, at another older polo ground off Hospital Rd near the junction with Shaheed-i-Millat Rd, and in nearby villages. Even detailed cross-questioning of PTDC and your hotel manager is likely to lead to some confusion as to where polo will be taking place on any particular day.

Polo, said to have been a sport even before the time of Alexander the Great’s visit to the region, was in decline when ‘discovered’ by British cavalry officers in the 1850s, who then did much to re-promote it to popularity. As then played in Hunza, it was an egalitarian game in which kings, ministers and anyone who had a horse could and did join in, jostling together in what amounted to little more than a mounted riot. With the arrival of the internal combustion engine, not to mention the decline of local rulers, horses are far fewer, and most games feature military and police teams. In theory, but not necessarily in practice, teams are of six players, and games last one hour with a ten-minute break half-way.

Polo crossed the Pamirs to be played at the British consulate in Kashgar until a fatal accident put an end to the games. In 1940, during the time of consul Eric Shipton, it was revived only for a man to be thrown from his horse and killed two minutes after play began. The polo field was given over to melons and fruit trees.

Around Gilgit

From the Serena Lodge, reachable by Suzuki from Airport Road, a road and paths lead uphill to a water channel which runs right across the valley high above Gilgit. The town can clearly be seen as an oasis surrounded by sheer and barren rock faces, and an hour’s walk along the channel brings you to paths leading down to Upper Hospital Road.

A six kilometre drive up a jeep track in the direction of the Kaghar Valley, followed by a short climb, leads to views of a large Buddha with a severe expression, carved in shallow relief in a cliff face with a curious natural overhang functioning as a canopy. Local legends say either that a shaman used magical powers to carve it at the request of a princess as a rebuke to her brutal father; that the Emperor Ashoka, heavily influenced by Buddhism, caused it to be carved as a boundary marker; or that it was made by two Tibetan generals who had come searching for missing traders. It is estimated to be 700 years old, which rather rules out the Ashoka theory. Following the now dry water channel below the Buddha to the left leads you after about 15 minutes to the area’s earliest ruins, those of a small monastery. Following the same channel to the right gives a pleasant 40-minute walk above the fields to trout hatcheries and a small, Chinese-built hydroelectric plant, which the engineers will be happy to show you. A jeep from your hotel should be no more than Rs100, or the whole trip can be done or foot, or partly by flagging down passing transport. Head out of Gilgit on the Punial Road, and fork left after about 2km, and ask for directions. The local name for the Buddha is girat gachani.
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Old Jan 31st, 2018, 08:51 PM
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Gilgit to Sost

The track was narrow,along the edge of steep cliffs, and one of the ponies, having lost its footing, fell to the rocks below, where it must have met instantaneous death.

Captain H. H. P. Deasy, In Tibet and Chinese Turkestan, 1901

Even the so-called road built by the invading British forces in 1891 was little more than a narrow bridle path, and most people preferred to ride and leave the sure-footed local ponies to find their own way along it.

Twenty kilometres after leaving Gilgit the mountains close in again and overhang the road from time to time, trapping it in a narrow, sunless cleft. There are frequent slide areas with the cheerful ‘Relax’ signs once you pass them, which only serve to make you wonder how worried you should be when you enter the next. Traces of the footpath which originally provided the only line of communication up the Hunza Valley, the most beautiful on the KKH, can be seen on the opposite side, clinging to near-vertical slopes. There are occasional steeply terraced areas of cultivation, with slender poplars and bushy apricot trees lining the road. There are glimpses of the 7788m snowy bulk of Rakaposhi, until finally the road swings right, and it comes into full view straight ahead. But soon it is hidden again by lower peaks until helpfully signposted at the unimaginatively named Rakaposhi View Hotel, when almost its full vertical height becomes spectacularly visible. The road crosses back to the lefthand side of the river on a Chinese bridge with lions intact this time, and in doing so takes you from the Nagar to the Hunza side of the river.

The Hunzakuts are Ismailis and followers both of their Mir, who can trace his ancestors back for 900 years, and of their spiritual leader, the Geneva-based Aga Khan. Relatively progressive and tolerant, they make a refreshing change from the gun-toting Pathans below Gilgit. Their level of education is higher than the average for Pakistan, and almost every village, however small, boasts at least one government or Aga Khan-funded school. They seem to have absorbed long ago the idea that educated women produce better educated children, and priority is given to educating girls. The women are not veiled, are more generally visible, and do not always cover their hair (although photography is still not usually welcome). Traditionally enemies of the people of Nagar across the valley, and contemptuous of their level of education, they once used to swim the river and kidnap them for sport, selling them into slavery. Taking a jeep trip for glacier walking in the Nagar valley, you can still feel the difference in atmosphere as you enter orthodox Shia territory.

