China has felt like sanctuary after the tribulations of the journey from Kazakhstan, and after spending a couple of days in Urumqi and hooking back up with the Boy Noble, we collectively decided to make a 3000km detour to Kashgar, the gateway to the Karakoram highway, on the far western edge of the Taklamakan desert.
A warm welcome in Kashgar
Kashgar is another of those places, like Samarkhand and Bukhara, whose name resounds with mystery and allure. It lies at the very heart of the continent, close to the borders of Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and is rightly considered the crossroads of Asia…
Richard just emailed me from Dushanbe, saying “The Tajiks are all cheering you on!” He organised a game in honour of the Ball as soon as he got back there. As they had no goalposts, they played a variant of the great game where both Tajiks and English tried to score by knocking over a bottle strategically placed on the pitch. Each time someone scored a goal, the other team had to drink a shot of vodka out of the goal… “Ref required when the bottle is empty!” I can only imagine the scene after an hour’s play…
More recently, he’s been keeping himself busy in his Afghan hideout by recruiting some of the local Afghan hill-folk for a new cause…
The villagers spell out their support for England
The blue football at the centre of the picture was bought in Samarkhand as a symbolic spin-off from The Ball. Richard says that it has brought much joy and laughter — both to himself and to the locals. Given what has happened in Afghanistan recently, this thought makes us very happy.
Written by Christian Wach on Friday, May 3rd, 2002
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