When backpackers in their twenties travel to Southeast Asia, they pack their usual swimming suits, insect repellent, sunglasses, and maybe a few books to keep their place while taking care of mosquito bites on the sultry beaches of Thai islands. .
However, the least prolonged peninsula is that you need to bike 9,300 miles to reach Newcastle.
But this is what Josh Reid did. The pan bone was tied to his back like a tortoise and flew to the other end of the world, knowing that his return journey would take more than half a day.
“I just sat at the kitchen table, chatted with my father and godfather, and figured out different things I could do,” Reid told Bicycle Weekly about the birthplace of the idea. In the past few years, Reid worked as a winter ski instructor, a summer tree grower in British Columbia, and obtained a two-year work visa in Canada, ending his work in North America, and he rode Nova Scotia The full-length bike goes to Cape Breton.
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Nowadays, since most bicycles are made in Asia, the idea is to import bicycles by yourself. The trip took four months in 2019, and given that the coronavirus pandemic has made buying bicycles so complicated in 2020, his method proved to be prescient.
After arriving in Singapore in May, he headed north and bumped into a bicycle in just two months. At that time, he tried to use a Dutch bicycle to recreate the scene of Top Gear on the Hai Van Pass in Vietnam.
At first, I wanted to purchase a bicycle from Cambodia. It turned out that it was tricky to take a bicycle directly off the assembly line. Therefore, he went to Shanghai, where they mass-produced a bicycle from the floor of the giant factory. Grab a bicycle.
Reid said: “I know roughly which countries I can go through.” “I have seen before and saw that I can apply for a visa and which can safely handle geopolitics in different regions, but I almost only have wings and some Turmoil went straight to Newcastle.”
Reid doesn’t have to add a lot of mileage every day, as long as he has food and water, he is happy to sleep in a small sack on the side of the road. Surprisingly, he had only four days of rain during the entire journey, and when he re-entered Europe, most of the time was almost over.
Without Garmin, he uses an app on his phone to navigate to his home. Whenever he wants to take a shower or needs to recharge his electronic devices, he splashes into the hotel room, picks up the terracotta warriors, Buddhist monasteries, rides a giant uprising, and uses Arkel Panniers and Robens sleeping pads are suitable for people who are interested in all equipment, even if they don’t know how to replicate Reid’s feat.
One of the most difficult moments was the journey at the beginning of the journey. He traveled west through China to the northwestern provinces, where there were not many tourists, and he was vigilant against foreigners, as there are currently 1 million Uyghur Muslims detained in the region. Detention center. When Reid passed through checkpoints every 40 kilometers, he dismantled the drone and hid it under the suitcase, and used Google Translate to chat with the friendly police, who always provided him with food. And pretended not to understand if they asked any difficult questions.
In China, the main problem is that camping is technically illegal. Foreigners should stay in the hotel every night so that the state can keep track of their activities. One night, several police officers took him out for dinner, and the locals watched him lur the noodles on the Lycra before sending him to the hotel.
When he wanted to pay, 10 Chinese special police officers wore bullet-proof shields, guns and batons, broke in, asked some questions, and then drove him away with a truck, threw the bicycle behind him, and drove him to a place who knew there. Soon after, a message came out on the radio saying that he could indeed stay at the hotel he had just checked in. Reid said: “I ended up taking a shower in the hotel at 2 am.” “I just really want to leave the part of China.”
Reid slept on the side of the road in the Gobi Desert, trying to avoid more conflicts with the police. When he finally reached the border of Kazakhstan, Reid felt overwhelmed. He wore a wide, wide guard hat with a smile and shaking hands.
At this point in the journey, there is more to go, and he has already encountered difficulties. Has he ever considered firing him and booking the next return flight?
Reid said: “It may take a lot of effort to go to the airport, and I have made a promise.” Compared to a place where there is nowhere to go, sleeping on the floor of the terminal is more complicated than the logistics of sleeping on the shoulders of people who have nowhere to go. Sex is not wanted in China.
“I have told people what I am doing and I am still happy. This is still an adventure. I never felt insecure. I never thought about quitting.”
When riding through half of the earth in a helpless situation, you must be prepared to deal with most things and follow them. But one of Reid’s biggest surprises is the hospitality of the people.
He said: “The kindness of strangers is incredible.” People just invite you in, especially in Central Asia. The farther I go to the West, the more rude people become. I’m sure that the people are very friendly. The host gave me a hot bath and things, but the people in the West are more in their own world. They worry that mobile phones and things will make people salivate, while the people in the East Surely like Central Asia, people are curious about what you are doing. They are more interested in you. They can’t see many of these places, and they can’t see many Westerners. They are very interested and can come to ask you questions, and I’m sure, just like in Germany, bicycle tours are more common, and people tend not to talk to you too much.
Reid continued: “The kindest place I have ever experienced is on the border of Afghanistan.” “A place where people like’don’t go there, that’s terrible’, that is the friendliest place I have ever experienced. A Muslim The man stopped me, spoke good English, and we had a conversation. I asked him if there were campsites in the town, because I had walked through these villages and there was actually no obvious place.
“He said:’If you ask anyone in this village, they will put you to sleep all night.’ So he took me to these young people on the side of the road, chatted with them, and said, “Follow them”. I Following these guys through these alleys, they took me to their grandmother’s house. They put me on a Uzbek-style mattress on the floor, fed me all their local delicacies, and took me there in the morning I took me to visit their local area before. If you take a tourist bus from destination to destination, you will experience these things, but by bike, you will go through every mile along the way.”
When riding a bicycle, the most challenging place is Tajikistan, because the road rises to an altitude of 4600m, also known as the “roof of the world”. Reid said: “It is so beautiful, but it does have potholes on the rough roads, bigger than anywhere in the northeast of England.”
The last country that provided accommodation to Reid was Bulgaria or Serbia in Eastern Europe. After so many kilometers, roads are roads, and countries are beginning to become blurred.
“I was camping on the side of the road in my camping suit, and then this guard dog started barking at me. A guy came to ask me, but neither of us had a common language. He took out a pen and paper pad and drew a stick man. Pointed to me, drew a house, drew a car, and then pointed to his car. I put the bicycle in his car, he took me to his house to feed me, I took a shower, A bed can be used. Then in the morning he took me to eat more food. He is an artist, so he gave me this oil lamp, but only sent me on my way. We didn’t speak each other’s language. Yes. So many similar stories are about people’s kindness.”
After four months of travel, Reid finally returned home in November 2019. Filming his journey on his Instagram account will make you want to book a one-way ticket somewhere far away immediately and make a low-end YouTube documentary that brings the perfect detoxification to the over-editing and over-promotion of the rest of the platform Agent. Reid now has a story to tell his grandchildren. He doesn’t have any chapters to rewrite, or if he can do it again, it’s better to tear up some pages.
“I’m not sure if I want to know what happened. It’s great not to know,” he said. “I think this is the benefit of letting it fly a little bit. You will never know. In any case, you will never be able to plan anything.
“Some things will always go wrong, or some things will be different. You just have to endure what happens.”
The question now is, riding a bicycle halfway around the world, what kind of adventure is enough to get him out of bed in the morning?
He admits: “It’s cool to ride a bike from my home to Morocco,” he admits, even though it’s not just a happy smile after his endurance ride.
“I originally planned to participate in the Transcontinental race, but it was cancelled last year,” said Reid, who grew up with the car. “So, if it continues this year, I will do it.”
Reid said that in fact, for his journey from China to Newcastle, he has to do something different. Next time I pack only one swimsuit, wear two in my backpack, and then ride them all home.
If you want to live with regret, then packing two pairs of swimming trunks is a good choice.