Monday, May 28, 2001

Another day another yuan. That's about an eighth of a dollar, which makes the math easy if you happen to do a lot of stock trading. It's been a whole day (and therefore $0.125) since I entered China over Khunjerab Pass. At 14,000 feet, they greeted my Pakistani compatriots and me by searching our hand luggage on the shoulder of the scenic Karakoram Highway while we shivered with awe at the glaciers rapidly encroaching on us from all sides.

When, some hours later, we pulled into the official immigration station, they threatened to impound all our baggage and force us to stay in an expensive hotel until customs opened the next morning. Finally they relented and let the western tourists go free, but for some reason kept the Pakistanis "arrested."

Everyone says China is really hard to travel in -- some even go so far as to rate it the most difficult country in the world. My first night doesn't support this claim; the hotel was clean and nice, and though nobody spoke a word of English, my Dutch de-facto travel partner Arno and I were able to fix a reasonable price with the nice Chinese woman, by smiling, writing numbers on a tablet, and speaking earnestly in words the other party would certainly not understand. The restaurant even had an English section in the menu, with noodle soup for three yuan (3/8 of a dollar, remember -- but be wary of placing call orders after market close, as opening prices can fluctuate significantly due to after hours trading).

The next day (that's another yuan to add to our piggy-bank), a seven hour bus ride took us back down to a normal elevation, passing by a few magnificent snow covered mountains that must have snuck over the border from Pakistan, as well as some yak herds and a few packs of camels, who might have snuck over from Pakistan as well. Stranger still, we passed thousands of bagels en route -- I don't know where they snuck over from, but there's not a Noah's franchise in sight.

Finally we landed in Kashgar, where I ran into Bjorn (a fellow Islamabad camper and Chinese embassy queue sufferer), and finally Juliette (my travel-partner-to-be, as well as the source of the whole China-via-Pakistan idea).

Whoops, I've run out of story already. Let me back up to Islamabad, the site of my previous report. Take two yuan and five Pakistani rupees back out of the pink pig, and you'll find a bald Brit named Tony, a stout Norwegian named Bjorn, and a dreadlocked American named Ult, standing in line outside the Chinese embassy since before it even opened. Inch by inch, they move closer to the front of the line, and finally through the door -- only to find themselves at the back of a new line inside. This second line finally completed, they each receive a form which they must fill out and then submit by -- get this -- going back outside to wait in the first line again. The 12:00 deadline fast approaches, while our heroes shift from one foot to the other, wondering if there's any worse torture than waiting in line for hours to be turned away at the front. All three were fortunate, however, and Ult's passport was cheerfully accepted with a slam of the window as the office closed for the day. A riot nearly broke out as the remaining queuers came to terms with starting all over the next day.

We, on the other hand, got our visas the next day, packed our bags, and boarded the super-ultra-deluxe-air-con-picture-window-2x2-fold-back brand-spanking-new sleeper bus headed up the KKH to Gilgit. The KKH, the Karakoram Highway, Pakistan's glorious road to China, winding along the Indus River valley, following the old silk route, nested between some of the world's tallest mountains. It was built by the Pakistani army, completed in 1978, to allow a lot of weapons to enter the country from China should it become necessary. They say war is a no-win game, but being able to witness the amazing beauty of the KKH is a clear exception. The mountains rising dramatically into the sky on both sides of the twisty highway are big babies, geologically; they're so young they still have their baby teeth, and haven't yet grown a layer of soil to soften their jagged profiles. Each is like a mystical castle, with the powerful but understated Indus twisting and churning below. Here and there along its banks spring brilliant green gardens of lush vegetation and trees; splashes of emerald to contrast the grays and oranges of the crumbly peaks. Behind the toothy youngsters loom white caps of the real giants, 20,000 feet tall, oozing glaciers down their valleys.

Gilgit is a funny place. It's the last town of any size before China, a day's drive over the pass, and everybody stops here on their way up. With all the amenities a backpacker could ask for, it still retains the friendliness of a small Pakistani town. Long ago, some guy named Alexander the Great brought a bunch of his buddies up here and they acted like they owned the place. After a while most of them got tired of the apricots (or could it have been Mr. Great's ego?) and went back home, but the variety of skin tones and European facial features of the local people belies a fondness for more than the majestic scenery. More recently, the British did a similar thing but thankfully all they left behind was a penchant for polo.

Above Gilgit is where the real fun starts. The KKH loses its infatuation with the Indus in favor of another pretty face, the Hunza River. The Hunza brings with it a fresh awe of beautiful mountains, glaciers, and warm, unceasingly helpful Hunza villagers. I tagged along with Tony on an overnight trek in the upper Hunza, which took us to a glacier-fed lake for our campsite. We cheated a little by camping on the lawn of a hotel, but it was the only flat spot around the lake. The following morning brought us to the flank of a glacier; two big boulders on a ridge marked the path's continuation on the other side, about half a kilometer across the rocky river of ice. Rivulets of meltwater streamed down the glacier walls as the sun tried halfheartedly to cow the overgrown ice cube. The relatively level surfaces on which we were crossing were covered with rocks of all sizes, which had been carved from the sides of the valley above and slowly carried downhill on the world's slowest roller coaster. As the rocks lying on the surface had been heated up day after day, they had melted the ice beneath them and sunk down, becoming neatly embedded. Other rocks eagerly lined up at the ridges along the sheer cliffs, hanging precariously over the edge. Every minute or so one would build up the courage to jump off, bouncing down the ice wall to join its brethren below. Sounds of an underground river were accompanied by creaks and groans of unseen glacial movement. All of this activity made me realize how alive and unpredictable the ground on which I stood was, and that we crossed not by our own skill but by its grace. Oh yeah, and the army guy who steered us away from the deep crevasse helped too.

Down the other side of the glacier we passed through a Hunza village just as school was letting out. It didn't take long before we'd attracted a following of kids of all ages, like a pair of pied pipers.

Finishing our trek back on teh KKH, we managed to hitch a ride on one of the big cargo trucks to unique to Pakistan, elaborately painted and sporting a big wooden bonnet over its cab. The co-pilot climbed down to the bed where we sat, to chat in Urdu with us. He was a huge, burly, black-skinned man from the south, and I was happy he hadn't come back to crush our bones between his two pinky fingers. The truck swayed as he pulled his formidable bulk up onto the roof of the cab. I couldn't resist when he motioned for me to follow him, so up I went, getting a panoramic view of some of the most amazing scenery I've ever seen as the truck trundled up the highway.

Tony and I took a short hike to see a rickety rope-bridge across the Hunza River, arriving just in time to watch an old man make his way from plank to plank, a gap of several feet between each dubious board. We posed for a few trophy shots, but weren't brave enough to go all the way to the other side. Then we discovered that in spite of its dramatic and dangerous looks, the bridge was less than 20 feet off the ground. In fact, the narrow path along the cliff we took getting there was more dangerous, in places being merely a footprint-wide landslide at the edge. Finally adventured out, Tony and I went our separate ways; he to another village to scope out more treks, and I to spend my last night in the highest podunk village before heading to China in the morning.

Okay, now put the money back into the ceramic swine, and consider yourself caught up to the present. For another yuan, I'll tell you what's going to happen tomorrow...