Over the Khunjerab Pass - into China

At the top of the mountains, with a dusting of snow in our midst, and turns that turned my stomach so sour I had to stop taking pictures, we arrived at the Chinese checkpost - the actual border. Though the air rightly should have been fresh and sweet, like Hunza, there was a sickening smell of old petrol and burning chemicals. It was the Chinese checkpost, perhaps some disinfectant; Margret said she recognized that kind of smell from eastern Germany.
We were on the other side, unlike when we left Sost and the Pakistan immigration officer had to run and turn on the generator to process our passport numbers, we were not in strict freezing cold chinese hands; no games, no pictures, no questions.
A young soldier hopped into our car to be driven to the next checkpost where our passports would actually be stamped. Me sick in the front with the window wide open, him without a proper coat shivering in the back (refusing to accept food or water or a coat from us), and the funny driver, quite a team we made!
An hour on we were at lower altitude and at the customs point where all of our bags were gone through, our precious hunza dried apricots confiscated, and all manner of being patted down had passed by the smiling female officer (unlike the pakistani side where we were separately taken into a room where the veiled woman reached for my privates and nowhere else, took me aback).
We then had to find a way to get to kashgar or out of the border town, tashkurgan, and to the karakol lake. We almost got whisked into a van with 10 pakistani guys, not my ideal sick as I was, finally were able to arrange a private driver for another $100 to take us to the lake, spend the evening there, and drive us on the next day to kashgar.