Image via Wikipediaeconomist.com - "HAVE you brought us anything to eat? Hot? Cold? Anything will do," asks a bearded Pakistani border guard, teeth chattering from the cold, as he boards the bus that has carried me across the Khunjerab pass from China.
At 4,693m, the world's highest paved mountain pass border road is a desolate place. It is now late September, and the pass should remain open for two more months before the winter snows force it to close. But already icy winds and rains sweep across this remote crossing point in the Karakoram mountains, where China's north-western province of Xinjiang meets Pakistan's northern Gilgit-Baltistan region.
Our bus pulls away, beginning the descent to the Pakistani border town of Sust. The imposing communist-style archway that informs travellers officially that they are leaving China is a less effective border marker than the change in the Karakoram Highway itself: the paved road, which I had grown accustomed to since leaving the Chinese border town of Tashkurgan in the morning, deteriorates into a muddy, pot-holed track. But the Pakistani part of the highway won't stay this way for much longer if China has its way.
As the bus bumps towards Sust, the Karakorams’ signature snow-capped peaks towering on either side, partly obscured by cloud cover, I count at least a dozen Chinese-led teams of workers, building stone ramparts, boring tunnels and building landslide defences in what amounts to the most extensive renovation of the highway since it first opened in the mid-1980s.
Historically, China and Pakistan have been good neighbours. After Pakistan's bloody partition from India in 1947 and China's border war with India in 1962, the Chinese and Pakistani governments found common purpose in opposing India. Cold-war rivalries and the Sino-Soviet split cemented the alliance. But there is more to the highway renovation than good neighbourliness: China wants access to Pakistan's Gwadar port.
A deep-water port strategically situated at the mouth of the Persian Gulf in Baluchistan province, Gwadar opened in 2008. Chinese state-owned companies provided most of the financing for the $248m project. They are also picking up most of the expected $600m bill for an ongoing expansion aimed at increasing the number of berths and building additional facilities.
The Chinese workers operating the giant earth-moving machines that line the highway seem no better provisioned than the shivering Pakistani border guard. Grinning up from under hardhats, they hail the passing bus. The driver, a chain-smoking Pakistani, stops occasionally to distribute fresh fruit. But the Chinese are not long detained from their task, which their government has clearly identified has a strategic national interest.
China has extensive oil-and-gas interests in Central Asia and the Gulf. But at present it must ship its supplies on a circuitous course from the Arabian Sea, around India's southern tip, then through the Malacca strait in South-East Asia to the South China Sea. The 10,000-kilometre-long journey takes months. The Gwadar port, once connected to Xinjiang by a well-paved highway, could cut the journey time to around a week. It would also encourage much-needed trade and development in China's neglected north-west.
Day two
Day one
THE people of the Hunza valley are immensely proud of their heritage. As I stumble through the doors of the Marcopolo Inn, Raja Hussein Khan, the general manager, ushers me past a rank of inviting-looking lounge chairs to inspect a prominent poster which traces the 452-year dynasty of the royal family of Hunza.
Far from resenting their exclusion from national politics, the Hunzakuts I meet appear to embrace it as a sign of their distinctiveness within Pakistan. The national language, Urdu, is widely understood in Hunza, but the main languages here are radically unrelated: Burushaski, Wakhi and Shina. Hunzakuts are Muslim, but they are mostly followers of the Ishmaili branch of Shia Islam. A portrait of the revered Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of the Ishmailis, has pride of place in Hunza homes. There are no minareted mosques, only community centres. As in the rest of Pakistan, alcohol is strictly prohibited, but after dinner I am invited to drink a glass of "Chinese water".
At 4,693m, the world's highest paved mountain pass border road is a desolate place. It is now late September, and the pass should remain open for two more months before the winter snows force it to close. But already icy winds and rains sweep across this remote crossing point in the Karakoram mountains, where China's north-western province of Xinjiang meets Pakistan's northern Gilgit-Baltistan region.
Our bus pulls away, beginning the descent to the Pakistani border town of Sust. The imposing communist-style archway that informs travellers officially that they are leaving China is a less effective border marker than the change in the Karakoram Highway itself: the paved road, which I had grown accustomed to since leaving the Chinese border town of Tashkurgan in the morning, deteriorates into a muddy, pot-holed track. But the Pakistani part of the highway won't stay this way for much longer if China has its way.
As the bus bumps towards Sust, the Karakorams’ signature snow-capped peaks towering on either side, partly obscured by cloud cover, I count at least a dozen Chinese-led teams of workers, building stone ramparts, boring tunnels and building landslide defences in what amounts to the most extensive renovation of the highway since it first opened in the mid-1980s.