Other than the difficulty of the terrain itself, the first problem of the British force sent to unseat Safdar Ali from Hunza was to get past the fort at Nilt, which proved impervious to the seven-pounder guns supposed to destroy it. Instead what amounted to almost a suicide party made their way to the gates of the fort to blow them up, officers winning two Victoria Crosses in the process. Algernon Durand, the commanding officer, standing up to observe in full view of the enemy, was promptly shot in the groin, although he lived to fret about the campaign from convalescence in Gilgit. A confusion in his orders meant that instead of pursuing the fleeing Hunza forces, the British forces allowed them to take yet more impregnable and gun-proof fortifications further up the valley. After three weeks of failure to find any method of turning the position, another suidical attack was made, this time by a team who had climbed down to the bottom of the chasm in the dark, and taken a morning to scale the sheer cliff directly beneath defended breastworks under fire and falling rock. A chain reaction of fleeing defenders was set off once their target was finally reached, and another VC was awarded. Safdar Ali and wives fled to China, the British occupied Baltit Fort, and the Hunzakuts turned out to be perfectly amenable to the arrival of the British, voluntarily providing units to serve under them in other local engagements.

Karimabad and Altit

If you plan to stay in this area, get off the bus at Aliabad or Ganesh, and proceed up the hill by jeep or Suzuki to Karimabad, Hunza’s capital. You can also walk up from Ganesh in 30 to 45 minutes. Altit is a further 15 to 20 minutes on foot, or 5 minutes by jeep. This is the most beautiful, comfortable and friendly area of the entire Hunza Valley, and perhaps of the whole of the Pakistani side of the Karakoram Highway. The village of Karimabad is a single street, perched on the hillside above the highway, which despite the sprouting of multiple hotels and tourist gifts shops, still offers marvellous views of major peaks, and access to everything from casual strolls to major treks. Quieter Altit can also be used as a base for glacier walks or simply for taking a break from the highway for a few days. Every handkerchief-sized plot that can be wrested from the sheer-sided mountains is carefully cultivated. Long water channels form contour lines around the slopes, carrying water from sources sometimes many kilometres away, and providing useful paths. Apricot orchards are everywhere, and of dazzling beauty when in blossom.

Getting to and from Ganesh and Aliabad

Aliabad and Ganesh are close together, about two and a half hours from Gilgit, and two hours from Sost, one hour from Gulmit. Roads leading up from each join and proceed up to Karimabad. The NATCO northbound bus passes Ganesh at 11.30am and 12.30pm, and southbound at between 7.30am and 9am. A minibus leaves Karimabad at about 5.30am each morning for Gilgit. Minibuses begin to pass Ganesh in both directions from about 8am. The fare to Gilgit is Rs40 ($1.25), and to Gulmit is Rs20.

Getting up to Karimabad and Altit

Some hotels such as the Kisar Inn often have jeeps waiting to take you up from Ganesh to Karimabad or Altit, and if you stay in the hotel in question this service is free. Otherwise expect to be asked for perhaps Rs25 to go up in a jeep, or Rs10 for a seat in the back of a Suzuki. Altit is a 20-minute walk from Karimabad on a jeep track that disappears through an aqueduct arch halfway up the village, and is clearly signposted by various inns.

It’s a steep but enjoyable walk up, taking 30 to 45 minutes depending on your luggage and stamina, by either the original old, rough jeep track, a newer metalled one, or the newest one direct to Altit. Any local will point you in the right direction.

