thepamperednomad In hindsight this probably wasn't a good idea, but it was certainly an epic adventure;
We met a man who called himself Crazy, at the airport in Kashgar. He was kind enough to show us around the city off and on over the course of a few days. Then he offered to take us on a hike in a place that tourists never go, and of course that sounded exciting so the next day we hopped into his van and headed down the Karakoram Highway. Since this was back before phones had gps, we really had no idea where we were headed, who our guide really was, and nobody else knew where we were going. Crazy claimed that we had driven south west towards the border of Tajikistan and the mountain he had driven us way up to was none other than Muztagh Ata!!!! Here we were, 3 ill equipped Canadian tourists gasping for air as we tried to hike up this intense trail, and our guide, busy smoking hash, was motoring up this steep ascent with no trouble! (Let it be know that us 3 Canucks were there to run an ultramarathon that we had been training at least 6 months for, and we could barely handle the altitude!) Crazy refused to take my photo in front of this pagoda because he felt that it represented Chinese colonialism on Uyghur land. I still had to take a photo for myself because it was so stunning! Hiking that trail in the absolute middle of nowhere will remain one of the most exotic days of my life forever.
this is hilarious :’)
