Will I ever cross into China?
In a word - nightmare. From protests to damaged roads, it felt like I had to manifest with every fibre of my being for this border to be open. And it still didn’t work. Since the beginning of July, Pakistani traders had been protesting at the border over the Pakistani government introducing high taxes on imports, and this involved them shutting down the immigration office and physically blocking the road. I’d heard rumblings of this as soon as I arrived in Pakistan, but also was aware of tourists being allowed to cross still. I was planning to cross into China on Friday 15th August, the day after Pakistan’s independence day (a national holiday which would see the border closed). However, after checking with the locals in the area (I asked the owner of a homestay in the town close to the border) it seemed that the border would also be close on Friday. I decided to push my border crossing to Monday 18th August, rather than dashing to make it before the 14th. This would give me a few extra days in Pakistan to do another multi-day hike, and I would still have enough time in China to do what I wanted to do there. With this plan decided, I booked my trains in China, all the way from Kashgar in the far west to Chengdu. Trains in China book up almost immediately once they go on sale, which is two weeks before departure, so I was already cutting it fine and had to make do with what was still available. I knew that if I missed these booked trains I was in trouble, as I wouldn’t be able to book new ones (they would certainly be fully booked by then). Also, this act of booking trains was made infinitely more difficult by the lack of wifi or phone service in Pakistan…
Monday 18th rolled around and my stomach was filled with minor dread. All weekend people had been telling me that the border would not open on Monday. This was pure conjecture, but it made me anxious. The owners of the homestay also seemed to hold little hope of it opening. However, they said we would still go to the border to see. So after a typical breakfast of egg, roti and chai, we drove the short distance to the border town of Sost. The bus office was closed, not a promising sign, but another bus office was open. We went here and were met with an unhelpful spiel of “uncertain if border will open today” “maybe it will” “maybe tonight” “maybe not today”. I released the control of the situation and decided to accept that I wouldn’t be crossing, but be optimistic all the same. The knot in my stomach dissolved and I thought about how good it was to practice letting go of things you can’t control. There were some familiar faces in the bus office - the little Uzbek guy I’d met in Yak Grill a few days previously whilst we both waited to see if phone service would appear, and the Belgian couple from the hostel in Ishkoman, right at the start of my time in Pakistan. I shared my working phone service with them, and we laughed at the uncertainty of it all. After 2 hours, we were told that a committee of people was coming from Hunza, a larger town lower down in the valley, to have a discussion with the protestors at 2pm. That only after this would there be news. So we drove back to the homestay, with all our contacts in Sost ready to call us if there was any update.
I might have been able to let go of the stress of seeing if the border would open or not, but I was less good at accepting a day of waiting. I hated feeling like I was wasting a day, especially when on a short trip. But it was raining, so I didn’t feel like going for a walk around the town or hills, and I had already done this the previous day. I wasn’t in the mood to write. So I sat in the traditional Wakhi room for the entire day. The young guy from the hostel was happy to play the selection of games with me, so we played pick-up sticks, dobble and exploding kittens. Another guest arrived, a very interesting 60 year old lady from Palau (had to look it up, it’s a Pacific island), called Katherine. She joined in our game of exploding kittens and we played until we were bored. We chatted a lot, I read my book, I practised some dutch. Katherine told me she once dated a dutch man and it was awful, and then he died of covid. There was no news about the border. Before it got dark, I went for a little walk and thought about my options. If the border opened tomorrow, I would miss my first train but I could take a flight to the next city instead and would be able to catch the subsequent trains. If I couldn’t cross until Thursday or Friday, I would go and explore a different valley for a few days, and would then have to fly all the way to Chengdu, missing out on exploring Xinjiang but with no other option. If I couldn’t cross until next week, or not at all, well that would be very tricky!
I did some yoga and Katherine and I played more cards until it was dinner. The day had moments of joy, sharing funny stories, playing cards, but mostly I felt defeated and lethargic from the waiting. I gave up on my chance of crossing that day and went to sleep, with little hope for the following day.
The next morning I crouched on the porch and watched the mountains. I held no hope about crossing today and felt pretty low. The lady from the homestay came out of her room and excitedly said she had received news that the border would be open today! My mood soared as I rushed to pack my things. We ate breakfast and drove back to Sost, and it become certain that the border would be open. The bus offices were mobilising, and I secured my bus ticket and snacks for the journey. Thank god (or Allah)!
We’re crossing into China!
