5685m Stok Kangri, Ladakh and Thai Children
- Kilometers cycled: 10,500 kilometers
- Total Elevation Cycling: 115,000 meters
- Approx Elevation Hiking: 7,948 meters
- Maximum Elevation Cycling: 5,008 - Tangda La, Tibet
- Maximum Elevation Hiking: 5,685 - Stok Kangri, Ladakh, North India
- People on our mail list: 203
Update - August 14, 2006
Our thoughts after concluding our 11 month journey are below. Also, the following areas have been added to the website:Farewell Laos
China
Tibet in Yunnan
North into Tibet
Tibet to Lhasa
When we first met in 1998, we started talking about an extended holiday to explore new horizons on our bicycle. We spent 5 weeks cycling in Corsica in 2001 to see if we were compatible while traveling. We discovered we were compatible and never stopped dreaming about a longer trip. Steve had spent a year cycling in Australia and New Zealand in 1990 and he has also cycled in Ireland and Iceland solo.
Our journey was not about kilometers but more about freedom, meeting people, experiencing new cultures and distancing ourselves from the VERY materialistic, work orientated society we live in. We both can't imagine spending the rest of our active life working 49 weeks a year !!!
We completed an 11 month journey through 10 countries (counting Tibet as its own country) between June 2004 and May 2005. During that time, we cycled approximately 10,500 km, climbing uphill for 115,000 meters. We suffered through the rain in Scotland, the heat in Thailand, the terrible roads in China, and the snow storms as we cycled through Tibet. We saw many fascinating things and faced many challenges, both physical and mental. We have many fond memories of our trip and we have a better appreciation for the culture, economical and political environment of the countries we visited.We are very happy we made the decision to go on this trip. There were times when we questioned the sanity of it, but looking, we have absolutely no regrets. It is important to live now and not wait for retirement to start to live life.
This trip also clarified our similar interests. We have a passion for the wilderness. Remote mountains seem to be the place we are the most happy, even if it is a 4000m pass in a howling snow storm, regardless if it's in Canada or the Himalayas. If there are no remote mountains, people and culture will hold our interest as long as the people are friendly. We discovered that we have little to no interest in water falls, temples, architecture, or any other "standard" tourist attractions.
For us, fundamentally, we have not really changed. Shortly after we got back, it was like we had never left. We moved back into our house and resumed our careers and our lifestyle. We are very conscious of our Environmental Footprint, and try to find a compromise that we can live with. While we were away, we thought we could have a fourth person living in our house with us, and we would try to be a one car family. These seemed like such simple things when riding a bike down the road and seeing the simple life that people live in Asia. With the pressures of our society, once we were home we found that we were not willing to compromise our lifestyle to that extent. We soon were three people in the house and a two car family again, just like before.
For other people, an extended trip like ours triggers major lifestyle changes. For a classic example, please visit read Dick & Els. After 4 years cycling, they have sold their house and are touring on their bicycles to raise money for various charity projects benefiting children in third world countries! They are an inspiration to us, but we realize that we would not be happy doing this.
This trip has not cured our desire to travel. However, it is not likely we will do another extended trip like this one until we retire, but there are still many places that we want to visit, likely on shorter, more targeted holidays. The goal would be for quality, not quantity!
Thank you everyone for the emails during the time we were on the road. There were times when those emails were the only motivation for sitting in a crowded, noisy internet cafe madly trying to do a website update. We knew there were people "out there" following our journey. As you can see from the lateness of this final website update, once we arrived home, we lost the motivation. Thanks for your patience, and we hope you enjoy this final update!
We have created this website to keep in touch with our family and friends, share a little bit of our journey and give them something to dream about (when they are bored or frustrated at work) !!!
We hope you will enjoy and keep in touch.
Celine and Steve
20 years from now you’ll regret the things you didn’t do far more
than the things you did, so do ‘em!”
Mark Twain
