Honk, honk, home

Shows over.  India 07/8 project complete, and a success.  The end.  Or is it?

Some clowns are more hardcore than that.  They want to go home ‘circus style’.  Honk honk and all that.

The plan is: back to the UK overland.  No flying, period.  But not just that (because that would be too hard); we plan to spread some smiles along the way 😀

Contacts have already been made with organisations who work with vulnerable children; and judging by the response (we have contacts in more countries than we can work in) there certainly is a demand!

The show is dead, long live the show!

Tracing the route home we head Northwest from India crossing fertile river plains, high mountain passes and endless deserts.  This is silk route country; a mesh of cultures and histories.

Proposed itinerary (subject to change):

• Pakistan
• China
• Kyrgyzstan
• Kazakhstan
• Azerbaijan
• Georgia
• Turkey
• …

Under time and budgetary pressures, and up against some of the world’s finest bureaucracies – not to mention mother nature’s best – this is clearly no jaunt.  So why do it?

Well for starters: we are people for which adventure, and the discovery of new worlds, is a beautiful and important experience.  What wonders will we witness? What friends will we make?  What smiles will we share?

Behind this we have the opportunity to research locations for future PWB projects ie. make friends 🙂  Since the end of the Soviet Union period the areas we are travelling through have undergone major changes throwing up many social and economic challenges.  There is a real potential for PWB projects in this region.

Six gallant clowns strike out through sticky red tape, dishonest taxi drivers, bad weather and hard beds.  Will they hold it together?  Or descend into the farce of visa forms and dual time zones?  Or will it be the slapstick of closed mountain passes and 50C deserts?  Whatever the take there will certainly be be laughter (plenty) and tears (just the odd one or two I hope)

Read on.

Matt
Gilgit, Pakistan. 29/4/08