Share the wealth nature offered to all of us.

Hello,

my name is Sebastian and I am currently trying to realize a youth dream: to cycle from my home (then Germany/ now Sweden) to Nepal.

I cannot fully explain why I feel I have to realize this dream, but I am for sure looking forward to the adventure, to gradually moving forward in beautiful nature, and the conversations with people I would most probably never have met otherwise.

To do sports is a very reliable way to get happy for me. However, I have no illusion that I will need to have a strong motivation to move forward in times it is wet and cold outside and I feel afraid and lonely inside.

Humans cannot survive and move forward without meaning, so I want to add additional meaning to this bike trip:

I have worked for the mitigation of global warming for more than two decades now.

It was not before last year that I was convinced that solving the climate crisis will be very difficult to achieve in a world in which our joint natural resources are distributed extremely unequally among all of us, the citizens of the world:

How shall you care for the climate if you are poor and go to bed hungry?

How can you care for the climate if you are afraid to lose your status quo in a materially oriented society?

Would you care for the climate if you are rich, you want to stay rich and all your power depends on the extraction of fossil energy?

I have not met anybody who knew how rich humanity is already today:

If one sums up all the material fortune on the globe (money, houses, cars, company shares, etc), and divides this wealth humanity has been endowed with by nature (or simply taken from it without asking) by 8 billion global citizens, everybody would permanently (as long the global wealth does not decrease) own around 55.000 Euro. (Source: Credit Suisse, Global Wealth Report 2022).

With this amount of money, you for sure do not have to go to bed hungry.

Just knowing about this simple fact might reassure many of us that we have already received (and maybe even more than) our fair share of the material fortune. Is it not liberating to know that you do not have to strive for owning more in this case?

Would it make you even happier to voluntarily share your fortune with those who urgently deserve it?

On my bike trip to Nepal, I will for sure meet many people who own more than 55.000 €.

And much more who own less.

It would for sure make me happy if I could send your donations to those who need and deserve them.

Share the wealth nature offered to all of us!

Sebastian

Notes:

1. I will save the contact data of people I meet on the bike trip who own less than 55.000 €

2. The total sum of donations will be shared equally among them.

3. For the sake of my security, I will organize the payments once I am back in Sweden.

4. I will try to find a known charity to check and confirm that the donations are distributed as described above.

5. The platform provider of this crowdfunding campaign provides a money-back donor protection guarantee.

6. The Earth4All initiative has come up with a pragmatic and inspiring approach to reach a fairer global wealth distribution and tackle the climate crisis politically. I can strongly recommend their new book Earth4All published in 2022: https://www.earth4all.life/a-major-upgrade

Tour Diary:

25.02.2023

The trip has started! :-)

Two days ago, my bike was fully packed and my wife Anne gave me a warm farewell in our garden Hemse. Christian, a friend of mine accompanied me on the first day to Visby by bike. So this was a nice start. Though around 0 degree, the clothing was warm, the travel conversations were good and we had tailwind as Philip Wilner had wished me. It started to snow in Klintehamn, but we did not become wet either. So we arrived in time at the ferry port in Visby in the afternoon. Anne and my daughter Helene came there to give me a warm hug there as well. I am so grateful that both of them let me go on the trip which came to my mind when I was still in school. This is quite extraordinary, I think! Many asked me why I do this trip, and I do it of course for the adventure and since I like bike tours. But I have to admit that I do not know completely why, I just feel the trip has to be done.

And since many wanted to follow the trip, I thought this would be a good opportunity to attract some publicity for this fundraiser, so I will write about my trip on this site from time to time.

Yesterday was quite a wet day with 7 hours of steady rain between Oskarshamn and Rockneby. So I was really happy after a warm shower and the best Tikka Masala I have eaten so far. :-)

Today it is white outside and there is a strong north wind, so I want to use it on my route to the south.

I am really surprised that many are so positive about this trip, so I want to thank you for your good wishes, interest and support!

03.03.2023

I arrived in Trelleborg! :-)

One might think that there is plenty of time to write a blog if one bikes "only" 60 km a day. But the truth is that a large part of the day remaining after the biking is already filled up with unpacking, taking a wonderful warm shower, preparing food, eating (all kinds of food are usually very much appreciated, especially cheese after the meals), finding a place to stay for the next night, packing, and so on... Sometimes I am also simply too exhausted to write.

Now, after 9 days of biking, I have already left the most northern point of the journey (Visby) behind me, and the most western point (Rostock) will follow tomorrow morning when I arrive with the ferry in Germany.

I have been biking into the night several times now and i start to get additional orientation by the upcoming stars (I think now when l start to bike southwards it will often be toward the Orion constellation). Jupiter and Venus are currently shining very bright and close to each other on the western horizon, which is why the Swedish police received many calls from worried citizens who were afraid of drones (according to SVT).

Every day I use to meet another group of animals (herons, rabbits, eagles, gulls, deer, kites, and brants) which makes me happy. I feel more connected to both the animals and the nice oak trees I meet now. They feel like companions, especially when I have spent a night outside. By the way, zero degrees is still comfortable in my sleeping back, - 4 degrees not. On the photo above, it was so cold that one tent bar was still standing after removing the tent stakes since it was frozen into the ground. :-)

After Rockneby, the weather has been very sunny, so it was a good time to see the farms of Blekinge, the navy city Karlskrona, the beautiful center of the seaside city of Ahus and the wide and hilly landscape of Skåne. In Hammenhög, I received a warm welcome from Tore and Annika in Hambo. This is an old brick-stone school that was transformed into a very beautiful and cozy housing project by a group of motivated and clever elderly people who wanted to live together. It was inspiring to see that this plan has been realized in such a positive way.

11.03.2023

Germany!

The travel in Germany started in quite an unexpected way: When we left the ferry at 06.30 in the morning, the Chinese mobile holder for 40 SEK which I had bought in Kalmar some days earlier gave up and I lost my mobile without noticing it for 30 seconds. When I turned back, the mobile had already been picked up by a driver. I was quite astonished to hear that the driver was already on the Autobahn when I called my mobile number from another phone. He did not want to come back but decided instead to leave it at a gasoline station in Upahl 88 km west of Rostock...(!). To get there with train and bus took 2 hours, back to Rostock Central station only 45 mins since a very friendly man in his fifties in a brand new Mercedes drove me back there.

So at noon, the bike ride could finally start.

The sun was shining, it was the warmest day of the tour so far and the bike lanes through the beautiful landscape were so well paved that it seemed to me I was going downhill all the time (which of course is not realistic when you start at sea level.

What a contrast to 1,5 days earlier: In Blentarp, I had been so exhausted when I woke up that I was sincerely thinking of ending my trip in Rostock and turning back to Gotland. The daily biking without break had taken its toll. But somehow everything got a bit easier in Germany and I managed to get to Berlin without break.

In the beautiful little town of Röbel, Bille and Boldi shared their house, homemade bread and liver sausage and high-end oat milk cappuccino with me. It became a long evening in which I learned that the huge real estate ownership of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern can be traced back to local princedoms.

It got cold again on the following days so I was very thankful to be able to warm myself and my bike in Nicos and Rike's castle plus a nearby sauna in Berlin-Charlottenburg.

Two days later, the front wheel rim broke in Golssen. The local bike shop owner Erich helped me to fix the wheel until late in the evening and prepared me with preparatory stories about his trips to Georgia.

22.03.2023

Uli and Benny, Peter and Wendy, Tomas and Anna

In Bad Schandau at the river Elbe, my old youth friend Uli met me. It was good to cross the border to the first really "foreign" country, the Czech Republic, together.

