Jeep Tour K2 Trek Snow Capped High Mountains Valley Travel
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Tuesday August 26: Tashkurgan – Karimabad
It had snowed overnight, and there was a decent covering on the hills around.
We were concerned about the safety of the bus given how loaded it was and the nature of the terrain, but the driver had obviously done it all before and took the whole drive in a steady, safe manner. The whole trip back on the bus was an interesting experience, and in a strange sort of way, we wouldn’t have missed it! Nevertheless, we were very pleased indeed to see Ehsan and Eidjan waiting for us when the bus arrived at Sost at 15.15hrs.
At the Sost immigration and customs facility a local man miraculously appeared and climbed up onto the bus to hand down the items. One German man complained about ‘paying’ him 40 rupees for this service, so I told him ‘the facts of life’ which were that 40 rupees meant very much more to the man than O.3 Euros did to him!
On the bus we had met a middle-aged man from Australia/South Africa who was intending to make his way through Pakistan to India using local transport with only a rucksack and the Lonely Planet guide. He asked Ehsan for advice on where to go. Ehsan made a few suggestions, but basically thought the man was mad as, apart from anything else, he would see and experience very little from the inside of a NATCO bus – given our experience of the trip back from China, Ehsan was absolutely right.
We stopped for (green) tea in Passu and arrived in Karimabad at 18.15hrs.
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We were up early
in order to get to the bus station by 08.00hrs. The NATCO bus was in fact only
a 18 seat minibus which had come up the day before from Kashgar, and as far as
we could tell, had been full all the way. Quing Li assured us that we were
on the bus and everything had been arranged with the transport manager, but we
remained to be convinced about this right up to the time we and our luggage
were actually on it and the bus was actually on its way. To say the bus was
‘packed’ is like describing the Amazon as a ‘stream’. Inside were 18 people
plus one standing, our luggage and lots more luggage, whilst the roof was
covered with several feet of further baggage – it would never have passed any
EU regulations. After packing everyone and everything in and on, we finally got
underway at 08.40hrs. We then drove a whole one mile to the immigration office,
where everyone and everything had to be taken off and out of the bus to be
thoroughly inspected. I mean, push comes to shove, you can understand why they
might want to inspect goods coming into the country thoroughly, but going out
!!! The whole process took ages, but at least we did not have to stop again at
the building next door as we had on the way down. So, we all got back onto the
bus and some of the stuff, including our cases that had been inside the bus was
put on the roof – now not being entirely stupid, I made sure ours went onto the
middle of the roof so it was surrounded and wouldn’t fall off. I mentioned
earlier that the bus had been full all the way from Kashgar and that we were
extras. There was an enormous row about who was sitting where as the Pakistanis
wanted the seats they had from Kashgar, and I suspect we were basically the
cause of the problem. We sort-of said ”sorry” and “could we please
stay seated where we are” and kept our heads down. This approach worked
with the Pakistanis. However one Japanese guy was really insistent that after
Tashkurgan all the seats were up for grabs and he wasn’t going to move. It all
got very heated – you could see blood getting spilt. In
the end the Chinese were clearly getting fed up with the delay and so I
persuaded the Japanese man that the seat the Pakistanis were proposing was as
good as the one he was in, so reluctantly he moved and we finally set off at
10.20hrs.
The Pakistani
who had to stand up had spent the last two weeks in a Chinese prison for
fighting (an experience he described as “most undesirable”), and he was
being deported; he was very subdued till the bus passed over the border into
Pakistan, at which point the whole atmosphere in the bus changed to one of
celebration and bread was passed around. The Pakistanis then insisted that,
since he was now in their country and thus now a guest, the Japanese man should
have back the seat he wanted. At the top of the pass, although there was no
snow on the road, it was snowing reasonably hard; no wonder the Pakistani
guards looked so glum – this cannot be the most comfortable or attractive
posting in the country.