We checked into a rather expensive hotel at £23 but my goodness was it good. China has great hotel rooms, the mattresses are proper thick ones, not thin slabs of sunken foam. The bed sheets are always crisp and white, fresh from the laundry company, unlike in Pakistan where 50% of the rooms had filthy sheets that hadn’t been cleaned. We were provided with two bath towels and two hand towels, in Pakistan they give you one towel between two people!! We had a kettle and mugs in the room, fancy lighting, air conditioning and a spotless white toilet with an actual flush, no bucket required.

We headed out to grab some dinner and were satisfied with some simple noodle soups. We also popped into the k2 hostel in town to enquire about buses to Kashgar and the receptionist was a right character. She spoke fluent English but with such a strong Chinese accent “driver schtop all da timeeee, he layzay man, smokin’ all da timeeee”. Anyway, even with that information she recommended the bus over a shared car as she said foreigners aren’t allowed to take the latter.

There was a large square nearby where everyone seemed to congregate and the town had a nice vibe due to the mix of people living or visiting. The main population in Tashkurgan was ethnic Tajiks but there’s also Han Chinese, Pakistanis and other ethnic groups. It wouldn’t be China without a dance circle and even the dances and music were different here with lots of spinning and hand swirling. The Tajik ladies had a very interesting attire with high heels, tights, a knee length skirt, a colourful top or cardigan and a lovely embroidered hat with a shawl over it. Many of them wore makeup and had prominent mono brows. It was really interesting to see and we decided that with such a comfortable room and nice vibe in the town we would spend an extra day here.

We didn’t have many plans for our full day in Tashkurgan except for a stroll to the grasslands which all seemed to be closed off and required a ticket to visit. Luckily on our walk back we came across a lovely field of sunflowers below the mountains which made the walk worthwhile. Even though we weren’t in Pakistan anymore the Pakistanis in town still said hello to us and stopped for a chat, some even offered to take us for lunch.

The following morning we wanted to get a bus to Kashgar so we decided to pop down to the bus station just before 9 and check when the next bus was and lo and behold a shared car was waiting to go to Kashgar and just needed two more passengers. There were no quarrels about us being foreigners so we dashed back to the hotel to grab our luggage. It was about double the price of the bus but it would get us there quicker than with the “layzay drivers stopping to smoke’”.

This route along the Karakoram highway is said to be one of the worlds most scenic drives and I couldn’t agree more. At the start we had huge snow capped mountains beside us. Karakol Lake was the first sort of main sight on the road, encircled by snowy peaks and glaciers. It was a rare journey where I didn’t dare fall asleep as the scenery was constantly changing. We passed herds of yaks grazing on the grassland and yurt camps with smoke pouring out the chimneys. Then the mountains moved closer to us as we made our way through a sort of gorge with wispy clouds drifting below the peaks.

We passed Baisha lake also known as white sands as the turquoise water is backed by mountains and white sand dunes. It’s a shame the driver didn’t stop for a quick photo at the lakes, in fact we only had one stop for him to smoke where I got to take some photos and the rest of the stops were security checks and one loo break.

The final wow sight on the drive was Ghez Grand Canyon where the landscape looked like a piece of Utah had been dropped into China. Suddenly we had red and orange mountains all around us. It was such a stunning drive and after 5 hours we arrived in the famous Silk Road city of Kashgar.