I travel to China several times a year mainly for fun but also to check out hotels and new tourist attractions for my book. The following information is not in my 2002 book. 

The following items are dated with the month the information was obtained. Everything is subject to change but this should give you a good idea of what to expect. Please also look at our collection of photos from some of these places.

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The last time this page was updated was 12/31/08

Karakorum Highway - Tashkorgan - Karakul Lake

This now well-maintained road has been  the main trading route between China and India  for over two thousand years and traders and  large trucks still use it  between  Pakistan and China.   It was on this road that Buddhist monks took Buddhism and its Greek-inspired art to China.  It has some of the most beautiful mountain scenery in China – the Kunlun Mountains and the Pamirs -- and the air is pristine and clean. This road also goes to some of the places used in the movie The Kite Runner, and is as close to Afghanistan as you can get.  You can enter Pakistan if you have the proper documents and only in the summer.          

From Kashi city to Karakul Lake is about 260 kilometres and snow mountains even in July start about an hour’s drive outside Kashi. You also pass several glaciers.  Your last chance of a clean flush toilet  (until Taxkorgan) is in a tourist souvenir shop on the way. Here I found a pair of Miao/Hmong shoes from Guizhou province for sale, so don’t expect goods in this shop to be locally made.  Just use the facilities and don’t feel obligated to shop.   

We had to show our passport at Gezcun which had a few souvenirs for sale, but beyond the border post, we found some crude stone dwellings currently in use and interesting to see. Further along are  Kirghiz ethnic  peddlers with carpets and a few genuine Kirghiz  handicrafts for sales but they offered a lot of resin camels and  reconstructed and dyed “jade” bowls as well. This open roadside market is near beautiful Qatar Lake.  Peddlers however do crowd around prospective buyers so if you find it uncomfortable, don’t stop or leave  your vehicle.  I must admit that we told the merchants here that we were looking for traditional footwear and would be back in two days.  This was a good move and when we did go back, they did have some good samples to sell.      

We spent the night at Karakul Lake in a camp run by Zhong Kun Travel. It had  four large yurts for guests at an altitude of  about 3800 meters but none of us had major  problems with the thinner air even though this is slightly higher than Lhasa in Tibet. Some of us did have trouble sleeping.    

Sleeping in a yurt or circular felt tent  can be a novel experience, We had just arrived from a week of sleeping in similar digs in Mongolia so it was no big deal for us.  Ours was comfortable, but there was electricity for only two hours a day with no electrical outlets.  The toilet was about 50 meters away – with no lights to guide you there in the middle of the night. Be sure to pack a flash light.  Hot water for washing came out of a kettle and the wash stand was out of doors. No towels were provided. The toilets were the squatting kind, and were not  frequently cleaned and we had to complain once to the staff who replied that the manager was away and they couldn’t do anything about the mess until he returned.  It was cleaned up later but we did think about sneaking behind our yurt at night should nature call.    

Its restaurant however had one of the best views of lake and mountains I’ve ever seen in the world, but alas the menu was limited to greasy local food.  Other guests brought their own fruit from Kashi.  You might want to bring some snacks yourself.   

Karakul Lake from the restaurant.  Image copyright Ruth Lor Malloy 2008.

But the scenery and contact with friendly Kirghiz people was worth the hardships and long ride.  Okay, so it was touristy with a few horses (Y30 an hour), camels (Y60 an hour), and motorcycles to ride but it wasn’t like the hundred horses on Nanshan near Urumqi.  We were invited to visit local homes where they did have some excellent handicrafts like traditional embroidered wall hangings worth buying.  Our camel driver told us his father took furs and silk to the Soviet Union and exchanged them for 100 kilograms of corn meal. The trip took one year and they slept out of doors, two men with three camels.  The old Silk Road was still alive recently.   