A jeep from Karimabad directly down to Gilgit or up to Sost will cost Rs1000–1300 ($31–40).
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Old Jan 31st, 2018, 08:51 PM
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The Forts

Baltit Fort, considerably larger than Altit, with Tibetan architectural influences and in its current version 400–600 years old, has spent more than five years under scaffolding, and is continuously predicted to be about to re-open as a museum. If it is closed, still take the winding path from the upper end of Karimabad to view the exterior and to see its commanding views across the valley. It was here that the British came looking for Safdar Ali, who had long disappeared with most of his booty. What was left they sent to Gilgit for auction. Altit Fort (open 7 days, 7–6.30, adm Rs10) is thought to be considerably older, reached by taking the jeep track through an arch on the right halfway up Karimabad. It’s a pleasant 2km walk to Altit where you cross the now disused polo ground to the fort. This ramshackle mud-built warren of small, dark rooms perches on top of a 300m cliff, with commanding views of the valley and the vast bulk of Rakaposhi. The upper rooms can be reached via the roof of one section, and the top of the tower by a scramble involving a near-rungless ladder and a few poles. Below are the roofs of the village, used for drying apricots, dung and clothes. You are politely requested not to take advantage of the position to photograph the local women in the alleys below.

Around Karimabad and Altit

Tracks and water channels are so numerous that there are a near-infinite number of possible walks and treks, and your hotel or the many travel agents will be delighted to make suggestions. Day trips by jeep from here are also legion, one of the most popular being the trip back down to the river and across it, followed by a sharp right turn that takes you on a jeep track up into Nagar for walking on the Hopar glacier. It takes 1.5 hours to reach the glacier, and the jeep waits for three hours or so while you slip and slide your way over its grimy, groaning surface. About Rs800 ($25) for the vehicle.

Continuing up the KKH, the Hunza runs in a broader, siltier basin, splitting into multiple streams and rejoining itself. The road recrosses it about halfway to Gulmit and the valley becomes steeper and narrower.

Gulmit, 35km from Ganesh, is an excellent last stop before crossing the border to China and would be a better place than Sost to spend your last night, if possible. However, you will need to get to Sost earlier than public transport begins going north, so unless you are in a group and can share the cost of a jeep (about Rs5–600) this will be expensive. Gulmit is also the perfect place to recover from the two-day journey from Kashgar, and to adjust to Pakistan.

Gulmit is a small area of relatively flat, irrigated and fertile land, straddling the road. The centre of the village is the polo ground, a short walk uphill on a variety of tracks leading from the highway. If in doubt ask anyone, or follow signs to the Village Inn or Marco Polo hotels. The village is laced with small paths and jeep tracks, often following water channels, and any number of walks can be improvised, giving views of several major glaciers and peaks.

The people here and on up to Sost are mostly of the same stock as the Tajiks you will meet in Tashkurgan, and the inhabitants of Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor to the north, and speak Wakhi, a relative of Persian.

Gulmit Village

The centre of town is the polo ground, which can be reached by following almost any path uphill. Following the arrival of the highway, the jeep gradually replaced the horse, and polo is no longer played. At the top end is a mansion still occasionally occupied by the Mir of Hunza, and to the left of it the rapidly decaying remains of a traditional two-storey balconied house. The main attraction is Gulmit Museum, slightly downhill on the path leading to the Marco Polo Inn. The one-room museum was the first in the Northern Areas and the collection has been put together by Raja Hussain Khan, a cousin of the Mir, who also runs the Marco Polo, and who will show you around. The dim and dusty atmosphere could not be less museum-like, and the remarkable assortment of local bric-à-brac—tea pots, musical instruments, the horns of Marco Polo sheep, gifts from various dignitaries—is all touchable. There is also a massive matchlock gun, claimed to be the one which was used to shoot Algernon Durand in the groin with a bullet made from a garnet encased in lead (once removed the bullet ended up with his sister). Also remarkable is the stuffed snow leopard which looks as though it died from electrocution. This is one of the few museums which genuinely and unpretentiously captures the spirit of the place it represents. If your knock does not produce a response, enquire at the Inn just below. Adm Rs10.

Around Gulmit

Andra Fort is a one-and-a-half hour stiff climb from Gulmit, or a more gentle two to three hour one via the village of Kamaris. Ask your hotel for directions. Only a few walls remain of the 200-year-old building, which was used as a place of refuge and defence by Gulmit people when under attack.

Just south of Gulmit a cable bridge across the Hunza River offers a little adventure. Walk out of the village with the river on your left. Just round the righthand bend and on your left is a dry-stone wall ending in a boulder, and thirty paces further on is a well-trodden sandy gap through trees. Follow the path steeply down towards the river, and then to the left by which point the way to the bridge is obvious. Altogether not more than 10 minutes. The bridge is made from six cables; four have pieces of wood woven between them (which only someone in advertising could call planks), spaced two to three feet apart, and the other two function as handrails. Put your camera somewhere safe, grip both handrails tightly, and step out. When you get to the wobbly half-way point reflect that local children probably do this hands-free. The rewards are spectacular views in both directions, and photographs with which to frighten any elderly relatives. You can continue to the village of Upper Shishkot (Nazimabad), across a small wooden bridge to Lower Shishkot, and then back to Gulmit via the highway, taking four hours or so. There are other similar bridges higher up including two near Passu.