The river Elbe cuts here like a knife through the Elbsandstein-Mountains between Germany and the Czech Republic. So very nice to cycle indeed, with only a little high rise. On the Czech side, we met my university friend Benny who had arrived from Karlsruhe with a brand-new green Brompton folding bike, minimal baggage and some back pain. So we took a modest ride together until Leitmeritz. The next day however turned out to be more exhausting than planned: I had to take an extra ride back and forth since I had left my water filter bottle in Leitmeritz (thanks for waiting for me !) and finally we arrived in a fancy golf hotel with a dead alligator on the wall of our Egypt style hotel room just north of Prague. The next restaurant was only 5 km away. To be sure, I asked Uli: "Is there any elevation on our way?" He answered fast and in a very convincing manner: "It is just flat." So we left, hungry and exhausted on the last short ride. That Benny groaned the loudliest I can remember could simply be explained by the fact that the beautiful local Czech restaurant revealed itself to be located on the local summit of the area, 200 height meters above our hotel. You can truly believe us that we fully enjoyed the cool beer and the delicious goulash and dumpling balls before simply rolling home. :-)

The last kilometers to Prague were comparably easy and we soon arrived on the Moldau river:

Benny left in Prague, and with a good amount of tailwind, we were already in Bestvina the next evening.

From there, Uli left to take care of his sick daughter. I planned to simply continue upwards to the watershed between the north sea (via the river Elbe) and the black sea (via the river Danube) on a height level of about 750m when a local bike dealer conclude that I had to buy a new bike since the twisted frame of my old bike did not allow for fixing the back wheel any longer... The amazing pension hosts Peter and Wendy in Bestvina had not only driven Uli and me to the next restaurant the evening before, but now they transported me and the bike 40 km to the next city and helped with the translation for the bike purchase! I was already picturing myself on a brand new golden gravel bike when the second bike dealer simply removed the shift protection and tightened the back wheel of my old bike again. This saved me not only 2.500 Euro but allowed us also to have a nice lunch conversation before I finally started to the watershed at 14.00 in the afternoon. Thanks

Already on the morning of the next day, I noticed that the little water streams in the forested mountains were flowing in my direction of travel. :-) With decreasing altitude, it got slowly warmer, but I also had a heavy headwind coming up from the Pannonian lowlands for the first time in my travel. Two bike racers gave me some windshield and motivation on the last hills before Brno. This city turned out to be an important logistic hub on my travel:

I bought a spare rim for the back wheel since the old one was already thin. Fielmann had started to make spare glasses for me in Oranienburg just north of Berlin, send them to Prague (which I had already passed) and further to Brno where I finally got them. In addition, they gave me the water bottle which I had forgotten in Leitmeritz and which had been sent there. On the way to the Slovak Republic, I had by chance planned a stop right at the beautiful castle in Lednice.

What to expect in the Slovak Republic? I noticed that I am always getting a bit nervous when entering a new country.

Would it be safe? How would the country be for bikers? Was there any understanding for crazy long-distance bikers? I did not even expect that I would be able to pay in Euro after paying in Czech Kronor the days before.

Anyway, I met only welcoming people in the Slovak republic. Especially in Bratislava, which for some reason had been connected with negative associations of a grey and rough city in my imagination. It turned out to be wonderful! First of all, I met the Danube river just before the city.

It got warmer and warmer and spring was now clearly arriving.

My original plan had been to pass through the city but then when I was just considering staying a bit longer, someone was shouting at me: "Come on! Where are you coming from? Where are you heading to? Is there anything you want to repair in our fully equipped self-repair bike kitchen? Do you want to stay at our apartment tonight? " It was Tomas with his girlfriend Anna from Vienna. For sure I wanted to! I used the opportunity to exchange my back wheel rim (in the meanwhile I was even invited to some cool beers) and was even able to discover the old city center of Bratislava with Tomas and Anna. Thanks so much, Tomas and Anna, this was an unforgettable day in Bratislava! :-)

02.04.2023

An der schönen Donau

My brain seems to have reached its memory capacity, it is just happening too much every day. This is further complicated by the fact that the Danube bike trail I am often following (or Eurovelo 6 and 13 for the professionals) switched between Hungary, Serbia, Romania, Serbia again, Bulgaria and Romania again so far. So once you have learned to say "Hello, Thank you and Good Buy" in the local language plus got the exchange course to EUR and SEK in your head you can restart your brain again in the next country. At least at my age... But the photos I took give me at least some orientation in the last 10 days. And since I keep coming back to the Danube, this splendid lifeline again and again, this is my red thread for this chapter.

The extent and the pomposity of the monumental building in Budapest are simply crazy. I find it a bit ironic that the parliament seems to be the most important and beautiful building in the Hungarian capital. After a 2 hour long monument and restaurant stroll, I found a restaurant with really good Hungarian Letscho and Gundel Palatschinken just 100 meters from my hotel. Next time I will use trip advisor from the start...

South of Budapest, the Danube splits up in two river arms simply to allow each Hungarian family to build a picturesque little cottage with a garden directly at the river bank and a beautiful pontoon in the reed next to it. With a warming wind from the south and spring birds singing, this was just amazing. :-)

I already knew the Danube is a big river from my mother's hometown Neu Ulm in Bavaria. But here, the river first turned into a huge lake and then nearly into an ocean bay.

For the first time in four weeks, I was able to bike without hiking boots, but with shorts and a merino shirt in the sun at 20 degrees Celsius. That was pure happiness after all the chill!

From here on, I started to store heat and cold and send it forward to the next stations of my trip where I might probably need it.

Hungarians love fishing, so I took the chance to test the famous Hungarian hot fish soup at the local fish soup festival in Kiskunhalas. Not bad, I would say...

Close to the Hungarian border, a local bike mechanic told me that I was the first biker to pass on the Eurovelo bike trail this year, so I felt a bit like a swallow that announces the "tourist spring". Just 30 min later, I met Waltraud and Martin on their bike with trailers. We invited each other to a cappuccino, and they had very helpful and joyful lessons to tell from their hike and bike trip which had led them from Switzerland and Austria to Uttar Pradesh in India and back to Hungary. I am especially thankful for the dog defense advice...

The travel through Hungary finished with meeting a lovely host family and visiting the very nice thermal bath in Moralholm. The influence of the Roman Empire is still sensible on this long trip...

09.04.2023

Grenzerfahrungen

Crossing the border to Serbia (and thereby leaving the EU) was a sunny experience. On the other side, I needed some time to get used to music videos with half-naked women on TV channels number 1-7 and wild garbage dumps. However, a very good Balkan grill restaurant in Negotin with a huge load of grilled sheep meat, tomato and cucumber salad, pepperoni in garlic and vinegar and white olive bread brought me back into life after several hundred hight meters through the Carpathian hills on a mountain bike trail.

Yesterday I realized that this area is a brown bear habitat on both sides of the Danube River. I had asked a local car driver in the hills to confirm that bears only live on the Northern side of the river (since we were on the Southern side). But he smiled and said unexpectedly: "Bears? Yes! while pointing at the hills around me. Which did not contribute to relaxing me since it was slowly getting dark. Shortly after that, Kevin (one of two long-distance bike riders from Fürth/Bavaria which I had met while crossing the Danube on a river ferry one day earlier) come running towards me and told me that he was sure that he had heard a bear roaring. I did not fully believe him at this moment but we nonetheless decided to hang our food in a tree around 50m from our tents before sleeping this night. This was quite probably not a stupid idea...

Two days earlier, my bike navigator had led me on a nice new little bikeway from Serbia to Romania. I was somewhat surprised that nobody was there except a small closed border tree which was easy to round. A little later, I even passed a Van with a large camera and a running diesel generator without getting suspicious. The Romanian border police officers that stepped out of the Van shortly after that though were a little bit more concerned, informed me that I had illegally entered the European Union, and sent me back to Serbia. This border crossing is only open on the weekend...