In a way I’m glad that it was such a painful lead up to the border crossing. Because it meant whenever the actual crossing became tricky, I just thought back to how thankful I was to even be crossing the border. The actual crossing was long, but not too difficult. First, we needed to have our bags searched by the Pakistani immigration office, and then stamped out of the country. We loaded our luggage onto the bus, but then had to walk across the picket line and past the protestors, and another 1km up the road. We cheered when the bus appeared and we loaded on. We drove the final bit of the Karakoram highway through the Khunjerab national park. The road was in a very bad state in sections, but passable. My fellow passengers were all Chinese, except for 7 cyclists from a mix of European countries, all in their 50s. When we reached the national park kiosk, us foreigners were charged 30USD as a park fee, a total rip-off seeing as we wouldn’t be getting off the bus, but one I was expecting. We weaved our way up to 4300m and crossed the border under the communist looking archway. The highest paved road, and the highest international border crossing, in the world. There were Chinese tourists in a fenced area, taking photos of the mountains. A short distance past the archway we went through the first immigration point. I felt the altitude as we got of the bus, the air was cold and thin. Our luggage was scanned and then a man went through every item of my bag, but very pleasantly and he seemed quite excited by most of my items. It wasn’t a particularly thorough check despite this, and he didn’t find my penknife which I’d hidden wrapped inside my raincoat. I was then placed on a little conveyor belt, a first for me, which took me through a scanner - quite funny! Back on the bus we continued the drive on the Chinese side of the national park, with an extra passenger of a Chinese police officer (although he didn’t pay much attention to us and spent most of the journey on facetime to someone). The scenery opened up dramatically, to wide plains bordered by snowy mountains. Gone was the tight valley I’d been in for the last week. I happily spotted herds of yak from the window, lots of marmots, a bright yellow bird, and three camels.
A few things happened immediately after crossing the border - my chinese esim kicked in and I had full 5G, and time jumped forward three hours. The phone service made me tut, angry at the Pakistani military for the monopoly they held over phone service in the north, and the poor service they provided. The time difference made me feel strange, realising that all of China runs on one time zone which suits Beijing, so it doesn’t match up properly in the west.
After a couple of hours we reached our destination - Tashkurgan’s immigration point. Our luggage was first inspected by sniffer dogs, then I had my tongue swabbed and my bag was scanned again. And finally, my passport was stamped with a Chinese entry stamp. I felt a sense of relief - I was in! The visa which had been incredibly painful to get in London was all in order. I left the immigration building and immediately felt lost. Everyone had evaporated and I had no idea where to go next. I wanted to try and get to Kashgar that night, but was aware that it was already 10pm (I had left the homestay in Pakistan at 9am!) and the drive was 5 hours. Eventually, I found some friendly Pakistani guys who were also trying to get to Kashgar and we banded together to find a taxi. And so the much less pleasant part of the journey began, with a taxi driver who may have been the most awful man I’d ever met.
One of the Pakistani guys needed to drop by a hotel briefly (I think to drop off a watch, but unsure), which was next to a restaurant. We hadn’t eaten a proper meal all day so we asked the driver if we could quickly grab some food to takeaway. He said no, that there was not enough time. He then got out of the car and went into the restaurant, returning with two boxes of dumplings, all for himself. I laughed at his behaviour, and eventually, after it was evident we would be waiting a while, one of the Pakistani guys ran in to get us all a tupperware of pilaf with lamb and a samsa (all food I’d had before in Central Asia, which made me quite excited!). The next sign of how awful the driver was came when he rolled down my window (I was sat in the front passenger seat) and picked up his now empty box of dumplings. I could see what he was going to do and watched in horror as he attempted to throw the box out of my window and it caught in the wind and hit my head instead. Again, I couldn’t do anything but laugh at this man’s disgusting behaviour. His driving was terrible and I was scared to sleep, sure that we would crash the moment I closed my eyes. We went through several police check-points, which were without incident, and there were hundreds of fake police cars and police officers, complete with flashing lights, all the way along the road. There was a strange box in my glove department which the driver kept stopping the car to look at. It had a green display but didn’t seem to show anything. I guessed it was some sort of monitoring device. The driver repeatedly said we needed to wait before driving again, to all of our annoyance as the hours dragged on. The worst of these was at 2:30am, when he said we needed to wait for 30 minutes. Confused but tired, we didn’t argue. At 3am we gestured for him to continue driving and he then refused, saying we now needed to wait another 2 hours. We were all incredibly annoyed now, we asked him why he hadn’t mentioned this when picking us up? We pointed at the other taxis driving past us to his claims that no one can drive along the road after 3am. Eventually, he continued driving, making lots of loud noises in disagreement about it. At 4am, we reached Kashgar, and were only 20 minutes from my hostel. I was day dreaming about getting into bed when the driver stopped on the side of the main highway. He refused to drive any further. I pleaded with him to drop me off at my hostel, since it was so close, but he just got out of the car and started unloading our bags. The Pakistani guys and me shook our heads in disbelief, all agreeing that this guy was a very bad man. We all stood on the side of the highway, hoping to find a taxi that would take us to our respective destinations. I was so thankful to not be alone. I saw a taxi and waved it down. The Pakistani guys insisted that I take this first one, and I thanked them all as I gave directions to the new driver. It seemed that the road of the hostel couldn’t be driven down, so I climbed out, paid the driver in cash as my QR code payment was working yet, feeling so thankful I had met some tourists who had come from China earlier in Pakistan and bought their Yen from them. I walked the final 10 minutes down the dark street, praying that the hostel was where it said it was. When I saw the sign and pushed open the door I could’ve cried with relief. It had been an exhausting day, and I collapsed into bed happily.
And so the Pakistani chapter was over, and the Chinese chapter began. Not off to the greatest start, but at least I was in the country at last!