To Sost

On the way to Passu glaciers are visible to the left, two of them, the Ghulkin and the Passu, coming right down to the road, which crosses their wet and muddy snouts. Beyond them you may catch glimpses of several of the Batura peaks, three of them over 7700m. The nearby mountains have become distinctly spinier and have closed right in on the road, and the river has become an icy blue torrent and lost its siltiness. Passu, only 14km from Gulmit, has several places to stay, of which the Passu Village Guest House, is the best choice, a signposted short walk into the village. In a traditional wooden house, it has comfortable hot-water doubles for Rs400 ($12.50) and dorm beds for Rs40 ($1.25). The dormitory is Gojal-style: raised platforms for sleeping surround a central fireplace, above which the roof, supported by slender pillars, is the same set of overlapping squares and diamonds with a central skylight as you may have seen at the museum in Gulmit and in some of the rooms in Altit fort. A stone version can be found in some of the Kizil Caves outside Kuqa in Xïnjiäng. There are innumerable casual walks and serious treks in the area, although few of the latter should be undertaken without a proper guide. Local people sometimes like to persuade foreigners that for any walking in the area a guide is compulsory, upon pain of a large fine. There are fairly easy walks to the Passu and Batura glaciers, the immense Batura coming down to the road a short distance beyond Passu.
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Old Jan 31st, 2018, 08:55 PM
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After winding up through a few more small villages for 34km, the road finally reaches Sost. Aim to reach here by mid-afternoon in order to buy your bus ticket and prepare for the trip to China. There’s nothing to see except a few small hot springs a little way beyond the customs post.

The Chinese used to call the Karakorams and Pamirs the Greater and Lesser Headache Mountains, attributing the discomfort they experienced to the wild onions growing here, rather than to the altitude of the passes. Sost is only at 2760m, so there’s still nearly 2200m to climb to the top of the Khunjerab Pass.

The bus usually leaves customs at around 9.15am, depending on the number of passengers. Don’t put your passport away, as there are further checks and further registers to be filled in during the 83km run to the pass, and before you even reach China.

Shortly after leaving the road becomes squeezed together with the Khunjerab River in a narrow valley, and after 5km passes the hot springs which lie unglamorously close to a petrol station where the bus may stop to refuel. Opposite there’s a high path more like the original track, which leads to the 4827m Kilik pass to Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor, and the 4726m Mintaka pass to an adjoining tongue of Chinese land, both the subject of Great Game speculation. The Mintaka was once the most popular way to reach Tashkurgan, but both are now closed to foreigners. There are herds of grazing yak and dzos. The Scrabble-player’s favourite animal, the dzo (also spelt dzho, zho and zo) is a cross between a yak and a domestic cow.

The road continues up narrow, winding and gloomy valleys that see little sun, and the river becomes increasingly boulder-strewn. Rockslides are particularly frequent here, and the river occasionally takes bites from the road. Further up a major mudslide dammed the river a few years ago, and for a while boats were used as ferries to keep the road open. The road crosses the river again and enters the Khunjerab National Park, with frequent World Wildlife Fund signs, and a stop at Dih, 50km before the pass, for a passport check.

Fourteen kilometres futher on the road passes the turning to the Boroghil Valley on the left, and then the Kuksal Valley on the right with views of the Kuksal I and II peaks, then begins a steep winding climb of about 1000m in 17km. If you are going to see any larger wildlife such as the Marco Polo sheep or snow leopard it will be here, but the Pakistani bus drivers who come this way several times a month claim never to have seen the one and only twice the other in several years of crossings. Unfortunately some people are catching sight of snow leopards, since despite conservation efforts and their depleted numbers, you will be able to see many skins on sale in shops near Kashgar’s Idkah Sq.