15.04.2023

Long-distance bike travelers

Meeting other long-distance cyclists is of course nice. Within the first 2 months of the tour, I had only met 6 other bikers alike (typically easy to identify by a large number of bike bags):

• 2 well equipped British racing from Prague to Berlin (we met them at the cafe where I thought I had lost my water filter bottle)

• 1 unidentified biker who was eager to climb the hills west of Budapest and did evidently have no time to lose

• Kevin and Natti, two funny guys in their early 20ies from Fürth that want to reach Japan: By chance, they had started their tour in Northern Bavaria on the same day as I started my tour on Gotland. Since I am traveling with a 26-year-old bike and a 27-year-old Hilleberg tent, I had already gotten some comments on my sparse equipment. However, I had for sure been on a luxury trip compared to their tough ride when we met in the middle of Hungary: Natti was wearing plastic bottles instead of shoes since his only pair of shoes was still wet. His scrappy mountain bike was creaking like hell with every pedal turn. The front brake had been fixed with matches, his back brakes did not work at all. Kevin could only use the largest of the three front chainrings when we climbed up the already mentioned Carpathian "bear" hills. With new back brake shoes I had given Natti before these hills, Natti managed at least to slow his bike down from 60 mph to 40 mph during a speed contest before making a rollover in a nearby bush on the downhill ride to the Danube. With the luck of the youth, he only had to remove some thorns from his skin before being able to continue... The boys had slept in a tent 80% of the travel so far and even made a side trip to the Bavarian Alps at around -7 degrees with wet clothes to visit an old friend! We traveled together until the small city of Bechet in Romania, where the boys turned southward towards Istanbul. I hope to meet you again in Asia, tough guys! It is possible to follow their adventure with really funny youtube videos here.

• Amber, from Belgium with a beautiful and solid Koga bike was on her way home from the Mediterranean when we met her at the Danube. She mentioned that she preferred to camp in old, abandoned houses and took a small puppet with her to deter unwanted guests from her tent.

25.04.2023

Eastern Europe

Without this bike trip, I might never have visited the Slovak Republic, Hungary, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria. That would have been a pity! The wild, untouched Carpathian mountains are beautiful, and we received uncounted happy greetings from children, adults and elderly people in Romania on a sunny Sunday while racing with backwind towards Ruse.

On this day alone, I might have counted around 50 storks. :-)

Both Romania and Bulgaria are blessed with a warm climate and seemed to have fertile soils and plenty of water as well. So I was wondering why I meet many people who owned not much more than a horse wagon, collecting wood in the forest for heating or sale. They did not seem to be unhappy, but the profits from the large acres seem to be concentrated in the hands of a few.

Construction workers from Pakistan told me that the irrigation systems they were building were installed on arable land owned by investors from Germany and the US.

They invited me and the fantastic hostel manager Gabriel (see below) to Pakistani dishes after dawn due to Ramadan. When it got cold and rainy, they even invited me into their hotel room since I had put my tent in the hostel garden because the hostel was fully booked.

One week later, a Swedish citizen from Iraq mentioned that it is usually the poor that invite the rich since they depend on each other since those with money can buy autonomy. Maybe this is true?

After 6 weeks of bike riding, I started to feel like the slogan on the Bulgarian hostel plate below:

Everything was in order once the bike was on the road and kept moving again, and a rainy waiting day could even make me feel a bit useless...

Anyway, I was very glad about the Easter break after arriving in Varna (Bulgaria) on the Western coast of the Black Sea.

The plan was to ship my bike and baggage with the ferry above from Varna over the Black Sea to Batumi (Georgia) and visit my family on Gotland during the Easter holidays, but the captain of the ship decided at the last moment (when the ship had already closed the bow visor) that he did not want to have a sole bike on the ship...

In the end, Horsens (my bike) and the baggage flew back and forth with me to Sweden before I could continue the trip on the eastern side of the Black Sea.

25.04.2023

Fatigue

Although I have had a course in material science at university, I had not expected the effect 3.000 km of continuous shocks and vibrations caused by a 100 kg biker and around 25 kg of baggage would have on plastics, aluminum and steel.

• The mobile holder broke in Skåne.

• The bike stand broke in Berlin.

• The front rim broke in Brandenburg.

• The left lowrider mounting screw broke in Hungary

• One luggage rack screw nearly unscrewed itself in Serbia

• The right lowrider mounting screw broke in Bulgaria.

• The new chain I had bought before the trip had reached the end of its live time in Varna.

• The rear cassette which was new before the trip had to be replaced in Batumi.

With enough spare parts and the additional help of bike mechanics in Ahus, Röbel, Berlin, Gollsen, Prague, Brno, Solt and Märsta, all of it could be fixed quite fast (thank you again for that !). Probably, damages would have been less with a specialized long-distance touring bike. But no bike can escape material fatigue, so I wonder how well the best bikes are designed today.

Anyway, I did not have one single tube puncture to the west of the Black Sea. :-) !

02.05.2023

Sweet Home

After a six-week trip on the bike, flying the same distance home again in less than 4 hours felt somewhat strange... The whole trip back went as planned with the small exception that DG had a sensor transmitter error because of which the ferry to Gotland could not leave Nynäshamn. Since it was beautiful sunny weather this could not bother me. After all, the unexpected gets normal on such a long journey.

How shall I express my thankfulness when my two tough girls picked me up at midnight in Visby and welcomed me at home with Tibetian prayer flags in our Garden in Hemse? And still loved me after taking care of everything at home without me? I felt just right to be home again. :-)

02.05.2023

Georgia, the biker's paradise

The first unexpected thing which happened on my way back to the ferry to get the flight from Arlanda to Batumi was a broken V-belt in the bus from Hemse to Visby which stopped us in Klintehamn.

It was my luck that I had already ordered a taxi to the ferry in Visby for the bike transport, so I reached the ferry (and the flight via Istanbul) in time. My old school friend Adrian also had a little bit of a struggle on the way from Munich to Batumi: The passengers had to leave the Lufthansa plane and spend the night in the airport due to a necessary tyre change... So even airplanes can have unexpected profane rubber problems!

I could not believe my eyes when I discovered that the flight back went straight over Gotland and I could even spot my home town Hemse from above. :-)

The view from our hotel balcony on the 25th floor in Batumi was fantastic: The Black Sea to the East, Batumis Skyscrapers in the Middle, and the Caucasian mountains with snow on the top to the West. Plus Adrian's orange full suspension mountain bike with SRAM gear shift plus good old Horsens waiting for the next adventures.

Adi and I had barely heard anything about Georgia before, but it turned out to be a perfect country for bike trips:

• A warm and pleasant climate, and still everywhere a small spring with cool water to refresh

• Extremely good and extraordinary food

• The Georgian cross was invented for WindPro enthusiasts

• Very kind people plus peaceful animals (even dogs!)

• The Goderzi mountain pass on 2.000m above sea level with around 4m of snow which allowed for bike canyoning in the smelting water on the way down

• Tailwind and the terrain inclination allowed for a maximum speed of 65 km/h on the last 135km to the capital Tbilisi

• And of course: A fearless friend who (nearly) never lost his good mood:

16.05.2023

From the largest lake in the world straight into the desert in Kazakhstan

To arrive in Aktau, at the border of the Caspian Sea and 60 m below sea level, was a shock. The airplane (including the national Judo team of Kazakhstan) arrived at 01.00 am in Aktau. My passport was checked at customs, and the responsible officer seemed to not like (or understand) something in my passport. He asked his boss to help him, but his boss could not solve the issue either. They called the next-level boss, who maybe had already been sleeping at this time of the night. He was not amused, simply explained “German passport” and I could finally pass the passport control about 1 hour after the other passengers. I had booked a room in the hotel Victoria online (it turned out later that the real name was "Victory") which had promised an airport transfer but nobody arrived at the airport. A cab driver drove me and a Russian businessman to our hotels. The city was huge. In the hotel, which seemed to be built still in Soviet times, my room was on the 5th floor. There was no escalator, so I had to walk up and down 3 times to bring all my baggage up. It was hot since the warm water in the towel dryer of the bathroom could be switched off only by the city administration. And of course, since it was already in the steppe created by the rain shadow of the Tienshan mountains some thousand km to the east. It took me 3 days to accommodate myself to the new situation. Then I started to like Aktau.

