Day 31

Tuesday 24th October: Sukkur - Multan

Another early start (7.00am) and the first bad one for me. Before I got dressed I'd been to the toilet a couple of times with the unmistakable Delhi belly and the 400 klm journey today was worrying me. I was only saying to Anne I 'd done really well health wise, quite a few have had some kind of stomach upset. I think the malaria tablets are helping to fight of all infections as our Nurse Practitioner said they would.

However, even the constant gripes couldn't stop this stretch of the journey being anything other than a pleasure. I have completely changed my view of this wonderful country. I had mistakenly thought it was completely barren and although the Baluchistan area was it still had incredible beauty. But the drive from Sukkur to Multan has continued the transition from the arid area around the Afghan border to lush green fields fed by the mighty Indus and the most wonderful bird life. The fields and the homes they support look so much better for a covering of grass. The first sign of crops came with rice, sugar cane, followed by cotton, then Mango trees and many other crops unfamiliar to me. In less than half an hour Anne spotted six Kingfishers patiently waiting on telegraph wires above the water channels that stand moat-like between the fields and roads. It's quite amazing when you think Anne had seen two or three in her life before today. Besides these we had an acrobatic display by a very large bird of prey not more than twenty yards away from our coach window, circling above a scrub yard in-between a row of shops. We also saw in the gleam of the sunlight the most beautiful coloured bird which we first mistook for more Kingfishers but on further inspection we noticed that these were much larger. Sue informed us they were Bee Catchers. I am not too sure they were, I thought Bee Eaters nested in sandy banks and not around paddy fields etc. We also saw a couple of birds yesterday that were black and white but very much the shape of a Kingfishers and we were told by John that's what they were.

We arrived at the hotel early for a change, completing the 400 kilometre drive in good time thanks to the improved road. All life is congested along the main roads of this country with miles of shacks, breeze block square shops, stalls and barrows selling fruit and veg and below these on the social ladder are the occupiers of the tents which are often set further back as though outcast. Today we've spent the day driving along a dual carriageway and it is an amazing sight and experience when suddenly a large group of people, who are waiting to catch a bus, just walkout into the middle of the road and try and stop us physically by using their bodies. As the bus violently slows to avert genocide Bilal frantically gesticulates to them through the windscreen to move out of the way. At such informal junctions the whole of Pakistani society seems to converge: men with briefcases in hand heading for the office, children in uniforms and satchels on their way to school, donkey pulled carts transporting whole families or simply fire wood, cotton etc to market. By the roadside going nowhere: cows, bullocks, goats and oxen loosely controlled by pre-school children walking back and forth across the lanes to find patches of grass, rickshaws standing idle and last but not least the good old camels standing boringly looking on having seen it all for thousands of years and chewing constantly like Ferguson in his dugout on match day. A large sign proudly proclaims that we on the Pakistan National Highway and everything was at a standstill thanks to this convergence of life. I asked John Paul (our driver) later about the journey and he said in his broken Belgium English 'you know you can't keep the speed up for the camels and cows on the road'. Life in England would be so much more interesting if the past and present could harmonise every few hundred yards on the highways of the country.

The Hotel Sheza looked reasonably modern and our guide, had informed me the day before during our rickshaw ride in in Sukkur, that it was the best of the hotels we were staying in in Pakistan. As we entered the foyer we were greeted by the manager who stood suited and manicured giving out instructions to his menials who hung chains of beautiful smelling roses round our necks and handed out soft drinks. I was not in the best frame of mind, wanting instead to get my room key and shake hands with the toilet. Things became even more desperate on being instructed to go into the dining room to sing happy birthday to Ted (the third on the trip) and eat fresh cream cake made by the hotel. This is not the first thing you want to do after holding your insides in for a few hours.

Our room was fine, very large with kinsgize bed, air conditioning that worked, TV with many channels, even one that looked like sex but mostly cricket (Pakistan beating S Africa in some competition), football and a fully functioning bathroom. I didn't even mind the lack of alcohol in the mini bar on this occasion. All I wanted to do was lay and rest by my very own toilet.

Within half hour of arriving the group were heading off to play a pre-arranged football match with the locals followed by a visit to a mausoleum, mosque and of course a bazaar. If there's one thing I hate about this trip it's the assumption that after a full days drive that there's time to throw in half dozen events, visits etc, leaving no time to relax or do your household chores such as laundry and blogs etc. Although I felt awful I thought I could use the time while they were playing football etc to use the one internet machine in the hotel. When I got down stairs Noreen was already ensconced on it for the evening. When I enquired how long she would be she replied in her best Ian Paisley manner 'long, go away I'm busy'. I managed to check my mail and send one message thanks to Marcus who let me use his laptop for an hour. The connection was, however, very slow as usual and unsuitable to upload anything. I decided to go back to my room and concentrate on catching up on my blog because I have fallen behind over the past few days. I was no more successful at this than on the net mainly because of power cuts. In an hour or so the hotel went into total blackness six times. I actually sat writing in the dark using my head torch.

After dinner in the garden marquee, the evening slipped into a kind of cricket game: I call it a kind of cricket match and not proper one because the Irish (most of the bus) think balling in cricket is the same as baseball which makes Ireland's win over Pakistan recently all the more amazing. Anyway the game faded out in the semi dark after we smashed one of the bulbs lighting the tent and this put out most of the others. The hotel management seemed to take it as normal and even some Pakistani guests joined in presumably to get their own back on the Irish. The group didn't do much better at football either, losing 4-0.