Tashkurgan 塔什库尔干镇 Travel Guide

Tashkurgan means Stone Fortress or Stone Tower and refers to this towns prominent and strategic location on the Silk Road between Europe and China. Caravans converged on Tashkurgan from today’s Pakistan and Afghanistan before heading up to Kashgar on their long journey to the Tang Dynasty capital of Xian thousands of kilometres to the east. Today Tashkurgan is still the last stop before Pakistan and as far as you can go without the necessary paperwork to enter that country.

The journey itself along one of the world’s most spectacular roads yet rarely visited.

Tashkurgan is as much about the epic journey to get there along the Karakorum Highway as about the town itself. The road is breathtaking and worth the trip in it’s own right. The town has a good feel to it with the lush valley heavily farmed and dotted with Tajik yurts and shepherds and their flocks. It feels like, and is, a frontier town. The main site to see is the ancient Stone City with its raised location, a fortress town situated to overlook both sides of the valley. Up on the ramparts you feel no one could have been able to pass down this strategic valley unnoticed.

Tashkurgan is an immensely satisfying place to reach and you really do feel it is at the ‘end’ of China. With the Pakistan side of the Karakorum Highway problematic these days this is the only option to experience this extraordinary road.

Options are, as you might imagine, quite limited and if any comfort at all is required the Crown Inn is by far the best option and quite welcome after the usual night beforehand at Karakul lake.

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By Phil Stanley & Headseast – TCTC Destination Expert.