The city is thriving due to the increase in oil export via the harbor at the Caspian Sea to Baku. From the well-visited Pan-Asian restaurants at the lake shore, I could watch a long row of oil tankers leaving the city around the clock. As well as beautiful sunsets. There were – like in Georgia – many Russians around. At a small, temple-like building at the shore, I was able to assemble my bike again. I bought 12 liters of water and 3 liters of juice for the desert. A lot of food, including conserves and even sunflower oil (which I bought due to its high-calorie content but never used).

On the last evening in Aktau I took a bath in the largest lake in the world (the Caspian Sea) although i had not seen anyone else swimming at the long beachfront during my stay in Aktau. It was refreshing to feel the cold of this huge mass of water. I tried to save the cold and humidity of the sea for the thousands of km of dry land mass that was lying ahead of me. Two deserts – the Karakum and the Kyselkum desert – and no more ocean before my return to Sweden. Even though I had a huge respect for the desert I set off for the last part of my travel on a hot afternoon on the 28th of April.

The bike was heavier than ever before and the landscape was grey and dusty already in Aktau due to the water scarcity. I bought some last tasty Samsa "delicious dumplings filled with sheep meat and onion" before leaving the city. At a gas station on the outskirts of the city, I decided to discuss the track the Komoot bike navigator had suggested for the travel to Uzbekistan. It did not follow the main road to the east but went directly northeast into the desert, thereby shortcutting around 40km. Three men tried to convince me to take the main road. I asked them about the quality of the desert track and whether it was easy to lose, and their answers were reassuring... I also calculated if I was able to walk to the next house if I had a bike failure that I could not repair. In the worst case, about 40 km. That for sure would be tough, but doable. So I went on with the Komoot track despite their warning: "Car? Yes. Humans: No".

On the first part of the track, the road was bumpy but still asphalted, and there were still orange Chinese Shacman trucks and a few other cars passing me. After some time, there was no more mobile connection. In the evening, I passed a lonely small production site. One worker appeared from a container and told me that natural gas was extracted from the ground here. He gave me a liter of water. After that, I followed two rusty large pipelines, then even these pipelines were gone. No more cars, it got really quiet. The tarmac had ended, so it got more cumbersome to climb up the stony path with the heavy bike. In the evening, I put my tent beside the path. During this afternoon and evening, I had drunken about 6 liters of water. I was quite sure that I was on the correct path due to the GPS track of my mobile, but still not 100% sure. And you want to be 100% sure to go in the right direction in a sheer endless desert without water resupply options... The Cyrillic wall map I had bought as an offline backup in Aktau was only partly helpful, since the offroad tracks had the same colors as the high lines, and the maps did not seem to be 100% up-to-date. So it was a relief when I could confirm my position with a second GPS device. I decided to put the 2 x 5 liters water bottles in the tent to have them close. When I examined them, I discovered that one of the containers had a small leak and was slowly losing water. I distributed the water to my empty bottles. During the night I woke up two times and enjoyed the starlit sky above me.

The next day was expected to get even hotter, so I stood up at sunrise. A steady strong and warm wind blew from the east, the direction of my travel. I could charge my small battery pack with the solar panels Adrian had brought to Georgia while packing my baggage, so communication would not be a problem. I started to cycle. The route went uphill at an inclination steeper than expected. The wind got stronger. The rocky bumpy path was difficult to bike. It got hot and hotter. Even though I went forward as fast as I could, I moved with less than 10 km per hour. Under other conditions, I would have simply rested to wait for the headwind to calm down, but firstly I did not know when this would happen and secondly, I did know that my water storage was limited. I met some camels on the way. And a turtle.

A turtle in the desert? They apparently can survive on the little water they receive by eating the sparse vegetation. Still nobody in sight anywhere. My route seems to be correct, but there is no landmark to prove it. Finally, I arrive on a gravel road and meet a car there. The driver calls me “Superman”, but I do not feel very strong anymore. I still head east, the wind is blowing constantly towards me, and I have to climb on another hill. There is still no settlement in sight. Before reaching the top, I release a scream since I am so exhausted. The nearby camels watch me with surprise.

When I reach the top of the hill, a small village (Beki) and the main road is in sight. What a relief! I finish the track with my last energy, wash and cool down in the teahouse (the Kazakh version of a German Autobahnraststätte). The next 3 hours I spend drinking, eating, resting and talking to the younger son of the house owner. So I got the desert adventure I had been looking for. It was tougher than I had expected. For the next 2 desert weeks to come, I decided to stay on the main road.

10.06.2023

An unexpected Birthday Party in Shetpe, Kazakhstan

I still made it to the town of Shetpe in the evening of the same day. When I was entering the city, a Kazakh family stopped with their car on the side of the road. Manas, the family father, wanted to change seats. He stepped on my bike and cycled to the nearby motel, and his wife drove me there with the car. He suggested to meet again the next day. After half a day of rest, we met again. Manas showed me the beautiful rough mountains of the province of Mangystau with his car.

After that, we passed by his brother who was working in a fruit trading shop. I had to greet the colleagues and a larger number of friends via his smartphone. Since I was hungry and wanted to invite Manas, I asked him for a restaurant with regional food from Kazakhstan. Manas drove me to three cafés until he was finally satisfied with the menu. We chose Samosas and salad. I had not finished eating when Manas received a phone call. He told me to stop eating and leave the restaurant immediately. I did not understand why. He continued “go, go, go”, so I thought it would be wise to just follow him (but I still grabbed the last samosa). What was the problem? Were we in danger?

He drove me to a small but very clean and tidy house which turned out to belong his brother. I should sit down on matrasses on the floor. One of the boys of the household gave me water and a bowl to wash my hands. How many people were living here? 15? 20? After some time, around 25 people from all ages gathered. The men on the left side, the women on the right side. Sheep meat and a sheet skull was served by the female members of the households with onions and local square-sized pasta on beautifully decorated wooden plates. After that, we received camel milk.

I sat between the oldest men in the household. A boy served me another bowl and towel to clean my hands and my mouth, a prayer to Allah was spoken. We all left to enter the next room. Two long, decorated low benches filled the rooms. They were completely covered with all kinds of food and flowers. It felt like in a fairy-tale of 1001 nights. I could only mumble “o my good” before I was seated again.

The right-side bench was for the men, the front side bench for the women. I was asked to try everything: 2 types of camel cheese, goat cheese, cow cheese, fish, sheep meat, other meat, all kinds of fruits, sweets, tea, kefir. Another bowl was given to me and I had already started to clean my fingers when I realized it was soup…

Finally, I realized that I participated in the 50th birthday of a family member and the toasts on the birthday-child began. The grandfather and grandmother started and showed how much money they had swiped to him as birth present. Other family members and friends continued. Then a young man stood up and started to sing and play a zither. He sang so compassionately that he started to sweat all over the face. After that, a toast was expected from me. I was allowed to speak in German, but should wish him Happy Birthday in Kazakh language… After that, Manas asked me to leave with him.

This evening touched my heart deeply. The dense atmosphere, the large number of relatives and friends in one room, the strict social rules, the old, traditional and kind hospitality. The role distribution of men and women, but also my desire to fit into the social context and to behave properly. Longer direct eye contact between men and women was generally avoided, but of course everybody blinked curiously. It was for sure an unforgettable event, and I am very thankful that Manas let me try some real Kazakh food.

11.06.2023

Heavy traffic in the desert

There is only one open border crossing point between western Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Not far from Shetpe, you have to enter a straight road through the desert in Kazakhstan which leads you 200 km to the Northeast to this border crossing point. At the border near Bejneu, you have to make a 90 degree turn to the right and then cycle another 300 km straight to the southeast through the Uzbek desert.

