This part of our story takes place in Tashkurgan (Local: Tashqurghan, Chinese: Tashikuergan), a Tajik Autonomous County in China. On this map, it’s spelled Taxkorgan (it's the green area).
After leaving Hali’s house (near Karakul Lake), we walk across an expansive lush and green field on the foothills of Muztag Ata, with grazing yaks chewing happily and enjoying the grass. A clear blue sky, bright sunshine, and big white puffy clouds surround us. The wind whips around our faces and makes us shiver. We walk quickly, hoping to warm ourselves up against the frigid air.
About 30 minutes later, we finally arrive at the white, 3-story building that Hali pointed us towards and I finally realize that it’s not a hotel like we thought. It’s a police station, with big red Chinese characters reading, “Dedicate yourself to the service of your country; Listen to the Party’s commands and you will fight a victorious battle of moral integrity and superior goodness.”
We put our bags down and wait by the side of the road for a ride to the town of Tashkurgan. We stick our thumbs out, though we’re not sure that this universal European symbol is applicable in Asia. We opt to also wave our arms crazily above our heads in our attempts to flag someone over. A car stops and I ask them if they’re going to Tashkurgan and they say no. “Oh ok, then where are you going?” I ask, since the direction they are going is only along one road that leads only to one place, which is Tashkurgan. “To this police station,” they say and pull their car over.
Next, a nice Audi pulls over and I run up to it, calling out the typical Arabic greeting, “Essalamu Eleykum!” The guy stares at me with a completely blank face. I realize immediately that he is Han and say, “Ni hao ni hao ni hao!” He says “ni hao” back with a poker face and I ask him in Chinese if he is going to “Ta shi ke er gan,” the Chinese name of Tashkurgan. He says yes, but he won’t take us because there’s a checkpoint ahead and they fine people who take foreigners up there, and he drives quickly away.
Mag suggests that we go into the police station and ask them for help. Maybe they can waive the fine or something? So we walk to the front gate, which is locked and a long metal contraption runs along across the length of the gate standing with long, sharp spikes sticking out of it, and looking foreboding. We knock on the door to the right of the gate but there’s no answer, so we just stand there for awhile peering through the gate. I can hear the guys about 50 feet inside the gate wearing army fatigue speaking Chinese. There’s a camera pointing at us. Before too long a Han man with a buzz cut in camouflage army fatigues who looks like he’s in his 40s or 50s exits the gate. He gives off the air of a strict fatherly figure. I say in Chinese, “Hello, sorry to bother you but we’re trying to get to Tashkurgan and they guy said there’s a fine for people taking foreigners and we’re worried the bus won’t stop for us or there won’t be enough seats so we were wondering what to do,” I say nervously in one breath. He gives us the third degree about our stay, and then finally says, “There’s no checkpoint and there’s no fine.”
“Got it, Sir! Sorry to bother you!” At this point I realize that ten young men in army fatigue have come over to the gate to eavesdrop on our conversation. We walk back to the road and continue to flag down passing cars and trucks.
The next guy that stops is in a white Petro China truck, with a companion in the passenger seat. They look kind of Chinese to me and I was nervous about offending someone after the last “essalamu eleykum” incident, so I ask in Chinese if they’re going to Tashkurgan and the driver says, “Yes, get in.” And I say, “Is it free?”, and he said, “Just get in…. and yes, it’s free.” We’re delighted and clamber into their huge truck which has a back seat. We are so happy to get to sit in the back seat rather than in the trunk or in the back of a pickup truck like we thought we were going to have to do.
When we get in they start speaking Turkish to each other I tell them the essalamu eleykum story and they they laugh. We exchange pleasantries and ask each other about our families. Propaganda lines the highway in huge red billboards saying:
“Love your country, construct the country, support the law, follow the law, prohibit illegality, oppose criminals.”
It’s a beautifully indescribable drive as we drive higher and higher in elevation and further and further up the Pamir Mountain Range- clear blue skies, snow-capped mountains, and green valleys as far as the eye can see.
