The Northwest passage: KKH - the Karakorum Highway { 36 images } Created 12 Jan 2014
It was a story that didn't exist, actually..
The Karakoram Highway (KKH) is the highest paved international road in the world. It connects China and Pakistan across the Karakoram mountain range, through the Khunjerab Pass, at an elevation of 4,693 metres.
It connects China's Xinjiang region with Pakistan's Gilgit–Baltistan and Khyber regions.
It was told me that there was a new route for Chinese goods. A new route that would allowed it to jump all over the South China Sea and arrive directly on the Arabian Sea, to the Gwadar port.
It was a story that there was no, actually.
Maybe one day there will be this route. But it did not exist when I did it, in 2009.
Just few trucks climbed it and an Indian trader, who was traveling with me, told me that his goods would have paid much less traveling by sea from Shenzhen, rather than overland through Xinjiang and the KKH. And it would take even less time.
It was a nice trip, however. In one of the most remote places on earth. You could hear the echo of the attacks of the Taliban, we had to wait a couple of hours to release the road to a car exploded on a bridge. At press office in Islamabad they told me that it was impossible to visit Gwadar. So I went to Karachi, where I made a reportage about the secular party MQM, then published "Ventiquattro".
The Karakoram Highway (KKH) is the highest paved international road in the world. It connects China and Pakistan across the Karakoram mountain range, through the Khunjerab Pass, at an elevation of 4,693 metres.
It connects China's Xinjiang region with Pakistan's Gilgit–Baltistan and Khyber regions.
It was told me that there was a new route for Chinese goods. A new route that would allowed it to jump all over the South China Sea and arrive directly on the Arabian Sea, to the Gwadar port.
It was a story that there was no, actually.
Maybe one day there will be this route. But it did not exist when I did it, in 2009.
Just few trucks climbed it and an Indian trader, who was traveling with me, told me that his goods would have paid much less traveling by sea from Shenzhen, rather than overland through Xinjiang and the KKH. And it would take even less time.
It was a nice trip, however. In one of the most remote places on earth. You could hear the echo of the attacks of the Taliban, we had to wait a couple of hours to release the road to a car exploded on a bridge. At press office in Islamabad they told me that it was impossible to visit Gwadar. So I went to Karachi, where I made a reportage about the secular party MQM, then published "Ventiquattro".
