Taxkorgan Things to Do

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The Karakorum Highway cuts through the Kunlun Shan, the Pamirs and Karakorum and skims close to the Hindu Kush and Tian Shan within China, passing from Kashgar, past Lake Karakul, Mount Mustag Ata, Taxkorgan (Tashkurgan - Chinese customs), over teh Khujerab Pass into Pakistan and then past Sust (Pakistani immigration), Hunza and Gilgit before you see the Himalayas. Continuing south will take you down the Indus Gorge past Taxalia (the now abandoned birthplace of Tantric Buddhism) to the end of the highway in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. Another useless fact is that at 4730 m, the aforementioned Khunjerab Pass in the Karakorums is the highest international border crossing in the world - it's only open part of the year (1st May to 31st October) as the pass gets closed by snow in the winter.

The Karakorum Highway was started in 1966, two years after China and Pakistan settled a border dispute (mixed in with the Kashmir problem) with the Chinese building most of the route (up to Gulmit in Pakistan) and all the bridges. It was officially completed in 1980, opened to trade and official traffic in 1982 and to tourists in 1986 (though some work continued after this). To add to this, the Chinese have now started to rebuild it from their end, turning the former gravel road into modern highway. In some places, however, the modern highway still gets washed away by the sometimes fast flowing rivers and stretches of the old road still have to be used. All in all, despite the problems encountered, a very spectacular engineering achievement through some stunning mountain scenery (and I understand the mountains in the Pakistani side are even better than I managed to photo below on the Chinese side).

See my other Tashkurgan tip for Lake Karakul.

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Lake Karakul is about 200 km or 4 hours drive south of Kashgar along the Karakorum Highway. It is also slightly north (~20 km) of Tashkurgan, the last settlement in China on the Karakorum Highway which cuts through the Kunlun Shan, the Pamirs and Karakorum and skims close to the Hindu Kush and Tian Shan within China. That's a lot of mountain ranges for a bit of careless driving on India's part 50 million years ago - smack into southern Asia and no 'No Claims Bonus' - or insurance for that matter.

The only mountain range I've not mentioned is the Himalaya - to get to that, you need to continue south on the Karakorum Highway from Tashkurgan (Chinese immigration), over the Khunjerab Pass into Pakistan (remember Chinese and Pakistani visas) and down through Sust (Pakistani immigration), Hunza and Gilgit before you see the Himalayas. Continuing south will take you down the Indus Gorge past Taxalia (the now abandoned birthplace of Tantric Buddhism) to the end of the highway in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. Another useless fact is that at 4730 m, the aforementioned Khunjerab Pass in the Karakorums is the highest international border crossing in the world - it's only open part of the year (1st May to 31st October) as the pass gets closed by snow in the winter.

The big fella in the background is called Mustagh Ata at 7546 m high, however, off to the left and bigger again is the less well known Kongur at 7719 m (not in view - it was in the huff, hiding in cloud when I was there). The lake itself is either at 3,600 m altitude or 3,900 m - I'm not sure. This means take care with the altitude as even short visits can lead to altitude sickness. The lake itself is spectacularly situated amongst the eastern extremities of the Pamir mountains, the bulk of which are in nearby Tajikistan. You've also got Afghanistan nearby to this point and turning off to the right southbound from Kashgar before reaching Lake Karakul will take you there instead of Pakistan.

This tip has to be under at least a big tree to be able to be considered as a sheltering tip. Though it looks easy but one must visit Tashkorgan, otherwise the sheltering is not the sheltering of Tashkorgan.

Tajiks watching perception 1 is not that easy to understand by just mere superficial knowledge. A person able to understand the bare truth of this watching has to be the person of hyper-superficial knowledge only.

One of the best must see activities of Tashkorgan has to be this, washing clothes by mostly housewives and young girls. This is not an easy photo as I must search inside those alleys each by each for scene of this, not easy. This is one of the best Tashkorgan photos, very sure.

Apparently we saw two kids in red and smiling. The boy holding a hand over on the fence while the girl put her face towards him.

They, the peoples of Tashkorgan like to stand here, in the middle of street to chit chat, as if no cars will hit them. Indeed yes, the street has not many cars, yet.

They are not for us to watch but who cares, you mean you don't want to watch peoples when you travel?