We were lucky. The weather was ideal, bright and sunny.  Some dignitaries were visiting and we were able to join in the dancing and singing that evening which  was a lot of fun.  The lake can be a day trip from Kashi  (Y50 entry fee) but we were glad we spent the night there.  The telephone number of the Zhong Kun Travel camp is 13779035626 but its  web-site www.zktrtip.com didn’t work.     

We crossed the 4200 meter Subash Pass next day into Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous county of Kashi prefecture.  Tashkorgan is the Uighur spelling.  Tajik people are of Indo-European Iranian origin and are Moslem. They look Caucasian and  have their own spoken language but use the Uighur script for their writing. Many live in stone houses, and practise subsistence farming.  Our guide said Taxkorgan was 600 km. from Afghanistan.      

Taxkorgan (altitude 3200 meters) is the closest Chinese town to the Pakistan border.

The other main attraction is the Stone City, the 2000 year old ruins of the capital of the ancient state of Puli. The ruins are perched on the top of a hill and the view of the town and surrounding snow-covered hills is stunning.  Tourism is not well developed on this mound and it is fun to try to figure out what was what as there are no signs in any language. And the paths with their loose stones can be steep and treacherous.  If you do see The Kite Runner, you will see views of the Stone City in the background where the boys played.  We found the town pleasant and hiking was interesting through fields of rape seed, potatoes and wheat. In one area full of streams,  yurts, and salt deposits,  we had to double back because there were very few bridges.  

Taxkorgan has about 30,000 people, and a small museum. Many of the women wore their national white head dresses trimmed with embroidery and have silk ikat dresses similar to that of Uighur women. The men traditionally wear red boots and Persian lamb hats. We  found a man on the street wearing an old pair of boots and stopped to talk with him. He was a wedding singer and asked us for Y100 for taking his picture, but we settled for much less. We then hiked five kilometres to find a Tajik cobbler who still made such traditional boots and sold us a  pair.  His house was stone and accessible only by path, not road.  He and his wife slept on platforms and carpets covered the walls. They were obviously poor but they were hospitable and gracious.       

We didn’t like the Stone City Hotel (Shi Tou Cheng Binguan. Tel. 998-3422600.) It was certainly more comfortable than the yurt at Karakul Lake. The food was edible, the room okay but not luxurious, and we had hot water for two hours in the evening.  The shower water splashed all over the bathroom floor.  We were able to get CCTV 9 in English and we were close to the main shopping street,  but the manager was rude and not the least bit friendly and the hotel could have been cleaner.  The drawers held the garbage of other guests and dust balls lay between the bed and the walls.  

The Financial Hotel (Sai Jing Binguan) looked okay but our guide said the service in the  Pamir Hotel (Pa Mi Er Binguan) was not good and his agency no longer used it.        

Before we left, we stopped at a grocery store for snacks because no convenient restaurants were on the way back to Kashi.  The goods for sale were fascinating with their exotic labels.  

It took seven hours to drive (with time out for a road-side lunch and one serious traffic accident, fortunately not ours) from Taxkorgan to Kashi. We passed pasture land,  bare hills and desert,  a few two-humped camels,  glaciers and snow-topped mountains.   The light and clouds kept changing the colour of the glorious scenery.  Xinjiang region, said our guide, has over 19,000 glaciers, slightly less than half  the total number in China.  Alas, like glaciers in other places in the world, China’s are also shrinking.  We passed by 7546 meter high Mount Muztag with several glaciers reaching down to the main road.  

We also saw a dozen brand-new Chinese cars lined up, ready to be driven for sale in Pakistan. As we approached Kashi, we found flat lush farm lands criss-crossed with stately green popular trees. 

Our trip was arranged by Xinjiang CITS in Urumqi. In addition to Akbar and Mahira, we had an excellent and cheerful driver named Tian. Akbar was based in Kashi. For their addresses and other logistical information, see Urumqi and Kashi.  For other Silk Road destinations, see Silk Road South, Karakorum Highway, and Dunhuang.   – RLM, DATE, July, 2007.

 

      

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