Cooking with Yak poo on the Karakoram highway...... (Mukmutton camping style)
Just as we were about to leave China, we heard about a beautiful lake surrounded by +7500m mountains that was rarely visited by tourists and only inhabited by friendly Kyrgyz shepherds. Just the place for a spot of camping I thought. The only down side was that it was 10km from Tajikistan (where anarchy reins), 50km from Afghanistan, and Pakistan was only 100km away straight down the road. But as long as my father-in-law only found out about it afterwards I was sure I would have no trouble!
There is one public bus a day along this road, and we got on it at 10am in Kashgar. A few hours later we reached the mountains. I'm still now sure which range they are - the Pamir, Fan, or Karakorum - they sort of all mix up in this part of the world. The dusty desert with all of its sandstorms (visibility was about 2km) disappeared into canyons of rock. The bus droned onwards and upwards, but the stops were regular as the driver navigated a "road" that was currenly being upgraded (ie there was often no road), and the Tajik sheep took a bit of time to move off the road. The bulldozers helped us out a bit, and we somehow got through the section that had been washed away from snowmelt (although a truck that attemped a short while later failed and was abandoned). We all had to get out and walk across this part and by the opposite side D's feet had so cramped up that she was just walking on heel and toe tip!
We arrived at the lake at about 6pm, and it dropped us off at the only building on the lake- a hotel recently erected by the Chinese. We had heard that the hotel staff charge for the scenery (a common Chinese habit), so as soon as I had hauled down the packs from the roof we bolted out of the gates and walked along the road to access the lake at another point. From here we walked around the lake through the grazing camels, yaks, sheep and goats that were feeding on the grass that grew around the shore. They were limited to grazing the circumference of the lake as there was no vegetaion elsewhere - it was all barren, rocky hills and mountains. I had observed this fact much earlier on in the bus trip when I realised that a seach for wood would be as futile as my seach for Methylated Spirts had been so far in China (for my Trangier stove). Nevertheless, by the time we found a peaceful place to camp we were tired enough not to care, so after an uncooked pack of two minute noodles, we settled down for the night.
After the freezing wind, duststorm and following light rain (just enough to turn the fine coating of dust on ouir tent to mud, but not to wash it away), we got up in the morning to a beautiful clear sky. The snow and glacier capped mountains appeared to be much closer than what they were, and I wondered where to hike to first. Dimity, had other ideas however, and dececided she had had enough and wanted to go back today (rather than staying another night as planned). So we went for an easy walk around the lake, and but the time we met someone to ask when the bus went by, it had already passed! We walked to a Kyrgyz villiage, which look unchanged for 100's of years (apart from the 4WD's scattered around). Here we were given tea, and invited for dinner and lodging many times, but we walked back to the lake to camp again for another nights camping.
Neither of us was really looking forward to more raw, uncooked noodles, and under inspiration from the shepards (and a suggestion from Dimity), I decided to try my hand with the only combustible material around - yak poo! All of the really good dry stuff had been collected from the lake area (fresh stuff just doesn't work), so I climbed a nearby 4000m peak, and found some near the top (views to Afghanistan were good too!). I climbed down and D and I assembled a few rocks to make a stove. With a lit page from my diary, to my amazement, the pile of poo ignited! It wasn't easy though keeping the flame up as the old, burnt pieces continutally had to be removed to make way for new stuff. But my water boiled and the noodles cooked so we was happy. D even requested a cup of coffee afterwards, but I informed her I had enough of yak poo smoke so not tonight dear.
No dust that night, but what a storm! The tent shook so much and it was really a test for D's tent erecting skills. But it held (of course I knew it would), and in the morning, we brushed away the ice on the tent (it must have snowed), packed it up and went for a walk up a "small" (everything is relative!) 4000m hill where we had beautiful views! (view of 7800m mountain) But we has to return quickly as there was only one bus a day along this road and we had to make sure we were in position to catch it! I took a nice photo of D with her thumb stuck out on the Karakoram highway like she was hitching, but as fate would have it, this scenario turned to reality when the once-a-day bus sped past without stopping! It was full! So we waited and hoped, until, or all things, a private tour bus, charted by the world bank for the officials wives and old retirees, pulled up by the hotel. I went to make friends, and after a free lunch with them at the hotel (more hot food!) we were invited to go back with them to Kashgar. On the way back we had the WHOLE back seat to ourselves. Here I had pleanty of time to plan the next mukmutton adventure - how to get into Kyrgystan through a newly opened mountain pass and be the first backpackers to do so!.
Paul. 20/6/2002
