There are lots of options, we could start almost anywhere on the planet. For example: take a plane to the America’s and cycle across the last continents to be inhabited by mankind. Patagonia, The Andes, The Grand Canyon, Alaska and all the other majestic and down to earth places inbetween. Tempting as it is, just setting out from our own doorstep to go around the globe was such a simple and naive romantic idea that it became ingraved in our minds.

One very adventurous way to go would be down to Africa. Man wouldn’t that be an amazing journey? In all fairness a part of me achess to go but it would be a very demanding adventure for the starting biketourer. The land and culture’s change very rapidly and potentially difficulties could arrise quick for the not so seasoned. One of my first inspirators ‘The Big Africa Cycle’ did the tour that planted the seed for the very tour where about to undertake. For Peter Gostelow riding down through Africa was his second major cycling tour, after riding from Japan to Engeland. It would proof to have some large potholes down the road. In Sengal he met up with a machete and got his left hand tendons cut. After surgery and a month recouperation he got on the bike and started peddeling again. When I met him in Portugal before he struck me as a very strong headed individual with enough experience and a silent determination. Something that one needs when tackeling a continent like Africa. Making you all the more cycle and people savvy. Perhaps we are not quite ready for that yet…

The ones who watered the seed where Ewan, Charly and Crew from the ‘Long way Round’ and ‘Long way Down’ BBC series. Driving their motercycles to far flung places like Siberia and Namibia. They also went East the first time before going the ‘Long Way Down’. There is something about going east that just feels gentler, somehow familiar and more easing into the proces of living a nomadic cycling existence for a while. First a large part of Europe where touringbike-skills can be honed and than on to Turkey, a country a lot of cyclist plan on visiting when dreaming about there eastbound journeys. Turkey is a place of gentle transition into the middle east with tons of history as it was a crucial passage linking the East and West via the historical Silk Route. On too the the Middle east thoughts appear to be a mirage. Arabian Night’s, and the Persian Empire are just a couple of those images everybody has coming to mind. Sand and horses, beautiful veiled women and men waving crooked swords. A place where the most major grain staples and herd animals where domesticated to be transported first to China, Europe, Northern Africa and later on to the rest of the world… a place of legend! It is no coincedence that ‘The Fertile Cresent’ was the stage where the first World Empires came to rise and fall and the largest World Religions, Christianity and Islam, arose to also be exported along the trading routes.

Behind the mountainsranges of the Karakoram and Pamirs in the “Stan” region lies the land of the rising Sun. The Orient of childhood memory. A strange place that always felt like the other side of the planet. Just far off and exotic… actually is a place of great and live changing inventions. The Silk Road, the dominating axis on which culture and goods would be exchanged to shape the history of the world for good. Paper, gunpowder, forging, the wheelbarrow etc. and the all important fabric silk came from China. Without the revolutions it unleashed we could possibly still be living in a middle age environment instead of the hyper technical age that we call the present.

All the time travelling left aside these parts of the world are changing rapidly. China and India have become powerhouse economies in the modern world. Rivaling and soon possibly superceding Europe and perhaps even America. The pendulum of history is swinging back to the East and it would be amazing to see, taste, hear, smell and feel what they can achieve next with that momentum.

So in going East one can maybe trace back a couple of tracks and see the neverending changes of the globalisation puzzle we are all in in and see where our piece might fit. For me it’s all about what drove Marco Polo to the East: Curiostity for the Worlds far away shaping my own.