Arcade travel

The Lloyd Barrage, near Sukkur. 66 spans, about 20 metres each, that hold 50 ton doors with which the flow of the river Indus is managed.








It has been quite some time since I wrote to you. My prolonged stay in Khairpur might have been a reason for this. Although things have been happening, I didn't feel like writing it down. Maybe an overkill of screens and text processing dissolved the will to update the blog. With two football matches a day (when the electricity company permitted) and a whole lot of report writing to do, my eyes turned square.


(Picture: squares and arches on a pillar in Sukkur, seen from the Masum Shah minaret.)

I think I also got demotivated because my camera lost its life. I kept it in a holster on my belt, like a cowboy carries his revolver. Ready to shoot, or so it was. Now I'm using the spare that Ax, my brother, lent me. It's a handy little thing, but it lacks the ability mine had, both in zoom and brightness. Better than nothing, but you do feel that every picture you take could have been...


(Pictures: Ghari Pull, the bridge crossing the canal opposite the street that has the same faded maroon red colour as our office. It's a beauty, that bridge. Made for pedestrians, you have to climb some high steps to enter it. Mazhar doesn't bother with the steps. He climbs from the pillar up, along the arch, having nothing but the bricks for grip. The bridge is about 6 metres high.)

Another drawback of the spare camera is that its pictures aren't automatically depicted vertically by blogger in case they were taken that way. However, on Ghari Pull I think it gives a nice effect.
Enough of me sobbing. To have or not to have.. To go or not to go, that's the real question! For the kids waking up to find a school in their village, and for me finding my bicycle in the store room of the guesthouse covered in dust. I'd almost forgotten that I'm on a travel. One that when I reflect on it, has many parts. Like spans in the barrage, or arches in the gallery that surrounds the office; the pillars demarcating the periods, the curves the different experiences.


(Pictures: the guys with whom Steve and I play football in the afternoon like to swim in the canal. They dive from great height into the murky water. There's a strong current, which makes it difficult to get back to the bridge.)

This month on the 21st it will be 1 year. If I think back of the first month cycling through the late summer of East-Germany and South-Poland it's like thinking of holidays I had years ago. Getting lost in Ukraine, camping on Crimea; a life-time ago. Then the unpaved road through Kazakhstan: cycle, camp and perfect silence. A place where independence got real meaning.
A pillar in the form of a high flat building in Almaty, the Big Alma, and on to the next span. The struggle in Uzbekistan, where the visas would not come through and I felt like a fugitive due to the registration requirement. Mighty madrasahs in Samarkand and a slide onto the next arch: the race through Turkmenistan. Got stranded in mud, sandblasted by the Karakoum and finally saved by a kind Afghan who gave me a ride in his pick-up so that I could make it in time to the hardheaded border crossing.
Iran. An arch with extensions. Loops of excitement.



And then came zero point, the only legal border crossing between Iran and Pakistan. Initially I did not want to come here, but it has become the place where I stayed the longest. A deep dive into Sindhi culture. Sometimes murky, but most of the time beautifully maroon-coloured.
I see the pillar coming. It's not high and vertical, it's long and horizontal. A train ride to Islamabad, where I will hopefully manage to sort out my Chinese visa. In Islamabad another Pakistani sub-span awaits me. For the first time since Russia I will have a travel companion. Inês has booked a flight and will join me for holidays in the mountains.



I don't now about the plunges that await me afterwards. There will be a pillar in the shape of Himalaya, Karakoram and Hindukush colliding, behind which China glimmers. If I think about its vastness I feel uncertain. It's like starting all over again. But perhaps by then that's what I want.

A song that has given me energy all along the way: Apparat's Arcadia.
"What's the point of waiting
For life to come
I could go further
And no one's surprised
Your plans collapse, run off or fall apart"

Let's see.