Unsure whether or not we’d be the only people stupid enough to be crossing into Pakistan via the Khunjerab Pass, we were relieved to be joined at customs by 20-odd loud and boisterous English speaking Pakistani traders. Watching the somewhat authoritarian Chinese border guards trying to organise them into lines to check their passports must have been where the expression ‘herding cats’ came from.
After about an hour of frenetic activity during which all manner of Chinese wares were stuffed into every spare crevice on the bus, we were allowed to board it and set off. We realised we needed to shift to Indian sub-continent mentality when we discovered that there were no seats on the bus; only bunks and that our designated ones were already filled with other people and their considerable luggage. We squeezed in and the shower of Pakistani hospitality commenced. Bunches of grapes were handed out, cigarettes were lit up in abundance and cans of Chinese Red Bull were forced upon us. We tried to share out our unappetising peanuts in return but were too embarrassed to reveal the stale bread and processed cheese we’d also packed.
We made friends with 24 year old Amir, a trader of semi-precious gems from Hunza who caught this bus backwards and forwards from Pakistan twice a week. He told us how Bengal tigers roamed the pass (we think he meant snow leopards) and told us of his suspiciousness of any Pakistani person from outside his home valley.
At the top of the Khunjerab Pass at 4730m above sea level, we were told to get out of the bus into the bitter cold to be counted and have our passports checked again by the Chinese army. This was presumably in case anyone had entered or left the bus whilst it was moving and under armed guard. The well regimented lines of people were, we suspected, the last we’d be seeing for some time.
After a 3 three hour descent through narrow, shear-sided gorges, occasionally glimpsing towering white pinnacles of rock thousands of feet above, we arrived at Pakistani customs in Sost.
The passport desk was a scrum with shouts and passports waved above heads. We were stamped in within minutes and were told we were welcome to Pakistan. Unsure whether there was any more to the procedure or not, we were already surrounded by a throng of shouting taxi drivers. Trying to brush them off, we bumped into a man who announced ‘I am the customs officer. Are these your bags? You are free to go’ without pausing for breath. We thanked him and were rescued by Amir.
Amir helped us change money and organised us seats on a minibus down the valley. He then insisted on unhurriedly buying us tea and introducing his friends whilst the over-full minibus waited for us.
A late miss-hap saw us mistakenly get off the minibus 15km short of our hotel and have to hitch the rest of the way in a truck with only two working gears. Intricately decorated and with a top speed of about jogging pace, the truck was up to the challenge when the excellent Chinese-built road abruptly turned into a river bed and then a river.
Despite some hair-raising manoeuvres past oncoming trucks mid-river and much grinding of gears, we were delivered safe and sound and very ready for curry to Hotel Continental, Gulmit.
Scamps on a train 