After a funny evening with 13 Russian offroad motor cross bikers, herbal tea from the Altai mountains and home-made Russian alcohol in the simple tea house of Say-Otec, I already got on the road at 07.00 in the morning the next day. The day before, an English-speaking oil worker which met me on the road told me that he had see a group of 4 bikers around 3 hours ahead of me and another 2 groups of 2 bikers even further northeast on the road. I thought I might have a chance to meet the larger group if I started to bike early. At noon, I had already cycled 50 km when I meet 3 French brothers on the right side of the road who where just packing their camping equipment. The younger brothers Nathan and Nicolas were in the early twenties and Benjamin in his early thirties. They were heading towards Japan and had a very streamlined biking concept. The packaging on the bikes of “Team France” was aerodynamically optimized (quite the opposite to my big red Ortlieb bag which acted as a wind sail on good days and as an air-break at headwind conditions). Their day goal was Bejneu (135 km ahead) and clearly out of my planning imagination. However, the desert was boring and I thought it might be wise to use the drive of the brothers to both reach Bejneu soon and maybe even catch up with the next bikers.

After a cup of Trangia coffee, we set off. It turned out that the brothers also biked like a racing team, fast and in the optimal configuration depending on the prevailing wind direction. We had quite strong side-wind respectively even light headwind. However, the wind shield created by the Frerots-en-velo was so effective that I finally arrived at Bejneu the same day: totally exhausted, completely wet from a number of rain showers and with a new personal daily biking record of 185 km. While unpacking my bike and parallelly gulping 3 croissants plus 1,5 litres of citron flavoured mineral water on the way to the hotel room, I still had enough energy left to notice two light- blue Surley long-distance bikes in the lobby of the hotel before I sank in bed and fell in a deep recreation sleep.

The next day, I met Joris and Imke from the Netherlands who invited me to their favourite morning activity: Drinking two rounds of coffee on their foldable camping chairs. Even they were heading to Japan and had started their extended bike trip already in the summer of 2022. The were very well prepared and had even spent 5 days in the desert on an offroad track which I thought was quite cool after my own experiences with the desert.

Before entering into the double land-locked country of Uzbekistan (which has no coast line and is – as only country in the world – completely surrounded by other countries without any coast) I slowly realized why I had met so many bikers in the desert: We were all biking on the only sensible road for bikers leading from Europa to East-Asia under the current political circumstances !

North of this desert road were:

• The Arctic

• Russia, probably not clever to cross right now

• The northern part of Kazakhstan which you will never reach by bike if you have to avoid Russia

• Desert

South of our desert road were:

• Desert

• Turkmenistan, which currently has the land border closed

• Iran, probably neither clever to cross right now

• The Indian Ocean

13.06.2023

Uzbekistan, the living proof that it is possible to create a civilization without rainwater

It is difficult to describe the relief when I entered the first patches of green, irrigated farmland west of Kungrad after several weeks of plain desert without a single tree. The temperature decreases immediately by several degrees due to the water evaporation from the vegetation. The air gets more humid. One knows that there is always water around somewhere so you are sure you will not die of thirst. It is so pleasant to just be able to sit in the shadow of a tree and rest.

My bike navigator led me on narrow paths through irrigation agriculture. Everywhere where large, medium, small and tiny open water channels that allowed live to flourish in the desert. I felt like I was in India already. The humid climate, clay huts, colourful birds and insects.

It later turned out that these were only the last remaining water drops from the huge water streams (Amudarja and Sirdaja) that rush down from the very high Pamir and Tianshan mountains which are located in Tajikistan and Kirgizstan to the east of Uzbekistan. Thus, Uzbekistan is nearly completely dependent on water inflow from its neighbours.

I stayed more than 30 days in this country, and during this time, daily maximum temperatures where in the range of 30-40 degrees. So you need water not only to drink, but of course for any kind of food production and to simply wash and cool down your body. The last days before the capital Tashkent were so hot that I could merely bike 20 min. before I had to rest and cool down again. Probably the non-temperature resistant fat in my back-wheel hub simply melted away during one of these days.

I was told that temperatures are hotter today compared to the last decades. If one takes into account that much of the river water in the late summer is melting water from the mountains and that the glaciers in Central and South Asia will most probably disappear to climate change, it becomes obvious how vulnerable the countries in this region are.

Nevertheless, Uzbekistan has built flourishing cities already during the times of the Silk Road. Most of the inhabitants are Muslims, and the most spectacular buildings in the ancient oasis cities of Xiva, Bukhara and Samarkand are mosques, minarets and madrassas. However, our first contact with Islam was already shortly before the border in the desert, when we met about ten Usbzeks in their 70s and 80s that were on a pilgrimage to Mekka (the Hadsch). And they came by bike. Unbelievable!

We shared some food and wished each other good luck! I think the people in Central Asia are generous since the Islam values generosity and hospitality, and they are especially generous to bikers (there goes nearly no day without someone offering you a cool bottle of coke, water, bread or fruits) since everybody knows how it is to cycle. And everybody knows this can be tough sometimes. Thus, one is just much more accessible compared to a tourist in an air-conditioned travel-bus.

Russia has had and still has a strong influence on Uzbekistan. In Nukus, the capital of the Western Uzbek province of Karakalpakstan, I visited a museum with fantastic colourful and vivid paintings of Russian painters from the 20th century. I got happy by simply watching these unique pieces of art.

While i was in the city of Nukus, I witnessed something i did not dare to write about before coming home to Sweden again. While biking through the western part of the city on the way to the hotel, I heard a sound from the right side that let me cringe. I turned to the right and saw a prison. I am not sure about what i heard, but it did sound like the moaning of a human being. At the same time, I saw a woman on the road holding her hands over her ears. I was shocked and afraid. Did not even think of stopping or doing any further inquiry of what was happening in this prison. I just continued to bike my way to the hotel. Now I can at least witness of what i heard and saw.

17.06.2023

Tajikistan – Bikepacking on hiking trails…

On the bike section of the great Bazar in Nukus, I met Baldur and Pia, two other long-distance bikers from Germany in their early thirties. They had left Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the summer of 2022, and had thus already travelled one year or more than 10.000 km since that. With a hammer in the one hand and a nail in the other (but this is another story…), I shouted after them when they were spotted by an Uzbek bike mechanic. They might have first have thought I was working on the Bazar …

We soon discovered that we had a common sense of humour, so we created a five-pack with the 2 Dutch and biked together from Bukhara to Samarkand. The daily temperature near the forties, the exhausting biking and maybe even the exotic food demanded their tribute: All of us got more or less sick in Samarkand and needed to rest for several days.

After that, the weather prognosis for Uzbekistan was still very hot, so I decided to change my plans and follow Baldur and Pia into the cooler mountains of Tajikistan. Due to the travel advice from the German Ministry of external affairs, I had been reluctant to enter this country. But I would not be going to move in the designated zones of risk (and for sure not bike along the border to Afghanistan – as Pia and Baldur later did on their Pamir-Round.) A Pakistani guide in Bukhara had explained me how the brainwashing religious education system in the extremist religious boarding schools of the Taliban in Afghanistan works. And I did not long to meet a Taliban who had only learned about an extremist version of the Islam from the age of 8 to 23 – and nothing else.

The first views of the mountains in Tajikistan were fantastic! Everybody welcomed us very friendful in the small villages we passed. And, best of all: The temperature was falling with every height meter we climbed.

It was an incredible relief for me to sleep the first night at a temperature below 20 degrees Celsius after more than a month with tropical nights!

The snow-covered mountain tops had a magic attraction on us. So we decided to make a detour into the southern Fann mountains (which are between 2.000m and 5.000 meters high).

Not unlike Georgia, there was an overflow of ice-cold mountain water available to cool down from the heavy biking.

The small-scale agricultural plots in the mountains were very beautiful and contained obviously a very rich biodiversity. I simply felt that I had landed in the paradise!

It should of course not be forgotten how labour intensive this agriculture is. I saw people weeding manually in the fields, and even ploughing arable land with the help of donkeys.

We used our bikes even up to Lake Allaudin on 2.800m above sea level. The last 300 height meters were just a hiking trail. In hindsight, I can hardly believe how we dragged our heavy bike up the rocks and stones. But we were rewarded with lonely, magical camp sites just below heaven! I am so happy we made this detour!!!