The horns of the Marco Polo sheep have also long been a favoured trophy of ‘sportsmen’ as well as locals. Lieutenant John Wood of the Indian Navy, who explored this area in 1838, noted that the Kyrgyz used pieces of horn both for stirrups and horse shoes. The horns were also sometimes used to mark the way, and indicate burial grounds. Their collosal size was indicated in one set sent to the Royal Asiatic Society, their curved length said to be 4ft 8ins, 14 and a quarter inches around the base, and their tips 3ft 9ins apart.

The pass itself is flat, and from here on there’s a recognizable change to the smoother, rounded shapes of the Pamirs. The Karakorams may be the northwestern extension of the world’s mightiest mountain range (Nanga Parbat and Rakaposhi are Asia’s 6th and 11th highest mountains respectively), but the gentler Pamirs, which divide the Tarim and Oxus (Syr Darya) basins, close the gap between the Karakorams and the Tiänshän, completing the bottling up of the Tarim Basin’s western end. There’s a final Pakistani check, photographs by the border marker, and then the bus trundles past the signs helpfully reminding drivers to switch sides of the road, and past the guard tower into China, about 2.5 hours after leaving Sost. The Karakoram Highway has now become the Zhöng Bä Gönglù—the ‘Chi-Pak Highway’. There are 125km to Tashkurgan, and 414km to Kashgar. After 2km there is the first Chinese passport check, which takes place on the bus. When they are in the mood, the border guards, who usually look as if their mothers have bought oversized uniforms for them to grow into, line up and salute the bus. One of them lowers a red flag and flaps a green one smartly to indicate that the bus may move off.

The road winds down much more gently then it came up, and the bus performs for an audience of marmots, who sit and watch it go past, occasionally giving a shrill whistle, or scampering for the safety of their burrows, where they hibernate in winter. The Russian fugitive Paul Nazarov wrote that these animals can shed tears:

Once I happened to see one caught by a couple of dogs far from its hole. Not knowing where to turn, the wretched creature pressed its back against a stone, sat up on its hindquarters and, clenching its little fore-paws, wiped away the tears that were running down its little muzzle. All its movements and its attitude were so human that it looked just like a little terrified child.

Paul Nazaroff, Hunted Through Central Asia, 1932.

They might well cry. Many of them end up as trimming for Uighur hats in the markets of Kashgar.

After about 45 minutes the bus arrives at Pirali, in a broad, flat and fairly barren valley, although not without its occasional yak or goat and horseback border guard. Pirali was once the Chinese-side immigration and customs post, but this has now been moved to Tashkurgan, and there’s a simple passport check instead. As with the old customs post at the Torugart Pass, and with many of the shelters built for the construction crews on both sides of the border, the buildings have been pointlessly and depressingly smashed up, increasing the sense of remoteness. From here it’s 1849km to Ürümqi, and another 2500km to the Chinese heartlands.

Shortly afterwards the Mintaka Valley leads off towards Afghanistan and the Mintaka and Kilik passes, with turnings at the 1834 and 1821km markers. It may now be said that you are travelling ‘in the footsteps of’ Marco Polo, who, if he came to China at all, came this way in the 1270s. The Pamirs were also crossed by the Jesuit Benedict de Goës late in the autumn of 1603, and he wrote of the great cold and desolation, and the difficulty of breathing (something he was to give up altogether in Jiûquán, Gänsù Province, before he could complete his journey to his colleagues in Bêijïng).

The road follows the Tashkurgan River, passing the oddly isolated 6261m Taghdumbash Pamir to the west and entering the Sarikol Valley. The lush Sarikol was the only one of the Pamir glacial valleys to be able to support grazing beyond the summer season, and was thus claimed by tribes as far away as the Hunza Valley, as well as attracting the attention of the three empires at whose borders it stood. Tajikistan lies just beyond the peaks to the west, but there are no border crossings open to foreigners, not least because it’s still not entirely agreed exactly where that border is.

