Leaving the yurt camp in the morning, we rode back through the foothills to the border checkpost, passing a lone shepherd on horseback on the way. The border procedures were fairly straightforward on both sides, with the exception of…
The road to Osh and beyond
Finally back on the road, we took the road south towards Kyrgyzstan’s second-largest city, Osh. Winding through the same mountains as the Ala-Archa National Park, it climbed and dipped while we dodged trucks and minivans doing insane speeds. At…
Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital
We arrived in Bishkek on the eve of Independence Day, finding the hostel amazingly full, but managing to squeeze our tent into a corner of the back yard. Out and about the next day, we started with a run to…
Lake Issyk-Kul and surroundings
Waving goodbye to our temporary yurt home the next day, we headed back through plains, across streams and down mountainsides. On reaching the first town in the lowlands, just before rejoining the main road, we stopped to regather our…
Lake Song-Kul
From our overnight at Tash Rabat, we started a slow move north towards the capital, Bishkek, where we’ll be arranging the remainder of our visas for Central Asia. The road passed through rolling plains, with mountain peaks looming in the…
From Kashgar to Kyrgyzstan
With a day off in town, while our guides were finalising our Chinese registration and drivers licences (even though we were leaving the country the next day), I took a day the update the blog while Ghighi took a walk…
Into Western China, the start of the Silk Road trail
Crossing into China became something of a nightmare immediately on arrival. The security and bureaucratic procedures here are absolutely insane and over-the-top. A few hundred metres after the relaxed Pakistani border guard who didn’t even check our passports, just wanting…
A Week in Gilgit-Baltistan, and the KKH Part Two
With a delay before our Chinese permits could be reissued, and needing to wait for the road repairs to be completed, we settled in to the local area. We found the nearby Borith Lake, a beautiful alpine lake fed from…
The Karakorum Highway and Lake Attabad
The day before our organised tour in China, we pushed north to the border town of Sost. This meant a short ride to the village of Attabad, where a landslide five years ago blocked the Hunza River, resulting in the…
Northern Pakistan and the Hunza Valley
Leaving Islamabad after an interesting few days, we headed north towards China, and the second of the three roads I had really been looking forward to – the Karakorum Highway. First, we battled the city traffic to the hill station…