The Karakoram Highway

The Karakoram Highway, or KKH, is the greatest wonder of modern Pakistan and one of the most spectacular roads in the world. Connecting Pakistan to China, it twists through three great mountain ranges - the Himalayas, Karakorams and Pamirs - following one of the ancient silk routes along the valleys of the lndus, Gilgit and Hunza rivers to the Chinese border at the Khunjerab Pass. It then crosses the high Central Asian plateau before winding down through the Pamirs to Kashgar, at the western edge of the Taklamakan Desert. By this route, Chinese silks, ceramics, lacquer-work, bronze, iron, furs and spices travelled west, while the wool, linen, ivory, gold, silver, precious and semi-precious stones, asbestos and glass of South Asia and the West travelled east.

For much of its 1,284 kilometres (799 miles), the Karakoram Highway is overshadowed by towering, barren mountains, a high altitude desert enjoying less than 100 millimetres (four inches) of rain a year. In many of the gorges through which it passes, it rides a shelf cut into a sheer cliff face as high as 500 metres (1,600 feet) above the river. The KKH has opened up remote villages where little has changed in hundreds of years, where farmers irrigate tiny terraces to grow small patches of wheat, barley or maize that stand out like emeralds against the grey, stony mountains. The highway is an incredible feat of engineering and an enduring monument to the 810 Pakistanis and 82 Chinese who died forcing it through what is probably the world's most difficult and unstable terrain. (The unofficial death toll is somewhat higher, coming to nearly one life for each kilometre of road.) The Karakorams and the Himalayas, the newest mountain ranges in the world, began to form some 55 million years ago when the Indian subcontinent drifted northwards and rammed into the Asian land mass.

India is still trundling northwards at the geologically reckless rate of five centimetres (two inches) a year, and the mountains are still growing. The KKH runs through the middle of this collision belt, where there is an earth tremor, on average, every three minutes Karakoram is Turkish for ‘crumbling rock’, an apt description for the giant, grey, snow-capped slag heaps that tower above the gorges cut between them. The Indus River flows northwest, dividing the Himalayas and the Karakorams, before being knocked south by the Hindu Kush. The KKH hugs the banks of the Indus for 310 kilometres of its climb north, winding around the foot of Nanga Parbat, the ninth highest mountain in the world and the western anchor of the Himalayas. The highway then leaves the Indus for the Gilgit, Hunza and Khunjerab rivers to take on the Karakoram Range, which contains 12 of the 30 highest mountains in the world. By the time the road reaches the 4,733-metre (15,528-foot) Khunjerah Pass, it has earned the name of the highest metalled border crossingin the world.

From Islamabad to Kashgar is a four-day journey (about 30 hours, driving time), provided that there are no rockfatls. A second option is to fly the 603 kilometres (375 miles) to Gilgit, from which the remaining 681 kiiometres (423 miles) to Kashgar can he covered in two or three days. The Khunjerab Pass is open to tourists from 1 May to 30 November (weather permitting), though the Chinese authorities usually stop allowing access from their side two or three weeks earlier. The flight from Jslamabad to Oilgit must be one of the most exciting in the world. The PIA pilot of the small Fokker Friendship plane tiles by sight up the Kaghan Valley and over the Babusar Pass, then skirts round the shoulder of 8,125-metre (26,660-foot) Nanga Parbat for a peek at the ‘sleeping beauty’, who is fancied to he tying on her back across the top. The mountain is so massive that the plane takes fully ten minutes to fly past it. The pilot invites passengers into the cockpit to see Pakistan's 82 peaks over 7,000 metres (23,000 feet), which stretch, range after range, as far as the eye can see. The sharp triangle of K-2, the second highest mountain in world, is clearly visible on the horizon. As the flight can operate only in clear weather, it is often cancelled.