Here’s some numbers from the trip I’ve calculated in an attempt to get the maths brain working again.
- Total days: 248
- Total distance: 22,000km (probably slightly more as I didn’t record everything)
- Total elevation: 654km
- Longest day: 189.93km
- Biggest elevation in one day: 3074m
- Total money spent: £4275.72
- Average spent per day: £17.24 (this one is pretty interesting, as I’m spending more now just on rent)
- Total spent of flights: £636.30 (£154.96 of that spent on extra luggage for the bike)
- ATM fees: £24 (I thought this would be more, but every time I’d get charged it just felt like throwing money away)
- Total spent in bike shops on the trip: £311
It’s now been 2 months since I landed in Sydney and finished cycling across Eurasia. I finally have some routine and consistency in my life now I’m working in Darwin. So here are some reflections I noted down towards the end and after the trip.
Firstly, before I started, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy the trip as much as I did and thought it would be incredibly difficult. The truth is I found life on the road far easier than university life, I think just because there was no stress or expectations on me day to day.
I also didn’t find the physical challenge that hard, taking the first few weeks slow to build up the mileage definitely helped. Every time I’d head into some hills or mountains after just riding on the flat, it would be quite the shock and would take a few days to adapt to the increased energy expenditure. The only times I really felt exhausted were after some of the big days cycling for over 8 hours and I’d be too exhausted to cook, just wanting to quickly get some food in and sleep.
The main source of stress and uncertainty came each evening when finding somewhere to sleep. However, I really enjoyed the puzzle of searching for a camp spot and felt a weird sense of safety once I’d actually be in my tent compared to sat just outside of it.
Furthermore, I’d feel quite vulnerable when I wasn’t with my bike, such as walking around cities when staying somewhere non touristy. I think this is because with the bike I had a clear story as to why I was passing through a place.
Almost every city didn’t really do it for me and I’d be wishing I was back out in the countryside one I made it to built up areas. The exceptions to this were Istanbul and Kuala Lumpur. Istanbul really felt at the centre of the world, somewhere which naturally grew into a mega city and my first experience of Asia. Kuala Lumpur had a European familiarity to it and was somewhere I felt I could live.
I didn’t really visit any of the cities in Europe, then through Central Asia they all felt sterile with these ultra modern building that didn’t reflect the rest of the country. Most of the cities in South East Asia were just huge concrete sprawls with little green space, an intensity that I couldn’t get away from and difficult to walk around.
On the trip, I was just treating food as fuel, eating as much as I could and most of the time just whatever was cheap. Anything would taste good when you’re burning that many calories a day. I now still feel a bit disconnected from food, still just eating for fuel and not really caring how things taste. It also took me a few weeks after I finished to slow down the amount of food I was eating. Over this period, I’d be just piling up the food on my plate, then feeling almost ill in the process of eating it.
Having said all that, some of my best memories from the trip were sharing food with the locals, such as a lamb stew in Georgia or sitting on the floor eating the spiciest meal I’ve ever had in Indonesia.
These were probably some of the most interesting parts of the trip, being taken into the locals homes and catching a glimpse into how they live. It makes you question almost everything, asking what’s really necessary in life when you see these people living without things I’d have thought were essential such as running water in their homes.
These are also some examples of how friendly and generous people were to me on the trip and at first found it hard accepting their kindness. The trip can also be viewed as an exercise in risk. For example, weighing up the risk of camping in a certain location or trusting someone who is offering help. It was also a new experience putting trust in people I knew I’d probably never see again. Fortunately, I didn’t really have any bad experience with people.
The small amount of people I’d interact with would really make a difference to how I viewed an entire country. Having one bad exchange, for example thinking someone overcharged me in a restaurant, really shaped my views of a place and I’d be quite suspicious of everyone for the next few days. The opposite was also true, taking just a few kind people to have a great experience in an entire country.
I never felt I went to any unsafe countries and also there were very few places I actually felt unsafe. But I don’t think the idea of places being categorised as “safe” or “dangerous” is true. With there be parts of Nottingham I’d feel uncomfortable walking through alone at night but I wouldn’t say the city is unsafe.
I now appreciate how much easier the trip was for me, holding two strong passports compared to someone with a weaker passport requiring far more visas. I only needed three visas for the whole trip.
The world is also just constantly changing. For example, the Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan border only opened up whilst I was on the road, allowing me to adapt my plans. During the trip, I really enjoyed following the geopolitics of it all and learning about the histories of all these places and borders.
It’s been interesting talking to people about my trip. For probably the first month I was almost embarrassed to say what I was doing as actually making it to Australia felt so far away. Then through central Asia, it seemed like such a bubble with almost all the travellers I met being on bikes doing huge trips across the world all looking like we hadn’t had a haircut or shave in years. In South East Asia, I felt quite out of place compared to the backpackers, and would often get asked why I was doing it. I never really had a good answer for the question and it was like they couldn’t understand doing it just because I enjoyed it.
I regret not going through China. I didn’t because I never really looked into getting the visa just assuming it was too hard and also thought I’d need to get to Australia by February (I’d lined up a job which ended up falling through). Having this deadline also meant that I never really took any long breaks. I also wished I’d tried to line up a few WorkAways along the way just to break up the journey and have a few different experiences.
I never really felt lonely on the trip. I enjoyed the feeling of being truly alone when camping out in the remote regions of central Asia and want to go back as there’s more of Uzbekistan and the Pamir mountains I want to explore. There’s just other places I want to go first before returning and I’ve started planning the next trip: exploring the Australian continent.
Will Scam 