MY BIRTHDAY FROM HELL

A young travel journalist was recently whining on his blog of how lonely he expected to be on a three week trip to America. In response, I felt like saying you don’t take your best pal to work do you? So if travel writing is your chosen metier, please fasten your safety belt and stop complaining.

In fact there is a huge gulf between travel writing and travel journalism. The former sees you away - often for months at a time - in an alien society with no infrastructure other than your wits. The reverse is a quick press-trip with colleagues to Majorca, or wherever, when you’ve barely closed the door and you’re back again.

Real travel writing by its nature, is a solitary occupation as the authors of great narratives will confirm. Missing home and dining alone are inevitable downsides and while grateful for a capacity to be alone, I find that spending your birthday without a companion exacerbates the sense of social isolation.

In a lifetime of travel writing I`ve awakened on 17th October in Sydney, London, Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, Nairobi, Dublin, Tahiti, New York, Marrakesh, Muscat, Provincetown and Algiers. I`ve also seen out three birthdays in Pakistan: my 39th up the Khyber, my 40th in Islamabad and my 41st in Sukkur, an historic town on the river Indus in Sindh.

Knowing I’d be alone in Sukkur, I was determined not to let it get me down. I bought a big bag of sweets for local children that morning and normally skipping lunch, I opted to celebrate with a meal - albeit it in my room as it was Ramadan.

I’d ordered catfish masala, but since my air conditioning wasn’t working and the electric fan had stopped, I called reception to send up an electrician.

In a few moments a sharp knock heralded a short man in navy overalls holding a giant screw-driver. ‘Electric,’ he said and coming in, he switched the fan on, then off, spun the blades (its cage was missing) announced ‘fan heat,’ and picking it up out he marched out again.

A second knock had signalled a waiter with my lunch and taking the tray, I placed it carefully on the bed and pulled up a chair, but before I could take a mouthful, there was another rap on the door. No surprise that it was the electrician.

This time he kicked off his sandals and stepping over the tray, he stood on my pillow and placing a foot against the bed-head, he yanked the air conditioner off the wall, splitting its timber frame and showering my lunch with dust balls.

‘Check,’ he said and taking it into his arms, he had disappeared down the corridor.

Moments later he was back dragging the fan through the door which I had left ajar in anticipation.

‘Wire,’ he declared and kneeling down, he plunged his giant screw-driver into the wall socket.

‘Don't do that!’ I shouted, picturing an incinerated corpse.

‘Problem fix,’ he said and flicking a switch, the fan had started up like a turbo-jet, blowing my birthday curry all over the bedspread.

Images: www.copix.co.uk

My official press pass to visit Zambia in 1994.

Breakfast with Bedouin while researching my first book The Gulf States and Oman (1978).

With houseboat children on the Indus river in Sukkur on 17th October 1981.

17th OCTOBER IS INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR THE ERADICATION OF POVERTY

WAITING FOR THE FLOOD

The Mohanas on the river Indus in Sindh have a novel way of fishing when bad weather prevents their boats putting out. They keep pet birds to do it for them.

The birds, mainly herons, cranes and cormorants, perch on a plank suspended from the gunwale. A length of string attached to one leg allows them to dive, but not to escape with a fish. When they break surface, they are robbed of their catch until the family has enough to eat. At this point the birds may swallow their prey and satisfy their own hunger.

Several hundred Mohana fishing families work the Indus where it flows past Sukkur, an historic town in upper Sindh province of Pakistan.

They live on bulky wooden houseboats, 60 feet long by 12 feet broad. The khasti`s most characteristic feature is a bluff prow to deflect the shock should a boat strike a submerged sandbank when it swivels around and gradually becomes dislodged by the current.

Kashtis are made locally. Craftsmen take special care in carving decorative motifs and inserting small tiles, shells and tiny mirrors in the pattern. Some older vessels may display rose-patterned crockery stacked neatly in the galley - china once used by British civil servants manning the Indus canal posts.

An average Mohana family numbers 6-8. All the relatives moor together in a group with their domestic stock- water buffaloes and chickens - kept beside them on the bank.

Women are responsible for the usual chores. One of their first tasks is to draw fresh water from the middle of the river, away from the banks where people defecate.

Mohana men fish from a smaller boat, paddled with a single oar, towed behind each kashti. Working together, in good weather they may net 30 kilos of fish a day, the Indus river catfish being greatly prized.

Meals are cooked over a small charcoal fire on the open deck with everyone sitting around the dish, digging into the fish and rice with their fingers.

Following this year’s monsoon which has devastated NW Pakistan, the Indus is running at an all-time high. But while Sindhi farmers are packing and leaving the riverbanks, the Mohanas can only sit on their boats as water levels rise.

Images: www.copix.co.uk