Greetings from Kashgar

(From Svöbi)

Soooo, hello everyone

Lots has happened in the last few weeks, I give a short overview. We left lahore and some good new friends with some hesitation (because of the new good friends), but the Karakoram highway was calling.

After a last night in a nice, big house with AC, thanks to Katherine, our friendly British host in Islamabad (a weird city which looks like some rich eurpean suburb rather than Pakistan), we set off north. It was hot. Too hot for my taste, and I was not the only one. the locals suffered, too.

First, the KKH follows the indus River, which was having a good time, hollering and tumbling down the gorge, swollen with tons of glacier and snow melt. I could not see a real high water mark, except sometimes near the waterline, meaning it was running really high. it was impressive. the landscape is awesome, all the rivers just some levels bigger than what we are used to. We spent the nights at guesthouses and in small villages in the tent and car. Two times we went away from the main valley, the first time up into bar valley, right to the end of the road in bar village, where we camped. Some local ngo and wildlife observation guys fixed us the place, really nice. The valley begins at chalt, for the interested. The second side valley was hoper valley, we went up to Hoper village, camping at a guesthouse/campground right at the side of the glacier, on the old moraine. The last night we spent near the customs in Sost, but not in the village proper. It was not very nice, being a border town. We went a few km downstreams, to a little village. We asked if we could camp there, and were kindly welcomed. The village is well the most idyllic village i saw, with green grass, irrigation channels like little creeks, ducks swimming around. Very nice.

Then came the Kunjerab Marathon, which was long (12hrs total, including all the customs formalities), high (4700 m), and beautiful. We heard rumours abou8t very bad roads on the china side due to the construction of a new road, and were a little worried. After all, the kkh in Pakistan is just a little road clinging to the cliffs of the narrow gorge, and it was Pakistani drivers warning us...

In China, however, it was rather flat and a wide, beautiful valley dotted with Kirgisz nomads and the Pamirs on the left. At the pass we took a young Chinese officer with us, to the customs checkpost. it was supp- osed to be a distance with five fingers in km, 50 as it turned out. the army life allowed the guy to actually sleep in the jumping car... After a few hours we arrived in Tashkurgent, where we met our guide and went through customs and immigration. The guide is a nice uigur from kashgar, who speaks a very good English. So our stay here is turing out very nice, despite the standard tourist tours (Yes, they are interesting of course, but a little weird nonetheless)

The first night in China we were on the road which usually only is driven in the morning, because of the river crossings due to road costruction (snow melt). the deepest parts were rather deep, but our landcruiser can wade up to 70 cm of water, so all went well. Finally, we arrived at Karakuli Lake (The chinese one) and slept in a yurt. Well, a tourist place, but we didnt choose it and it was ok. Somehow the yurt reminded us (Hynek and me) of some cold night in a badly constructed igloo in Engadin, except that it was not that cold.

now we are the second night in Kashgar, an amazing city. it is growing fast, eating away all the nice old neighbourhoods and green spaces. Grass has to yield to Progress (concrete). but at least we had a couple of beers in a nightclub (interesting) and saw the coolest place: In some cellar room there are about 50 computers with people playing Starcraft and counterstrike. The food is excellent, too. and cheap.

Well, i am tired of typing on this crapped up keyboard now, with many important keys not working properly (like the shift key, for instance), so i sum up a few impressions and finish.

Pakistan: I can only repeat my first impressions: It IS a very good country for holidays! If you like hiking in the mountains, go to Hunza (The upper part of the kkh around gilgit and upstreams). If you like friendly hospitality, go anywhere in Pakistan except some parts like kohistan (Still, along the KKH everyone is nice). There were even some Americans which were all received friendly, as far as I know. maybe Peshawar might be a problem, but please come to the northern Frontier Provices. they suffer from the loss of tourism after 911, an amplified form of paranoia even switzerland was experiencing during the kosovo war, when almost no American tourists were coming anymore. some guesthouses had to close. Everyone was telling us that they need the tourists, especially in hunza. and the setting is really superb.

The more north one goes, the more mixed the population gets. the views of the mountains are just unlike anything in Europe (seeing rakaposhi looming almost 6000m above the road IS impressive), and the rivers are all premium mad kayaker land. well, in most of the rivers one really has to be mad to go down, and for the Indus some suicidal tendencies might help, but in autumn this might change when snow and glacier melt is down.

china

The mosquitoes are bigger than anything I saw yet (Our first impression after getting out of the car at night at the lake). The people are friendly and it is very interesting to go through the change of culture when crossing the pass between the subcontinent and Asia proper. Kashgar has almost no traffic compared to the last month, is organized, it has red lights for pedestrians, and the cars actually stop at red lights! The Handycrafts are quite amazing, I never saw finder carpets than here. Some of them take two years and four people to finish, some even longer. they are not cheap (a really large, fine silk carpet for around 10000 Dollars, but i dont want to imagine what they would cost in Europe), though. Progress is everywhere (mainly in the form of concrete and chicken-stall housing), and finally some bigger motorbikes can be spotted as well. We cannot say we were in china, since its only a few days and we only saw the very Western part, but it is interesting nonetheless.

Tomorrow we take off to torugart Pass over the border to Kirgysztan, where in one weeks elections take place. Bad timing. But we will see, it should be alright. first we drive north to bishkek or lake Yssik- Kul, depending on the situation (Whether we want to be at the lake or in the capital during elections).

So long for now, the next newsflash will be from Bishkek in a week or so I guess, InshAllah.

Greetings

Matthias

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