15.07.2023

Hello and Good-Bye

When I started to plan this bike trips some years ago, I looked up the shortest route between Hemse and Nepal in Google Maps. The suggested track crossed Russia for a very long distance. Since I had three years with weekly Russian lessons at school, it felt ok to cross Russia by bike. The track would pass Moscow some hundred kilometres to the Southwest, I did not see a possibility to visit my Russian penfriend, which I had visited the last time in 1998 in Moscow.

However, the war in Ukraine had changed a lot when I started my bike trip: I decided to avoid Russia for security reasons. My penfriends family tried first to move to Georgia to avoid the first mobilisation in Russia. During the week of their stay in Georgia, they experienced a shift in the public attitude towards exile Russians, and they did not feel welcome any more. It was also impossible for them to rent a flat due to the high demand.

At the beginning of the second mobilisation in September 2022, my penfriend succeeded with a lot of luck to book a flight for her husband from Moscow to Tashkent in Uzbekistan (for 3.000 USD, there was not even an official flight number for this flight). With her three children, my penfriend left Russia shortly thereafter with all their belongings in 3 suitcases. They left their beloved house with the lovely garden just outside of Moscow and the cat behind them: after investing 3 years of work, energy and money to build it according to their own drawings.

Due to all these circumstances, I had the chance to visit my friend again for the first time after 25 years on this bike trip. After I had come so far as Tajikistan, the only obstacles that remained were the 2.800m high Sheraton pass north of Ayni and the severe heat around Tashkent. The pass crossing was nice with a lot of apricots but the heat around Tashkent turned out to create one of the worst experiences of my whole trip: I reached the centre of Tashkent on a late afternoon after cycling on motorways with up to 10 lanes at a temperature of 40 degrees in the shadow...

But in hindsight I am very happy that I overcome these struggles:

The days in the capital of Uzbekistan at my friend turned out to be just marvellous! Already the next day, we went ice-skating at an indoor hall in the city centre, which was simply unbelievable: An icefield packed with Uzbek which for the most part had never been ice-skating in their live. And I felt like a King on the Ice as the one-eyed among the blind…

This Russian famlily turned out to be unbelievably funny, the parents and the kids played with languages (Russian, English and programming) as if the words were beanbags, and everybody both loved to cook and cooked very well. The Russian cuisine is severly underrated in Western Europe. We openely discussed Russian history, arts and politics, and I was happy that they had been able to make a good restart in Uzbekistan. I had meet other Russians on the trip that had emigrated to Uzbekistan due to the war which evidently were sad to be so far from home. My penfriend asked my why the EU grants only very few Russians who want to avoid the war asylum: I did and do not have a sensible answer on this question…

After Tashkent, I headed towards the southeast into the the cultural center of Centralasia: the Ferghana-Valley.

Agriculture florishes in this hot valley due to the ample availability of clean water from the sourrounding mountains. For the first time in my live, I saw how rice is cultivated on site.

From the city of Namangan with its popular flower festival onwards through Kirgistan and until Almaty in Eastern Kazakhstan, my brother Benjamin joined me for the next 3 weeks of the travel.

I am very happy he had decided to spend so much time for this adventure!

On our final day in Uzbekistan, we were just overvhelmed with hospitalty of the people in the region of Andijon:

In the afternoon, we were invited into a family garden for tea, fruits and bread and to stay for the night. We could not stay since we still had a bit of track ahead of us. In the next city, a young Uzbek bought water for us in the nearby supermarket after when we thanked no to the Coke he had offered to us. When we were looking for a place to put our tent a little bit later, we were invited into another family house, could take a shower, received dinner, had a very nice conversation and finally fell into the lovely prepared beds. When we wake up the next morning, breakfast was already ready, and we even got nicely packed green Jasmin tea as present on our way. It was just unbelievable! Of course, none of these Uzbek had ever seen us before. I think it is fantastic how tolerant and welcoming all the muslims in Central Asia were towards us Western tourist. Just imagine people in Western Europe to horray, honk and distribute presents once they see a muslim looking tourist on the the street.

The people in Kirgistan were a little bit more reserved in comparsion, but very welcoming as well. The mountains of the Tien Shan are huge, so we had a lot of high meters to tackle to cross this mountainous country. Luckily, there is an abundance of water in form of streams, rivers, lakes, snow and ice everywhere.

There are lots of fantastic wild camp sites around. Some of them are so completely embedded in the pristine natural environment so that it is hard to find any trace of human civilization.

Tackling the passes between 3.000m and 3.500m was not easy, but slowly and steadyly we managed to cross all of them.

We even met Imke and Joris from the Netherlands again, which fortunately persuaded us to cross the lonely Karakol pass on a gravel road.

I often get very peacefull inside when it is so obvious that we humans are embedded into nature and even today just a tiny component in the inlimited vastness of the universe. Even though we cannot underestimate our joint impact on the environment, I realized that the world is just so much bigger than I had ever thought: After pedaling nearly every day for 4,5 months, I had just managed to draw a very fine and still short pencil line on the globe. I had seed so much on that tiny line that it will probably take a long time for me to process all the experiences. But how much more life, people, animals, plants, nature and landscape is out there on our marvelous planet!

16.07.2023

40.000 km runt jorden på en hoj

The rocky pass took its tribute: The new bottom brackets of my bike "Horsens", which I had renewed after a longer waiting time in Buchara (Uzbekistan), started to squeak. One spoke ripped out of the rim of the backwheel I had installed in Bratislava (Slovak republik). Then a second spoke ripped out, then a third. I had to deinstall the brake shoes of the back wheel to be able to continue biking without dragging resistance. We had to change the balls of the bearing of the front axis I had bought in Germany since they had started to rust. On the fast way down form the pass, one of the replacement pedals I had bought in Georgia broke. Luckily, I was able to replace it with another pedal in my toolkit. The right lowrider luggage rack fell down several times since fittings inside the rack were breaking. Some days later, the screw fixing the right rack to the fork (which I had already renewed two times under the trip) broke again. A little bit later, I realized that a spring of the saddle was broken and that the saddle was not aligned symmetrical to the bike frame anymore. It was not possible to change the saddle position because of aluminum-steel corrosion between the frame and the saddle tube.

I had the distinct feeling my Horsens was dying. We had only five days left to Almaty for my brother to get his flight, and I was not sure if we would make the 500 km without car transport. To be able to get a suitable replacement rim was completely unrealistically before Almaty. I was also tired of replacing the bike parts. My brother offered me to take over and continue with his bike after Almaty. This was not an easy decision to take. To not repair Horsens felt like stopping to give medicine to an old person to let him die. This may sound ridicoulous, but it was just the way I felt. I was really sad. Thought off all the bike tours we had made together: Around 10.000 km in total from Basel to Taizé, Munich to Venice and Vienna, up the Rhine, and down the Rine with my brother and friends, on Corsica and round on Gotland with Anne and later also with Helene in the bike trailer. Around 30.000 km from home to school, university, work in Munich, Flensburg, Berlin, Cologne and Visby.

And repairing again and again for 26 years. To keep going. To keep the idea alive. Because none of the bike components I got as present on my 17th birthday was left after all these years. To let this bike go was not easy. Of course long-distance bikers also build a relation to their bikes since it might be their only companion for a long part of the journey. I am for sure not the first who feels that way. But letting go is never easy, and for sure it is much more difficult if one looses a beloved friend or familiy member. To be at the same thankfull for the joint time and allow to feel the sadness for the loss at the same time is the easiest way I guess.

Horsens still made it to Almaty. The owner of the flat directly opposite of the airport thankfully took him over for her son.

27.07.2023

India

To get to Nepal from Kazakhstan, one has to cross China. Specifically, the Xinyang area and Tibet. It is nearly impossible to get a visa for the Xinyang area, and definitely not allowed to travel without guide in Tibet. So I flew from Almaty to New Delhi in India. The airplane avoided the Chinese airspace in instead moved in a half circle motion over Kirgizstan, the Ferghana valley, the Pamir in Tadzhikistan, the Wakan corridor in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The views on the mountainous areas which the other cyclists, my brother and me had just travelled through were amazing. Only from this bird eyes perspective in was possible to really understand the epic dimension of these travels. Like ants, we all had slowly crawled over the gorgeous, snow-capped mountain ranges, without a real understanding of the overall distances or the landscape in its completeness.