Historically, China and Pakistan have been good neighbours. After Pakistan's bloody partition from India in 1947 and China's border war with India in 1962, the Chinese and Pakistani governments found common purpose in opposing India. Cold-war rivalries and the Sino-Soviet split cemented the alliance. But there is more to the highway renovation than good neighbourliness: China wants access to Pakistan's Gwadar port.
A deep-water port strategically situated at the mouth of the Persian Gulf in Baluchistan province, Gwadar opened in 2008. Chinese state-owned companies provided most of the financing for the $248m project. They are also picking up most of the expected $600m bill for an ongoing expansion aimed at increasing the number of berths and building additional facilities.
The Chinese workers operating the giant earth-moving machines that line the highway seem no better provisioned than the shivering Pakistani border guard. Grinning up from under hardhats, they hail the passing bus. The driver, a chain-smoking Pakistani, stops occasionally to distribute fresh fruit. But the Chinese are not long detained from their task, which their government has clearly identified has a strategic national interest.
China has extensive oil-and-gas interests in Central Asia and the Gulf. But at present it must ship its supplies on a circuitous course from the Arabian Sea, around India's southern tip, then through the Malacca strait in South-East Asia to the South China Sea. The 10,000-kilometre-long journey takes months. The Gwadar port, once connected to Xinjiang by a well-paved highway, could cut the journey time to around a week. It would also encourage much-needed trade and development in China's neglected north-west.
Day two
Oct 14th 2010, 7:10 by N.O. | GULMIT
Day oneTHE people of the Hunza valley are immensely proud of their heritage. As I stumble through the doors of the Marcopolo Inn, Raja Hussein Khan, the general manager, ushers me past a rank of inviting-looking lounge chairs to inspect a prominent poster which traces the 452-year dynasty of the royal family of Hunza.
I am out of breath from the uphill scramble through terraced orchards of apple and apricot that has led me to the village of Gulmit, some 40km from Sust. But a reviving cup of tea is out of the question until homage has been paid to Hunza's ancient mirs. The dynasty ends abruptly with Mir Jamal Khan in 1974. "Democracy. Times change," shrugs Mr Khan, himself a descendent of the royal family. There is a note of nostalgia in his British public-school-accented voice.
As part of Gilgit-Baltistan, Hunza has a confused constitutional status. After partition and Pakistan's war with India in 1948, the area was determined by the UN to be part of the disputed region of Kashmir. It is still not officially part of the federation of Pakistan. In 1970 Hunza and the princely state of Nagar, on the opposite side of the Hunza valley, became part of the Northern Areas, along with Gilgit to the west and Baltistan to the east. After a controversial "self-governance" act in late 2009, the Northern Areas were renamed Gilgit-Baltistan.
Over a dinner of local daudo soup, curry and paratha bread, Mr Khan explains that the Hunzakuts elect no representatives to Pakistan's national parliament. Nor do they pay taxes to the national treasury. Instead elections are held to a local assembly, known as the Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly, which in turn elects a chief minister and has some powers to levy taxes and make laws.
The self-governance act provoked widespread criticism. The Indian government protested that it was an attempt to conceal Pakistan's "illegal occupation" of the area. Demonstrations erupted in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, where local Kashmiri politicians denounced the act as an attempt by Islamabad to appropriate their territory into Pakistan proper. Meanwhile, some Gilgit-Baltistan politicians criticised the act for failing to make the area a fully fledged province of Pakistan.
Far from resenting their exclusion from national politics, the Hunzakuts I meet appear to embrace it as a sign of their distinctiveness within Pakistan. The national language, Urdu, is widely understood in Hunza, but the main languages here are radically unrelated: Burushaski, Wakhi and Shina. Hunzakuts are Muslim, but they are mostly followers of the Ishmaili branch of Shia Islam. A portrait of the revered Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of the Ishmailis, has pride of place in Hunza homes. There are no minareted mosques, only community centres. As in the rest of Pakistan, alcohol is strictly prohibited, but after dinner I am invited to drink a glass of "Chinese water".Mr Khan, the Marcopolo’s general manager, waxes nostalgic for an earlier period, when Hunza's mirs travelled up from their ancient capital, Karimabad, to spend the summer months of the year at a palace overlooking Gulmit's polo ground. But the mir's descendents do not appear to have fallen on hard times. When he is not in the national capital, Islamabad, Ghazanfar Ali, the son of the last mir, can still be spotted in the valley, being chauffeured from his grand home at Karimabad in a white Toyota Land Cruiser, number-plated "Hunza 1".
Day three to follow
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