The final stretch - see you in Amsterdam!

It is with great anticipation that I write this latest blog update, as I am almost there, in Amsterdam.

Wow, I am amazed that I have almost completed my journey. When I started out almost 10 months ago, I often found myself wondering if I could actually do it, and I have exceeded all my expectations and am now already cycling the final stretch.


The last leg of this journey has been from Rome, Italy through Basel, Switzerland and on to The Netherlands. I have just arrived in Kerkrade and the plan is to arrive on the afternoon of Saturday 6th June, between 2pm and 4pm at 33 Dieren Riem, Amsterdam - it will be amazing to see you all there!

Once again, thank you all so much for your support and kind words along the way!
Ik hoop dat ik jullie allemaal zie in Amsterdam :)

China to Istanbul...Merhaba :)

Finally, as promised, here is a more comprehensive update of the route from China to Bishkek. The route I travelled was from Urumqi, Pau-yang-hu, Korla, Luntai, Wensu, Aksu, Kashgar, Waigi an then the border. Over into Kyrgyzstan and from the border to Osh, Uzgen, Jalal-Abad, Bazar-Kurgon, Taskomur, Kara-Kol, and eventually Bishkek.

The desert

Xinjiang province

From Urumqi I cycled 1560 km to Kashgar straight through the desert of Xinjiang province the most western part of China, I started close to the border of Mongolia and at the end I was close to Pakistan. It was my first experience to cycle through a proper desert, in Northern Australia I learned that there was not much between the towns, but here, there was totally nothing at all! Sand, sand dunes, mountains, and one road. 

Sandstorm

The distance between some towns was sometimes 200 km, that's when you sleep under the road in tunnels, these are the safest spots to sleep out there. I was quite lucky; on the longest road I had a sand storm at my back with a tail wind of more than 25 knots per hour. So in 9 hours and 15 minutes I cycled over 200 km! If you get a headwind the only option is to find shelter under one of the tunnels under the road. I sometimes slept at truck stops which had no water or electricity, but I never camped. 

 

Tunnels under road where I slept

My police friends :)

In China you are not allowed to stay in any hotel, you are only allowed to stay in special hotels for foreigners. Most of the time you pay 3 times as much for this. But I discovered a little trick. On my entire trip in Xinjiang I saw no foreigners at all - that means they don't know how to handle you if you do things against the rules. I went to hotels where I was not allowed to sleep, nobody speaks English, and if you do not leave after a while they call the police....

The police then take you to a hotel for foreigners and they find someone who speaks English. Normally the price is 50 to 60 dollars. Then I say to them that I want to pay, but I am a poor cyclist, I sleep on the street. Then they take you to the head office, take your passport and after a lot of discussions they bring you back to the same hotel and then you pay only NZ$8. It takes a lot of time to do this, but it worked well for me 6 times. In the small towns there is no problem to stay for a normal price. Eventually the police are your best friends :)  

I found China to be an amazing experience and met a lot of nice helpful people. Even if they couldn't speak English and me no Chinese, the smart phone was a great help to communicate on those days.

Last stretch of the desert

Kashgar was almost at the end of my trip through the desert - it was an incredible stretch of the jourmey. Many times truck drivers offered me a ride but the cycle trip was so much nicer. I met a lot of camels, herds of sheep, and some fata-morganas (mirages). Long straight roads for hundreds of kilometres, but many times I felt on the top of the world.

Kashgar was the first city with an old historic town. All the other cities they had bulldozed all the old buildings down and put skyscrapers in its place. But in the desert you meet the people who have lived the same way for thousands of years. They invite you in as they are very curious about this strange dutch man on his bicycle. 

Kashgar livestock market

Yak

After Kashgar I cycled towards the border of China, where they put you in a van to get to the Kyrgyzstan border. That's 130 km through the last part of the Xinjiang desert, and soon you are at the border at a height of 2500m. When I went through the border the snow was 2m high. A really beautiful experience, such a contrast from a sandy road in the desert to the middle of snowy landscapes with wild foxes and wolves - incredible.

My little friend the white fox

I like Kyrgyzstan; men on horses, mountains everywhere, clean streams, the highest peak is over 7000m high. Osh is also a nice old city with a big, old bazaar with lots of fresh greens, meat and wild mushrooms. I lost 9kg travelling through China, I really missed my steaks. In Kyrgyzstan I was able to cook every day, nice fresh soups etc. Now that I am out of China, internet access is back, and I am able to connect with Google and Facebook again, makes life much easier.

On the road to Bishkek

On the road to Bishkek

I cycled to Bishkek over the mountain with another amazing view. I decided not to cycle to Iran and East Turkey, maybe later I will come back and do it. 

On the 28th of April I flew to Istanbul to meet up with my youngest sister Thea and together we will cycle the last part of the journey from Istanbul to Amsterdam - 3500 km to go and looking forward to meeting her in front of the blue mosque in Istanbul.

From there we will keep you informed about the route and our adventure. Once again I thank everybody for all your support over the last 2 months and hope to see you in Amserdam in June. Serefe!

A solitary cyclist in the vastness of China

Wow - what an incredible journey I am on! The road through China was (and still is, long and quite a solitary one) but I am almost in Kashgar and soon will be in Kyrgyzstan, and from there over to Istanbul by the end of April.

I had a bit of a turbulent start as it is very difficult to get sim cards for your mobile phone and even withdraw money from the atm. But once this was sorted things went smoothly again. 

