Close to Pakistan

Thursday 16 October 2025

We headed for the Khunjirap Pass first today.  At 09:30, the rising sun was reflecting beautifully off the mountains. 

At 4850 m above MSL this was a key Silk Road pass and the crossing point into Pakistan.

We got to within 2.5 km of the border, beyond which you have to board a shuttle bus to view the scenic area.  Sadly non-Chinese were not allowed to buy tickets, which we'd been forewarned may happen, so we took some shots of the mountain pass and headed down.  

There were always mountains to photograph.

And wild bactrian camels.  These uber hardy beasts can survive on semi-saline water and are, apparently, tougher than the domestic bactrian camels we saw roaming the plains of Kazakhstan. 

Traffic cameras are everywhere and there was a sign alerting us they existed for next 1194 km.  The roads also have statues of police officers dotted along the way as a gentle reminder.  Additionally, we saw cut-out police cars which look kind of realistic from a distance (you'll have to wait for a photo of that).

We had a pit stop at the freezing Waham corridor which had bronze statues dotted around but limited explanation.

More excitingly, there was a barrister selling Americanos which came in a glass bottle.  Coffee is a similar price here to the UK (it cost more than our meals!) but it was a little treat when we found it.

I realised today that the drone ‘idiot’ at Oytagh bridge was not unique.  It seems that they are used as the new selfie-stick (see spot-the-drone picture below).  This explains why so many fly them 3 m above their family’s heads at a distance of a few metres.  At attractions you’d see photographers offering drone pictures, with the customer in the foreground and the drone hovering a few metres in front/above them.  Occasionally we’d see drones being used in what we’d call the classic sense, flying across a beautiful landscape to capture a view.

We ascended the Panlong Ancient Road.  This ancient pass has a total length of 75 km, over 600 bends and rises to 4100 m.  It was very exciting to drive up and admire the views. 

And the way down was even more spectacular! 

As we admired the views, there was another drone photo shoot (promise, I stopped photographing them after a while).

We drove along the valley bottom.

Then stopped at Bandihr Lake, which is actually one of the largest reservoirs in the region, built in 2009.  We enjoyed the beautiful reflections of the mountain in the water's surface. 

Look, a baby trig!  Well, it was more like a permanent survey marker installed when they created this reservoir in 2007.  And I found a road sign indicating the start of the road.

We stopped for more photos at the Tashkurgan River. It was lovely in the sun and we dodged (nearly literally) the drone capturing some kind of photo shoot.

We awarded a Darwin Award to a collection of tourists who posed for photos in the middle of the road of incoming traffic.

That evening we were meant to be having supper with a local Tajik family.  We turned up at what was obviously very much a tourist attraction and sat in a Tajik styled room with sweet snacks and milky tea. We were invited to watch a Tajik dance and singing (thanks, but no) then were told that was it.  We were very bemused as that obviously wasn’t supper.  It transpired that our driver had booked the wrong place for us.  He’d booked us a classic Chinese tourist Tajik experience but, not being Chinese, we didn’t enjoy the faux environment.  The long and the short was we offered just to have supper in town and so we did.

On the Karakoram Highway

Wednesday 15 October 2025

Breakfast was a car crash today as a coach load of 60 tourists had been allowed to start breakfast early, so by the time we got there, the food had been decimated.  There was nowhere to sit and I ended up with a couple of eggs and JC had cake.  Apparently I got very grumpy.  There have been better starts to the day, but our day immensely improved and turned out to be one of the best days of the trip.

We left Kashgar and drove southwest down the Karakoram Highway (known as KKH).  The KKH stretches 1000 km from Kashgar to Islamabad (Pakistan) and was built in the late 1960s.  Some sections involved numerous rock blasts, men hanging off climbing ropes to construct and sadly ~400 men lost their lives in its construction.  

After 50 km we had a pit stop at Opal village where we picked up freshly baked naan bread which was absolutely delicious (gluten-free me snuck in a few mouthfuls).

We stopped at Oytagh bridge to view the colour mountains.  Unfortunately it’s been highly developed and was overrun by tourists and concrete.  It would have been far more beautiful if they hadn’t built a huge car park as well.

There was an idiot flying a drone to take pictures of his family by hovering the UAV (drone) two metres above everyone’s head.  With my UK CAA head on this annoyed me.  JC had more patience to take photos,  so I slunk around taking random photos including this of oxygen bottles for sale (~£2 each).  These bottles were sold at every site we saw now, since we were now above 3000 m. I question whether half of those who bought them really needed them: even fit looking youngsters were inhaling them. 

We passed through Gez checkpoint with no hassle (our permits were fine).  We were curious at the heavy security for fuel stations.  To enter you had to wait for security to raise the barrier, sometimes using your ID card.  We later found out that all fuel stations in this region had additional security due to an attack which nearly blew one up.  Or you could call it 'close surveillance'.  The mountains started to appear which were entrancing.

Our next stop was the amazing White Sands Lake.  This was again a highly developed tourist attraction and the only way to access it was buy a ticket and follow the crowds.  I loved the entrance culvert lighting - JC less so!

The walkways were heaving with selfie-snapping Chinese but we pushed through to a slightly quieter spot.

By this stage I’d noticed people on yaks in the water having mini photoshoots. “How tacky,” I thought.  Then I decided, to JC’s horror, that it’d be quite a laugh so paid my £3 and climbed on my new friend.  Indeed it was hilarious!  Not just for getting on a yak and entering the lake, but the look on JC’s face.  

Once I’d gone back to sensible-landscape-loving-tourist we continued to absorb the amazing views.

After a massive scrum of between 100-200 women trying to use the toilets (I’d say it had to be seen to be believed, but you probably wouldn’t want to see - needless to say I can hold my own in a toilet queue) we drove on to Karakul Lake.

We had to queue to enter the car park and then our driver bought our tickets.  As usual, this involved giving him our passports (you can’t buy any tickets without one) however this time he returned with just one ticket, a nod and a wink.  Turns out he knew someone… 

Karakul Lake is surrounded by Gongger, Gongger nine peaks and the ‘Father of Glaciers’ Muztaghata.  It was a beautiful spot and improved as we shifted away from the main tourist crowds. 

There was no time for lunch so we snacked on bananas, satsumas, walnuts and dried jujube (Chinese date).  We drove on up Subash Daban (hill) around Muztaghata.

Our tour guide (who was in great contact with us via the driver) suggested an impromptu visit to one of its glaciers.  We took a shuttle bus 12 km then walked ~1 km up to 4680 m. 

It was a tad of an effort, labouring at that height, but we overtook everyone and soon reached the top.  The sun was in just the right place and the glacier shine beautifully.  This section hasn’t been developed sufficiently yet to prevent tourists reaching the toe of the glacier so I went and said hi.

I suspect if we ever came back it would be board-walked off so you couldn’t reach the shore of the glacier lake. 

We were up there as the sun began to set, eg ‘the golden hour’. 

It was now 20:00 and we had a 100 km drive to our hotel in Tashkurgan.  We reached the town at 21:15 and went to eat which took far longer than expected as they seemed to lose JC’s order. We eventually reach our hotel at 22:30.