We arrive 1.5 hours later in Tashkurgan, a surprisingly large, sprawling town with a 6-lane highway cutting through it. The road is lined with lampposts, each hanging the Chinese flag. We see a big sign for the youth hostel, so we ask the driver to stop and jump out of the car. The hostel is run by 3 young Han girls and one young Han man, and a couple Tajik ladies clean the bathrooms. The dorm bed is 35 kuai a night.
I connect to Wifi almost immediately and I feel like a crack addict getting my fix after going through a 24-hour internet withdrawal.
The hostel is cold, dark and drab, with filthy bathrooms and simple bunk beds. The lobby, however, is nice. Flo comments on how the hostel lobby makes him feel like he is in a swanky restaurant in France. There’s a bottle of Jack Daniels on the shelf behind the bar and wine glasses hang from a holster on the ceiling. Slow, jazz music is playing and there is a pool table in the middle of the room. Couches and booths with tables covered in red cloths are all around. Other Western travelers taking the Silk Road journey and Chinese travelers going to Tibet slowly fill up the room. The stereo continues to play a mix of rap, French songs and Electronic Dance Music. And somehow I feel like we are in a Western country again...
Eventually we decide to take a walk, so we walk through the town, which consists of a strip mall with lots of Han business selling clothes, ethnic hats and clothes, various types of metal tools and pipes, and convenience stores selling simple household goods and snacks. We go to the post office in the center of town, which is next to an “Art and Cultural Center” and get stamps. I take note of by far one of the best propaganda messages I have seen thus far: “Be Grateful for Your Great and Mighty Motherland.”
We walk a little farther and find a big, grassy field at the foothills of a mountain range (we can still see the huge Muztag Ata glacier from here) with cows, horses, yaks, and sheep grazing as far as the eye can see. Flo takes a picture of the scenery, but there is a backhoe right in his line of vision. He comments that the view would be better without the backhoe in it, but then he says, “Well it is China, true to form after all.”
We sit in the grass for awhile watching the foreboding storm clouds and I see a man approaching us. He sits down next to Flo and asks him in Chinese, “Are you American?” I respond in Turkish, “He doesn’t speak Chinese.”
He continues the conversation in Turkish from then on, asking Flo his name and if he’s married. We find out that he is Tajik-Chinese. I ask if he can speak Russian, English, French, Japanese or Arabic, because those are the languages that Flo can speak. But no, he can speak Turkish, Tajik, and Chinese, so there are no overlaps in the languages.
The Tajik man invites us to his house, so we say, “Okay, just for a chat.” While we walk there, he tells us that he has 50 sheep and introduces us to his wife tending them. We go inside his house, which is a tent with a pipe stove in the middle and a small child’s hammock hanging above the sleeping area--wood planks covered with colorful padded blankets.
He and Flo share a cigarette while his sister-in-law makes us tea. He introduces us to his 3-year old son, 3-year old nephew, and 4-year old niece, who are playing together in the middle of the tent. His niece has blonde hair and blue eyes. They comment on the fact that I look Tajik, and how his niece and I have the same color eyes. She giggles and smiles shyly, burying her face in her uncle’s chest, but when she peaks out to look at us, her face is beaming, her eyes crinkled almost shut with her huge smile. We drink tea and eat naan, dipping the salty and garlic stale bread into the milky tea. It’s delicious and nourishing after our trip from Karakul Lake earlier. The guy kept asking us if we’re full, about 10 times, and saying “The tea is lacking” several times, which I now realize might have been a signal for us to leave. Regardless, he soon packs up the bread and tea, and he walks back with us, splitting off from the group to join his wife in tending the sheep.
We eat dinner at a Chinese restaurant because we’re craving vegetables, which aren't a common food in Central Asia. They have one of my favorite Chinese dishes: stir-fried eggplant and rice. A man accompanied by a group of men in army fatigue is completely smashed and keeps running in and out of the restaurant, his friends laughing and the women crying.
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