In China you have no access to many of the western websites, so my apologies for such a big gap between blog entries, but now thanks to some assistance from friends I am able to send a short blog update and will post a longer one once I have access again. Thanks for your patience ;) 

The mountains of Dongguan

I started early in the morning, surrounded by the beauty in the middle of the mountains of the Yunnan province. After 110km and two hill tops later I arrived in Dongguan in the late afternoon. A half hour later I found a hotel for 60 yuan. I had a shower and was about to go out to eat when they invited me to join their family for dinner. When I went upstairs the whole family was there to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Nobody could speak English, but these days we have smart phones with translation apps, from Chinese to English and the other way around. Every time anyone had a question they would translate it into English and I wrote my answers back - it was an unforgettable evening. Later when they bring me back to my room, they gave me my 60 yuan back; I was now a friend of the family forever :)

Chinese New Year fireworks

The next day I cycled 80km to Meng-la but I struggled to find an atm to work for me. One of the bank employees was so kind and helpful - she organized a bus for me to Jinghong, 160km from Meng-la and she also paid for the bus ticket. She called a bank and assured me that I could get money in Jinghong and yes, 5 hours later I was a rich man again.

On the road when I was looking for accommodation I met Daniel from Astonia, the only other foreigner I have met since crossing into China, and he could speak English, Russian and Chinese! He was kind enough to show me to a nice hostel, where I met Yu and his wife, who assisted me to get a sim card for my phone. I had a really great time in Jinghong for 2 days. I was invited by Yu who showed me around, and when a Chinese invites you they pay for everything, I was not allowed to pay for anything - thanks Yu :)

After Jinghong I travelled in the direction of Kunming another 700km away, with a lot of mountains, steep mountains. You climb slowly, slowly until you reach heights of 1000m - 1500m long slopes. Quite gentle but 25 to 30km of climbing, whew, and after that the big descent, the longest one was 38km.

The roads in China are a brilliant quality, which means you hardly need to brake, sometimes I reached speeds of 55 - 60km per hour.

After a turbulent start I began to enjoy China very much. Wherever I have been the people were very nice, and their hospitality was superb. More than once I was given meals for free. Once when I was about to leave a restaurant and went to pay, I was told that somebody had already paid for my meal - unbelievably amazing I think I am a lucky guy. 

A sign encouraging people to cycle

Hot air balloon

Daphne - my greatest supporter, a big fashion brand in China

Dongguan to Kashgar

Happy Birthday to me and greetings to you all from Laos!

So the plan was for my 60th birthday to be somewhere in South East Asia, and I made it. Today on my birthday I am travelling through Pakse, Laos. Wow - what a journey it has been, I have shed so much more than just physical weight and I am feeling stronger and more alive than ever - amazing!

Taking a step back to Thailand, the route I travelled went from Bangkok, Chon Buri, Pattaya, Rayong, Ko Samet, Chanthaburi, Trat, Cambodia, Hat Lek, onto Cambodia with Boeng Preav, Sihanoukville, Krong Chbar Mon, Phnom Penh, and from there up through to Laos.

The last thing I did whilst in Bangkok was to have a barbeque close to the sky train station. For only 200baht, you can eat as much as you like! I found it to be the best restaurant in Bangkok for less than $10 - and a lot of fun :)

Another feast!

This part of Bangkok is quite arty, the black statue is made of old biking tyres, and even the toilets are entertaining - a great place for tourists. The following morning I left Bangkok for Pattaya. 

On my way out I passed a very famous elephant temple just outside of Bangkok. I decided to take an offering of a garland of flowers to ask the gods for a good and safe journey. The three headed elephant - I had no idea what it means, but it is very big! And in the front is a smaller elephant covered with gold where you place your offerings.

The trip from Pattaya to Phnom Penh went without a hitch - and from there it was on to Pakse, Laos. The plan was to cycle from Phnom Penh, Srei Santhor, Kampong Cham, Snoul, Kraite, Strung Treng, Laos border, Don Det, Don Khong, Wat Phu and finally Pakse.

From Phnom Penh I followed the big Mekong River. The next 3000km to Chengdu I tried to follow the Mekong as close as possible; that meant a lot of ferries to go to the side of the river, which is the best way to cycle from Thailand into Cambodia.

The roads and traffic got a lot worse, particularly on the highways, where they bump you off the road, and a lot of the roads are under construction which means a lot of dust, I had to design special head gear for that leg of the journey.

When I arrived in Kratie, Cambodia I was fortunate enough to see the Irrawaddy dolphins; there are two groups in the world of these rare creatures, one in Cambodia and Laos in the Mekong River and one in Bangladesh. I tried to take a photo but they didn’t want to jump out the water for me ok guys next time.

From Kratie I went to Treng which is close to Laos. At the hostel I stayed in they were making a new concrete road - not with power tools, but hand made with concrete mixers and a lot of man power - that is hard work!

Hand made concrete road making

After Treng I travelled over another very dusty road to Laos and ended up in a guest house 20 km after the border. I met a couple of people from the BBC who were making a documentary about fishing on the Mekong river. There are apparently 40 different ways of fishing on the Mekong - really amazing.

The BBC guide gave me a tip to go to the Don Det islands - what an amazing experience! This is a must if you are in that area. No cars, they pick you up from the shore with a long boat, put your bike in it and bring you to the other side.

Beautiful waterfalls at the Mekong River

Peaceful Mekong riverside

I jumped from island to island to get to the other side of the river on my way to Pakse. It is almost Spring time here and the farmers are putting the rice out in the fields. I have now cycled 9450 km and one of my wishes to be cycling through South East Asia when I turned 60 has come true - I want to thank everybody for their support and especially Daphne, who has followed me everywhere I go, always cheering me on - thanks dear, I love you.

Greetings from Pakse