In the hostel in Buchara, I had met a tall Swedish backpacker named Sebastian Meijer (no joke!) who had had already warned me that India would be like no other country. And this was no exaggeration at all.

The humidity. The incredible amount of people, vehicles and animals on the street: On this first sight, everthing seems to be chaotic since no traffic rules are obeyed. On the second glance, the traffic gently moves like a steady river through the streets since everybody keeps attention to each other. I did not see any vehicle collide during my whole stay in India. The kindness and dignity of the people: with an upright back and a smile, everybody makes the best of the situation.

Many people are really poor – of course – in economical terms. But it seems to me that the people in India are in average more happy and richer than Europe in spiritual terms. There are Gods everywhere: Hindu Gods, Sikh Gods, Buddhist temples, the beautifull mosques and madrasssas from the islamic Mogul period. Even tourists and money are seen as Gods. I think that sometimes in Europe it is the other way round. We treat religion like a currency: If we do not get a direct benefit from it, we stop believing in it. Maybe it would be a wise idea to share the material wealth of the “west” and the spiritual wealth of the “east”?

Now, with Nepal in reach, I had to decide where to continue my travel. My former colleage Jai Sai had already informed me before the trip: “Sebastian, you cannot cycle trough Northern India”. And the stories I heard from other cyclists on the way who had cycled in Northern India were dominated by stress, air pollution and traffic hazards. So I decided to take the train to Nepal. But where to go within Nepal? My teenager dream had always been to cycle to Nepal, without a specific place within the country which I had aspired to visit.

During the trip planning, I had reserved time for a meditation retreat I hoped to be able to do in a monastery in Nepal. Since I had no clue which monastery would offer such an option for a tourist, I first visited the Karmapa International Buddhist Institute in New Delhi. The monks were on summer break, but I was recommended to visit the Tibet House in Delhi.

The librarians there where very friendly and helpful, let me look at a Tibetian sutra print (containing a part of the Prajnaparamita) from the 1920s and sent me links to Zoom live presentations of the Director of the Tibet house and the Dalai Lama. At the end of the eight day stay in Dehli, it was clear that the Kopan monastery in Kathmandu was the ony viable option for a retreat, and I was allowed to come to the monastery on the 30th of July.

Nico and Rike had been telling me enthousiastically about their hiking trip to the Mount Everest Base Camp when I visited them in Berlin in March, I decided to cycle to and hike the Everest region before that.

On the 18th of July, I left Delhi with the crowded Semanchal Express train for a 24 hour train trip to the small town of Forbesganji in India (15 km south of Eastern Nepal) and arrived in the state of Bihar on my birthday.

You can probably image my emotion when I was presented the birthday cake in the picture above on my birthday evening from Ankit and his friend Ad, who had shared the same train cabin with me. They are in their late twenties, run a big private school and a fitness studio in Forbesganj and are just fantastic! Thanks so much again!

The next day, I cycled the remaining 15 km to the town of Jogbani in Nepal.

01.09.2023

Nepal

Before the trip, I had expected Nepal to be mountainous, dry and cold. But now I entered Nepal from the far Southeast in the Terai lowlands (about 70m above sea level) with a tropical, humid climate. It seemed the country had already been expecting me, at least nobody checked my passport when I entered the country. I asked for an entry stamp, but the only reaction I got was a recommendation to continue the border road to the north and to look for a police station on the right side. Since I did not see any police station for the next 5 km and could even buy a Nepalese sim cart in the city of Biratnagar without an entry stamp in my passport, I assumed that the Nepalese authorities did not really care if I had an entry stamp in my passport or not. At this moment in time, I was neither aware that my assumption was wrong nor that the consequences of this decision should turn out to be very uncomfortable in the future…

The landscape was beautiful: Tropical Forest, banana trees, coconut palms, paddy rice fields, small villages and the hills of the Himalaya at the northern horizon. I saw a bare feet farmer steering a plough dragged by water buffalos to prepare the muddy underground for rice cultivation. A woman with an umbrella sitting on the bike rack of a fixed-gear bicycle who was being transported to the next village. Was allowed to drink freshly milled sugar cane juice, just delicious! I was sweating constantly, but the heat was more bearable compared to Uzbekistan due to the high humidity. After every few hours, I soaked my t-shirt completely in fresh water to remove the sweat and have some cooling on the way ahead.

Although I could not see the ice-capped mountains of the Himalaya yet, their presence was undeniable: As soon as I turned west to follow the hilly ridge towards Katari (where I planned to turn north into the valley towards Mount Everest), I crossed one bridge after the other spanning over the rivers with rainwater and the glacier water which run southward from the Himalaya. In a nice restaurant on the west bank of the Koshi river, I was invited to eat and drink by Nepalese Businessmen. After that, another Nepali on the next table started a discussion on the war in Ukraine. In his view, the war could be ended if the Ukraine would become a neutral country between Nato and Russia. He argued that Nepal was in a similar, delicate position between India and China: none of these two huge countries would accept if Nepal would try to leave its neutral status. For me, it was interesting to realize that I had forgotten what had been discussed between Russia and the Nato before the war started: Similar to a long, hot-tempered quarrel in which one looses completely track of what the quarrel was about when it started…

Around 50 km east of Katari, I realized that I would not be able to both bike up to the Everest region and to arrive to the course in the monastery in Kathmandu in time. My feeling was that I should better shorten the trip into the mountains to be able arrive at the monastery in time. At the same time, I considered to ask if I were allowed to join the monastic course some days later. As I knew myself, this was more likely to happen.

On the afternoon of the 22nd of July, I felt stressed since I had not taken a decision yet. The slopes in the hills combined with the tropic climate and the time pressure were exhausting. I felt that I was getting tired, but there were only 20km left to Katari where I planned to stay for the night. Or maybe continue some more km up into the Himalaya to save time on the way to Mount Everest ?

Another downhill ride. The new version of my bike was stable, so it felt save to drive faster than I used to cycle earlier. Around 50m ahead, the road crossed another bridge. The downhill ride gave me same time to rest. Probably 10m ahead of the bridge, I notice that there was a step in the road ahead of me. I put on the brake, but was probably still moving with 25-30 km/h. The step got closer, I planned to just drive over it. When I touched it, the step turned out to be much higher than I had expected.

My front wheel turned, I lost the balance and smashed on the road. Braked with my limbs. Pain! I had been way to fast for a fall. Heard myself shouting “Noooo!”. Stood up. My left elbow was bleeding and 2 cm thicker than it should be. My left knee bleeding. My right hand bleeding and hurting badly. This was for sure no superficial wound. An elderly man stood there on the bridge, just gazing at me.

Before I could take any decision on what to do next, a car with three young Nepalese tourist stopped. They took my bags and me on board. Asked the old man to take care of my bike. Drove me 5km back to the next medical station in Nepaltar. My wounds were cleaned and I got a dressing on the hand, elbow and knee. Someone organized a ticket for the bus the next morning to Kathmandu to x-ray my hand in a hospital. Another drove back and brought my bike. A third offered me to stay as a guest in his house for the night and prepared me a dinner in his nearby restaurant. More villagers came to watch. The were empatic, not intrusive. Wanted to take a picture. Smiled. I smiled, too.

The next morning at 4 o clock, my host Bijay stood up to help me to enter the bus. The bus was more than fully packed. It was a dangerous trip to the Nepalese capital, since the narrow road has no guard rails, climbs twice to 1.500m above sea level and has countless serpentines.

