Married in Tashkurgan

That's right. Thanks to some leering from eight men on the bus I was travelling as a married woman. Well, first he was my boyfriend and later that night, at dinner, he told me we were married. Maybe I should backtrack.... I took the bus from Kashgar, land of one million dentists, along the Karakoram Highway (which leads to Pakistan) to Tashkurgan, the last possible town on the Chinese side I could travel to without a Pakistani visa. Unfortunately the most breathtaking vistas are on the Pakistani side of the world's highest altitude international highway. I travelled with Rene whom I shared a four dorm room with the last three days in Kashgar. A girl at the hotel gave me a ticket to Tashkurgan when I checked out and because he couldn't get on the bus I refunded it. Turned out to be a very good thing. As I mentioned above, there were some men on the bus who gave me a bit of the creeps. They started questioning Rene about our relationship (there really isn't one aside from travelling companions). I told him to not tell them about my origins and then to be my boyfriend. He said he had to up the stakes when I left for a walk to 'married' because the guys kept asking about me.

That aside, the drive along the highway was amazing. I have some pictures I can't wait to upload (once I find a place I can upload from). We had it all: washed out roads, sand dunes, camels, the wine coloured canyon of the Ghez River, mount Muztagh-Ata (7546m), Karakul Lake, the Pamir Plateau and Kongur Mountain (7719m). The highest altitude we travelled at was 4200 meters.



Tashkurgan itself was at 3200 metres which made breathing a little difficult. The town has not much to offer in terms of entertainment. The people in this region are all ethnically Tajik. The internet cafe is closed to foreigners (lest we start a revolution via email). During the day you can watch the men play snookers in the bazaar and at night...well, we found a karaoke/club/brothel that kept us (and several uniformed soldiers) entertained for a few hours. The 'waitress' was reclining in a bed next to the door, chain smoking her little heart out. I spent some time at the crumbling, 600 year old stone fort around sunset and went back at 1 a.m. (after the brothel) for a few hours. This turned out to be one of the best star filled nights I've ever seen.



Needless to say I missed the bus back in the morning thanks to the stars. Also, I figured the leering men would think it strange that I was leaving town without my 'husband'. So, then I had my first hitchhiking experience. Rene informed me before we set out that it was illegal to hitchhike in China. 45 minutes into our wait along the Karakoram Highway we were picked up by a very enthusiastic pair of Chinese tourists in a hired SUV with driver. Upon entering the car we were given rocks, a sache of lavender, cookies, water and a digital picture tour of Yunnan. The girl in the car, Xin Jan, was my best friend for the five hours we were in the car. She made me take a pee break with her. That pretty much cemented the 'best friends forever' deal for me.



Tonight we are back at the same hotel, in the same room, only this time a Frenchman arrived. Rene had left for some vegie cuisine. The Frenchman asked if I had eaten dinner and off we were to a Chinese barbecue extravaganza. He has been travelling for 14 months and will go for another year. I found out that the Gospel of Judas has recently been translated and should be available in print soon. Also, according to Islam, Jesus's grave in Medina (Saudi Arabia) is empty and because he is a human being he will not see the end of the world. Thus he is out there roaming the earth. It sounds a bit off now but the conversation was quite interesting and much more intelligent than I let on in this blog. We finished dinner off by having an interesting conversation with an Uighur man about our 'relationship' and then I picked up a rifle and shot a few balloons.

Tomorrow it's off to Yarkand along the southern Silk Road.