Road Trips in Pakistan: Highways Through History

Few roads anywhere carry as much legend as the KKH. Built jointly by Pakistan and China over almost two decades and finished in the late 1970s, it cuts through some of the most unstable mountain terrain on earth; Encyclopaedia Britannica records that around 24,000 workers were involved. On the Pakistani side the highway follows the Indus gorge past the Nanga Parbat massif, then the Gilgit and Hunza rivers, before climbing to the Khunjerab Pass at roughly 4,700 metres.

The road has been reshaped by nature. In January 2010 a landslide at Attabad dammed the Hunza River and drowned a long stretch of highway beneath what is now Attabad Lake. In September 2015 a realigned section with five tunnels, totalling about 7 km, was inaugurated; it was built by the National Highway Authority with China Road and Bridge Corporation.

Highlights along the way

• Views of Nanga Parbat and Rakaposhi, and the confluence of the Indus and Gilgit rivers near Jaglot.
• Karimabad and Altit in central Hunza, then Attabad Lake and the Passu Cones in Gojal.
• Khunjerab National Park and the border post at the pass, where yaks and Marco Polo sheep may be seen.

The Khunjerab border crossing has traditionally closed for the winter; check its current status with the authorities before planning a trip to the top.

Long before motorways, the GT Road was the backbone of the subcontinent, linking Bengal with Kabul. Writing in Dawn, the Lahore historian Majid Sheikh traced its many names, the Mauryan-era route between Taxila and Pataliputra, the Shahi Sarak of the Mughals and finally the British 'Grand Trunk Road'. The Afghan ruler Sher Shah Suri upgraded it in the 16th century with watchtowers and caravanserais at regular intervals, so that couriers could change horses and messages crossed the empire in days.

In Pakistan the road, now the N-5, still threads the major cities of the north: Lahore, Gujranwala, Jhelum, Rawalpindi, Attock and Peshawar. Driving it is a lesson in history. Look for surviving kos minars (milestone towers) near Lahore, the great Sher Shah-era fortress of Rohtas near Jhelum, the old sarai-fort at Rawat outside Rawalpindi, the Mughal fort at Attock above the Indus, and the Buddhist sites of Taxila just off the route.

Traffic is heavy and slow through towns, so many travellers use the motorways for long legs and dip onto the GT Road for its sights.