In the university hospitel Dhulikel just outside of Kathmandu, I got a hairline crack diagnosis for the radius bone of my right arm, new dressings and a cast. Stayed 5 more days in local hostels in Dhulikel and Kathmandu to rest and give my wounds some time to heal. In the Green Mandala Hostel, just 500m east of the monastery, Mount Kailash welcomed me. You know this holy Tibetan mountain already. It is on the photo in the header of this fundraiser.

On July 28, I moved with my packed bike to the monastery. The guard close the gate behind me. Five months and 7.000 km of outbound bike travel had me taken to this place. I had arrived at the monastery 2 days before the start of the introduction course for Tibetian Buddhism.

16.09.2023

A journey inside

Although the monastery gate had been closed from inside, my journey on unknown territory continued. Instead of the Mapout navigator app on my phone on which I relied for the bike navigation, the Buddhist monk and teacher Tenzin Gendun became the guide for the introduction to Tibetan Buddhism. 5 months of body motion were replaced by 3,5 weeks of quiet teaching, reading and meditation. Now my mind was the landscape to discover, and I could only use my attention and the wish to learn to move forward. The overwhelming constant stream of experiences during the bike trip was exchanged by a focused selection of meditation topics, and the daily quest for food, water, shelter and security changed into searching for truth. I had been traveling alone on the larger part of the bike trip from Europe to Asia. Now I shared the picturesque monastery on the top of the Kopan hill with a magnificent view above Kathmandu with 300 Nepalese and Tibetan monks and with around 100 course visitors from the whole word.

Tenzin presented the teachings of the Tibetan Gelug school with a dry humor, many words, a lot of patience and without the slightest doubt. The topics were often tough to digest: The imperative to take full responsibility for every thought, feeling, emotion and action. The perspective to regard every event in your live as a result of your own good or bad actions. To accept a philosophy that explains in detail why the search for a lasting happiness in the outside world is doomed to fail. To see yourself as a mere label on your body and consciousness and as nothing more than that. The unshakable trust in reincarnation. To perceive nearly every aspect of anger as destructive. The goal to treat everybody (beloved, strangers and enemies) with an equal amount of benevolence. The aim to free everybody from suffering.

How can I describe the unlikely atmosphere in this monastery? You usually wake up in a peaceful state of mind around six o´ clock in the morning. Through the windows of the dorm, you hear already the prayers, the chanting, the intercessions, the singing, the drums and bells of the monks from the main temple and the nearby Tantra temple. They start to train their empathy and mind at dawn. The debate about the truth in the morning, afternoon and evening. They will continue to pray and meditate when the day is over and the night has fallen. This day. And the next day. And the day thereafter. Some monks are here since one year and are still children. Others live in the monastery since it was built in the 1970s. Two nuns from Australia in pension age lived in the monastery as well.

It makes a difference if 400 people around you focus their energy on the happiness of each other, some already for nearly their whole life. During the time in the monastery, I rarely met someone who was not happy, who was not attentive. The monastery is a happy place, and a quiet place.

Before I left Hemse, Anne gave me a stone with four round quartz enclaves which she had found on a beach promenade on Gotland. She asked me to drop it wherever my bicycle tour would end. And to bring home a stone from this place. I put the stone in the stupa garden of the monastery and found another stone thoroughly mixed with glimmering quartz crystals not far from that.

24.09.2023

Heimkehr

The airplanes leaving Kathmandu to the north fly in a very low distance over the Kopan hill. Albeit this can be very noisy, I was happy to watch the airplanes disappearing over the Himalayan mountains: it would be one of these planes which would bring me home to my family after being separated for more than 4 months. The longing to be united again got stronger and stronger as we were approaching the 23rd of August, the day for the flight departure.

Nearly exactly one month before writing this text, I was waiting at the immigration office check in the airport in Kathmandu to enter the gate area. There was around half an hour left before flight departure. The officer had left to a back office with my passport. Another officer asked me to sit down. 20 minutes later, he came back: “You are not going to fly today. You cannot leave Nepal, since there is no entry stamp in your passport. Please visit the immigration office in the city. We will send your passport there.”

This was the entry stamp I had in vain tried to get when I entered Nepal at the city of Jogbani (see travel diary of 01.09.2023 above). Even after 3,5 weeks of mind training, I had a hard time to stay calm in this situation. Neither did my wife Anne. She did not tell our daughter Helene that the plane to Doha in Qatar had left without me.

At the immigration office in town, I was asked to sit and wait. For the passport to arrive. When it arrived, I were told that I had to pay a fine up to a maximum amount of 377 USD and to wait again. After that, I was told the fine was 377 USD. I replied that I did not have this amount of cash with me. The immigration officer asked me how much I had with me. And later, to wait again. Was this corruption? If yes, what should we do? It felt a little bit like a business negotiation. After a call with Anne, I told the immigration officer that I would leave to eat and come back then. When I came back, the fine had been reduced to 37,76 USD. I paid, received a signature on the visa in my passport, thanked and left. Rushed back to the airport. Qatar Airways could offer another flight to Doha during the night. Expensive, but I would be able to reach my connection flight to Stockholm in Doha.

Only after I had passed the immigration check I could relax somewhat. In one of the gate area chairs, I listened to Cat Stephens “Kathmandu” song that my friend Saskia had send me. Together with her husband Olli and their daughter Luna, she had sailed from Germany to Gotland for a 1 year stay while I was in Nepal. The whole situation seemed completely surreal, but the tender guitar accords where perfect to calm my mind. Finally, my return flight lifted off including myself, Horsens and a 20 kg heavy blue baggage bag.

All those screens in the airplane. I had hardly watched 4 films in the past six month, and merely used my smartphone the last four weeks. Could follow my complete bike trip track on the satellite map of the flight navigator. When the Finnair connection flight airplane softly touched the ground at Arlanda Airport, I cried. To come home safely after this unbelievable trip is an inestimable gift.

Helene runs towards me at the ferry station in Visby at midnight on the 24th of August, nearly exactly 6 months after I left from here. Anne joins the long hug. It is very calm on the countryside streets on the way home. We are silent for most of the car ride, too. Some weeks later, Helene tells me that she pinched herself in the arm to be sure she was not dreaming that I am back. The first day back home, I simply cry now and then out of thankfulness and relief.

The next day, we decide after some discussion to visit Lojsta lake to walk and swim. At the end of the walk, Helene dares to cross a side of the lake swimming by herself. After that, I throw a wooden branch from the pier out on the lake and she brings it back. I want to throw it even higher the next time and make a step back. When Anne turns to watch me, only my legs and shoes are still above the water line. I had fallen backwards into the lake, with my clothes on and my smartphone in the pocket of the shorts. Luckily, swimming with the cast is still possible. We save my phone by putting it in dry rice later, and I use the chance and continue swimming in the lake with Helene. She helps me to remove my wet cast at home.

It took me a month to land. To reintegrate. I had expected some change, but not to this extent. Of course, Anne, Helene and me had to find back to each other again. To find a new balance. Helene had grown up; Anne had found more independence in herself. I have lost a part of my fear to be alone. We had our discussions, had our comfortable moments, grew together again in a new pattern.

The bike trip seemed like a dream to me, as if it had not really happened. Work started again, the first day was fun, the next day was tough, slowly the pieces fell into their place again.

Thinking back, I am convinced that the most meaningful time of the whole travel was the time in the monastery. Before entering the monastery, my skin had changed its color and I had lost some weight on the trip. My appearance had changed slightly on the surface. Not more than that. But when I was at home again in my normal environment, I realized that I had changed in a much more profound way. I went to bed early. Meditated instead of wandering around in the internet late at night. Could not kill the fruit flies at home anymore. Preferred to drive without radio. Was happy with few activities in the weekend instead of many. Preferred to play with my daughter or to cook instead of running another mile. Was able to stay more calm when we had a quarrel at home. My feeling is that the longing for these changes was one of the reasons that had send me on the bike trip and to the monastery.

I am so grateful that I was allowed to leave, to ride my bicycle until the end of my dream and that I was welcome again at home with open arms.

Thank you, Anne and Helene, and everybody else who took so good care for me during this adventure!