Karakoram Conversations III

Sost is the last town on the Pakistani side of the Karakoram Highway. There is little reason to linger in Sost other than to absorb the strange atmosphere inherent in an isolated settlement separated from its closest Chinese neighbor by the highest official border crossing in the world, the Khunjerab Pass.

Getting to Sost tried my patience. I had been waiting all morning in the previous town for the rumored Natco bus plying the KKH before word finally got around that a snowslide had stranded the bus earlier in its route. I waited with an old man and his chicken for numerous full vans and jeeps to zoom by before finding a tiny space in the back of a rickety van blasting local music through a tinny-sounding portable tape player. Except for some minor rock slides the passage was OK.

It was 3pm when we arrived, with the incessant drizzle and increasingly threatening storm clouds casting an ominous edge over an already shadowy community. No women wandered the primarily empty streets. Only the odd group of men hiding beneath their head scarves and shadowy beards. Up ahead, a typical KKH cricket match between rowdy boys with big grins and tattered shoes. The highway made for a challenging bowling surface with its potholes and pebbles; the best bowlers uncannily capitalizing on rather than being flummoxed by their presence. The vice-principal of Sost Government School and principal of the Aga Khan Girls School introduced themselves and invited me to join them for tea and coconut cookies. The Veep was reading a book on Neurolinguistic Programming and stared glassily at me for most of our time together.

“You find for me more book like this?” he asked hopefully.

“What is this?” I asked, curious to hear what he would say.

“I can control my students with this,” he winked.

“How?”

“Oh – this technique velly good.”

I considered volunteering to participate in an experiment but thought better of it. And so ended my final night in Pakistan. The night’s sleep punctuated by occasional jeeps screaming past my roadside room window up towards the pass and border, fog lights sweeping their way in and blinding me. Loud arguments outside and much banging on the wall. Not a restful place.