The Khunjerab border is the highest paved international border crossing in the world, set at 4600m elevation it closes for half the year due to snowfall. Our plan was to cross from Sost in Pakistan to Tashkurgan in China, via the Khunjerab pass. We stayed in a lovely homestay about 10km south of Sost, it’s a good place to meet fellow travellers because it tends to be the first or last stop into Pakistan and many people who are cycling around the world or travelling overland take this route. During the day we hitched to Sost to arrange our bus ticket from the Natco office for the next day and buy snacks. We also needed to change our money and the first two shops didn’t have any Chinese yuan which was worrying, luckily a random man in the bus office had a wallet stacked with yuan and the £300 we changed up didn’t even make a dent to his stack. While we sat on a street corner eating crisps a taxi pulled up and a Chinese couple came out, the lady was in a wheelchair and I can’t imagine how challenging Pakistan was for her, they don’t even have pavements here. We haven’t seen Chinese people in a while so we excitedly said nihao to them and ended up helping them get their bus tickets to China as they didn’t speak English or Urdu. It turns out the lady was Tibetan, from Shangrila where we visited a few months back so we shared a few photos from our time there.

After helping the couple we met a local guy on the street who asked if we wanted some chai, of course we did! So we joined him in a cafe and enjoyed a long chat as he spoke great English. When we finished he insisted on buying the teas, Pakistanis really are the most generous and hospitable people you’ll ever meet. There was a great collection of truck art in town so we spent some time admiring them, some guys even encouraged us to look inside as the ceiling was covered in multicoloured jingly things.

When we got back to the homestay we met two solo cyclists who had both travelled all the way from Europe to Pakistan and plan to continue to Nepal. We spent the evening eating vegetable noodles and chatting away while we got our last dose of Pakistan power-cuts which seemed to be the most relentless yet and it felt like we were in a nightclub with strobe lights.

The following morning our hosts kindly drove us to Sost and dropped us at Natco office (the bus ticket was 4000 rupees per person £11.50). We were told to be there by 9am but it was all rather chaotic. On our ticket they wrote down a number plate and that was our van, not a bus as we’d expected. We went outside but it was nowhere to be seen and no one was really coordinating anything, then we were told to wait back in the office.

9am – Pakistan customs and immigration

Eventually a man walked us up the road and we arrived at the customs office, the doors swung open, everyone piled inside including us and then we were told to exit the queue and wait outside. Nothing really made any sense but eventually it was our turn to get our bags checked and as Craig put my bag on the table the worker said “who’s bag, ladies?” And when I said yes he waved me off. Then he did the same for Craig’s bag. We then located our van and were told to go to the immigration room. Luckily we had a really nice guy from Islamabad in our van who was studying in China and regularly does this route so he led the way.

First we had a health check where they asked a few questions and used a heat scanner on our head and then we queued up for immigration. Just as Craig was having his photo taken there was a power-cut and all the computers turned off. It was bonkers, immigration just came to a halt for 15 minutes and I joked with the border guard “our final powercut in Pakistan” although I really sympathise with the locals trying to live with such sporadic electricity, fans and fridges turning off on hot summer days.

10:30am – Leaving Pakistan immigration

Everyone finished immigration and was piled into the van. Inside we had us, our Chinese friends we’d met the day before, 4 guys from Austria and 4 Pakistanis. In true Chinese style the guy got out some cotton buds and started cleaning his ears in the van, followed by flossing his teeth. Thank god he didn’t get the nail clippers out because I think I actually have a phobia of the clipping nail noise.

11:15am – Khunjarab National park check post

This was an absolute scam as you’re in no man’s land so you can’t just go out hiking and they charge tourists $20 to drive through the park. We paid in rupees which was 11,200 for the two of us but apparently from 2025 they’ll be charging tourists $40! Pakistanis only pay a very small fee and Chinese pay about $5.

The road conditions were crazy, there was so much evidence from landslides with rocks piled up and the metal guardrail twisted and bent or even pushed down into the river below. At one point the road had completely collapsed into the river and small rocks were placed near the edge as a sort of guide so people didn’t drive too close to the drop-off.

12pm – Chinese customs

We arrived at the Khunjerab border where the most notable thing was “the worlds highest atm, in Pakistan!” And we laughed about it not accepting foreign cards because most of the atms in Pakistan just don’t work for us. The mountain scenery would normally be very impressive but we had gloomy low clouds. Sadly we arrived just after a bus so we had to wait ages to get through Chinese customs. The van parked up in a large building and then we were asked if we needed the toilet and boy were they a joke. There were 3 cubical with squatter toilets and above the units were big plastic tanks, clearly with water as maybe they don’t have a proper water source here. Well, they’d run out of water so the toilets were an absolute state and involved peeing on top of someone else’s shit.

There was a long queue of people waiting to have their bags and body scanned and when it was our turn we needed to take our shoes off and the floor was filthy. They thoroughly inspected everyone’s bags, looking into detail at things like my pen and snorkel. Interestingly they got the owner of the bag to do the opening and pulling things out, we’ve been in airports before where they do it themselves.

After about five minutes I was given the green light and headed back to the van. The vehicles were all thoroughly inspected too and put over a pit so staff could go under with a torch. Once everyone was in the van an officer came around and put a sticker across every door, the nice guy from Islamabad explained that it’s because you’re not allowed to exit the vehicle for the next 125km until we arrive at the actual immigration office in Tashkurgan. The whole process at customs took nearly two hours.

2pm – Driving through no man’s land

Once we left the border cars needed to drive on the other side of the road which was rather strange. There was an instant change in infrastructure on the Chinese side with a lot of signage and brand new guard rails. The weather improved a bit and we could see the mountains along with many yurt camps on the green pastures and lots of Yak and camels roaming the land.

4pm – Chinese immigration

We arrived at the immigration in Tashkurgan and parked up, waiting to be told it’s our turn but the passenger in the front went to open the door and everyone screamed as he almost split the tape on the door.

Once we were inside the officer accidentally tore my arrival card so I had to refill all my answers. Our photos and fingerprints were taken and then our bags were put through a scanner but they didn’t search ours this time, the officers seemed more interested in our British passports. We waited outside and the Austrians soon joined us and then we realised that the journey was over, the van wasn’t coming to pick us up and take us the final couple of kilometres into town so we grabbed our bags and started walking.

5pm – Immigration complete

It was strange being back in China, the streets were so clean, they had wide pavements, pedestrian crossings and so much greenery along every street. There were street cleaners and lots of electronic noises from vehicles and robot machines, but it felt good to be back!