We set out just as it was getting light and waved GoodBye to Quetta, with its backdrop of mountains.  The road wound its way through the barren hills (mini-mountains) and through the Bolan pass, before descending to the Plains below.  Passed through Sibi (hottest place in Pakistan!) and continued through desert and on into lush, verdant areas, irrigated with water from the Indus.  Periodically passed land abandoned as aresult of severe salinity problems.  Agriculture is mostly of a very manual nature.  Tractors apparently are only used for transporting vast numbers of people in large trailors.  We only saw two actually working in fields.  We did, however, see several fields being ploughed using oxen or water buffalo.  In the main, though, it seemed more common for the fields to be worked by pairs of men with hand implements. 

Brightly dressed women and children could be seen in other fields hand picking, pulling, cutting whatever was ready for harvest, bundling it up in large cloths, hoisting it onto their heads and becoming a human ‘hay/grass/oilseed rape stack’ tottering towards the village or road.  From here it is mounded onto donkey/camel/ox carts and the driver perches precariously on top of the pile, looking down at his draft animal way below. 

We arrived in Sukkur mid-afternoon, and decided that it was too late to push on to the next major town.  With help from the locals, we tracked down a hotel with secure parking.  It was right next to Sukkur’s main attraction – a huge barrage on the River Indus with 7 vast irrigation canals radiating from it.  This is what keeps the surrounding areas green.  Unfortunately, we weren’t able to photograph this impressive structure – militarily sensitive (although, as Fred said, it really wouldn’t be that hard to obtain satellite photos).  We went for a quick amble around the dusty town, carefully avoiding open sewers and annoying brats, some of whom thought that it was amusing to throw shit at Jo!  We just hoped that it was from their camel and not the sewer!  Hotel interesting – Fred was NOT allowed to watch the porn channel (is porn legal in a Muslim country?) – instead we opted for a rather snowy BBC World.