The bus arrives at Tashkurgan in mid-afternoon. Bêijïng time is three hours later than Pakistan time, but Tashkurgan is so far west that Xïnjiäng time, two hours earlier than Bêijïng and one later than Pakistan, is often used. As opening, closing, and departure times are published in Bêijïng time, those are used in this book, unless otherwise stated. Have a pen ready—in your first contact with Chinese officialdom, you must fill out a health declaration, an arrival card, and even possibly a customs declaration, although those have died out almost everywhere else. Foreigners are sometimes asked for cholera certificates, but the matter is only pressed if you are Pakistani, and most enquiries are merely a formality. Officers rarely search bags, and have even learned to say ‘Welcome to China’ in English.
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Old Jan 31st, 2018, 08:56 PM
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Welcome to China—a China where many people are Tajik-speaking Indo-Europeans. Tashkurgan is the capital of a Tajik ‘autonomous’ county, and while as usual the Hàn run most things of any importance, the Tajiks are plentifully in evidence, too, with the buzz and chirrup of their dialect of Persian. The men wear sheepskin coats tied at the waist with the wool outwards, and the women wear similar colourful dresses and thick stockings to the Uighur women, but with a pillbox hat covered in a shawl. There are also Uighurs and Kyrgyz in town, and even Pakistanis running one hotel. Even if you arrive from Pakistan it still feels more the end of China rather than the beginning, and you are conscious of entering through a back door. This is perhaps the most remote administrative centre in a country of remote corners.

Tashkurgan’s position has always made it something of a crossroads. Roads lead to Kashgar, Yarkand, to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, although the Kashgar to Sost road is the only one you can take. British diplomat Eric Teichman described it as ‘a storm centre of Asian politics’. Younghusband and Macartney arrived here on 25 September 1890 on their way to inspect the Chinese border marker at Somatash (now in Afghanistan), and it was to here that in 1891 the deposed Safdar Ali fled from the British forces entering Karimabad. The Russians occupied the fort with a party of Cossacks prior to the First World War, and later Soviet Russia manipulated events from what had become the Tajik SSR, interrupting the mail service to India run by the British with a station in Tashkurgan.

The mud and brick lanes behind the main street have probably not altered much since those days, although there are now several large tiled buildings including the customs complex and hotels, and the main street, which runs at right angles to the highway, has become artificially broad. Reboarding the bus after customs clearance, you are taken down it, and probably dropped at the most expensive hotel, the Pamir.

Tashkurgan Fort

Xuánzàng, returning this way from India, remarked that there may have been a settlement here as early as the 4th century. Wandering around town you may stumble upon a small mosque, and old graveyards decorated with the horns of Marco Polo sheep, but the only real sight in Tashkurgan is the fortress. Possibly 14th-century and impressively bulky, it is reached up an alley just beyond the Pamir Hotel, and by climbing over two garden walls. The substantial mud walls can be climbed to get a view over the town.

Where to Stay

Tashkurgan is at more than 3000m, and nights tend to be cool even in summer; downright miserable at any other time. Neither heating nor hot water are guaranteed, and electricity cuts are quite common. Remember that if you are coming from Kashgar on the Sost bus you will not have access to your baggage, so be prepared.

The remaining hotels are fairly primitive. Common bath doubles (¥30/$4 per bed) and four-bed rooms (¥25 per bed) are available in the new Khunjerab Hotel next to the customs department on the highway. The basic Ice Mountain on the main street just before the Pamir is Pakistani-run and cheaper at ¥25 per bed in a carpeted four-bed room, or ¥15 without carpet, all with common bath; ¥50 ($6) per bed in a double with bath. Pakistani food is available cheaply from the restaurant. The Transportation Hotel next to the bus station just off the highway is the same price as the Ice Mountain but considerably grimmer.

Eating Out

In addition to the hotel restaurants there are numerous small Hàn places catering to the international trade, several of which have shown themselves more than ready to exploit the inexperience of travellers arriving from Pakistan. Take care to fix all prices and calculate the total before you eat, even if they are written on a menu.

Tashkurgan to Kashgar

There is an alternative route to Kashgar via Yarkand, at times a more important trading town than Kashgar itself, and originally more important than the route north, but it is not open to foreigners as yet. This is still tightly controlled border territory, and even on the road directly to Kashgar there are two more passport checks where you must get out of the bus.

When Eric and Diana Shipton, the last occupants of the British consulate, came this way in the 1940s it was still seven days by pony from Kashgar to Tashkurgan, 285km. Men had to dismount and wade waist deep in cold, fast rivers to prevent their donkeys from being swept away. Diana Shipton made these crossings on yak-back: ‘as comfortable as an armchair and about as rapid’, she remarked.

