Karakoram Highway Getting there & around

Getting there & around

Indus Kohistan, off the Highway, is a pretty lawless place. You should seek advice from the police at Dasu, Komila, Pattan or Besham before heading up any of Kohistan’s side valleys.

The nominal southern end of the KKH is at Havelian in Pakistan’s NWFP, but in practice it’s at Islamabad or Rawalpindi. Islamabad has a limited number of direct international air connections, including Kashgar, plus others via Lahore and Karachi.

You can reach the KKH by train from all over Pakistan. Most trains to the capital area go to Rawalpindi’s Saddar Bazaar station, and a spur of the Rawalpindi to Peshawar line runs to Havelian. The best bet from Lahore is to take one of the air-con bus services to Rawalpindi.

The northern end of the KKH is at Kashgar in China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region. Kashgar is linked by air to Islamabad and via the provincial capital, Ürümqi, to major Chinese cities and other international points. Overland, Kashgar is linked by bus and train to Ürümqi, from where railway lines run to Chinese cities and to Almaty in Kazakhstan. Warm-weather roads cross the Torugart Pass between Kashgar and Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan, and across the Irkeshtam Pass to Osh, also in Kyrgyzstan, and an all-weather road runs between Ürümqi and Almaty.

Domestic transport in Pakistan to/from Islamabad, and to/from Kashgar in China is available.