The road is in considerably better condition than on the Pakistani side, but has to cope with gentler gradients and a great deal less falling rock, although climbing again to a 4100m pass. Roadside mazary with conical and yurt-shaped tombs, and others like miniature mosques, are the same as those seen elsewhere throughout Central Asia (a particularly fine set after the 1751km marker). The road bends round the pointy mass of 7500m Mustagh Ata on the right, and reaches the icily blue Karakol (K läkùlì Hú). You will be dropped near two yurt camps of which one is much newer and cleaner than the other. I
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Old Jan 31st, 2018, 09:08 PM
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OMG, temppeternh -- what wonderfully inspiring information! The Karakoram Highway has just moved up my list of travel priorities.
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Old Jan 31st, 2018, 09:22 PM
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kja - if photos will help move it up the list, go here:

https://kwilhelm.smugmug.com/Travel/Asia-2001
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Old Jan 31st, 2018, 09:26 PM
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@ thursdaysd: Stunning -- thanks! I'm always eager to follow in your footsteps.
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Old Feb 1st, 2018, 04:24 AM
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BTW, no doubt Peter is right, and you can travel the Karakorum on your own. I'm sure you would be fine in China, but I would not have wanted to travel the lower reaches in Pakistan as a solo woman, and I'm not sure being the female half of a couple would be any better.

In fact, I'm a little surprised that a tour group is offering that route at all, I used to check occasionally as I would like to go back, and no company would be going. Several of the usual suspects still don't. But I look forward to your TR!
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Old Feb 1st, 2018, 07:18 AM
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It's common (or was) for single women to travel up the Karakoram Highway, and women with partners innumerable. Long sleeves, long trousers and a headscarf essential. (No point in complaining about this. Do it, or don't go.) Getting a full baggy top and trousers run up by a local tailor at either end fairly commonplace. My wife accompanied me on two stays in Islamabad/Rawalpindi and up and down the Karakoram Highway in two directions. From Gilgit upwards (as I mention above) this is the most laid-back corner of Pakistan you'll find. Ideas in Islamabad are rather more modern than elsewhere, too (but covering up still essential).

Some Pakistani traders view China as a sort of Babylon where the rules of courtesy to outsiders (which routinely seen Pakistanis giving seats on the bus to visitors half their age, and even paying their fares) are suspended, do see them getting a bit grabby towards Chinese women at times. (Which is to say, before anyone decides to take offence, that I've seen this happen.)

But in general, on my visits to Pakistan, including with a very visible blonde woman who only reluctantly obeyed the rules to parts of the northwest barely in Pakistan's control and currently inaccessible to foreigners, courtesy towards those who show willingness to abide by local customs has been the norm.
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Old Feb 1st, 2018, 08:52 AM
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A few years ago I visited Pakistani friends in Islamabad (not in tourist locations), dressed appropriately in clothes bought in India, and had no difficulties. Riding local buses (small vans with a sliding side door) brought a startled response but no aggression from the mostly male passengers whatever. If there weren't free seats for 2 women to sit non-adjacent to men, the men would move. If the only available seat was next to us, the men wouldn't get on. Interestingly, the only time my young companion became worried for me was at a women's temple where the women crowded around us and she extracted us immediately.

As mentioned, I think proper dress and obeying the rules, which you may or may not divine, makes all the difference. For instance, anywhere else I would seat myself on public transport wherever one was empty. But in company of a Pakistani woman the rules were immediately clear, it's something that you don't do and if you do, could be hugely misconstrued. In Egypt very recently I learned similar bus protocol in very tight seating, the women sat in the last row in back, hard to get in & out but if you don't like it, don't ride in the vans. Taxi or walk.

Though I don't do tours (1 in my life) I think where the rules may not be perfectly clear, or arrangements may be tougher than usual, a small group tour may be comforting and you'll likely see more with logistics in the hands of experienced people.
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Old Feb 1st, 2018, 10:45 AM
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My concern was not with Islamabad, nor with the Ismaili Muslim areas, but with Indus Kohistan. The ONLY women visible on the streets were in FULL black, in pairs, and hurrying. When our minibus stopped, even though all the women wore long sleeves and head scarves, we were surrounded by staring men.
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Old Feb 1st, 2018, 11:35 AM
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I was responding to welltraveledbrit's request, "So, if anyone has any experience traveling in Pakistan or has anything useful to add I'd appreciate it." Nothing else. I offer my experience, such as it is, which I doubt needs a rebut complete with caps.
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Old Feb 1st, 2018, 11:59 AM
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@MmePerdu - I was agreeing with you that Islamabad is (was) not a problem. What's your problem with that?
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Old Feb 1st, 2018, 08:53 PM
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An extremely interesting account!
Thanks for sharing.
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