Imagine cycling from Finland to Singapore? A 15,000km journey through 21 countries. In this episode I speak with Vallu Heinilä who set off on this adventure with his good friend Alvari in 2022.
Despite facing numerous challenges, including sickness and closed border crossings, Vallu encountered countless acts of kindness from strangers, shattering any previous misconceptions about travelling through so-called dangerous countries.
Vallu shares the transformative experiences he had during the trip, from the high mountains of Tajikistan to the crowded cities of India, and the physical challenge of traversing the Annapurna trail. Vallu’s journey didn’t stop in Singapore; he has since paddle-boarded 320 kilometres across the Baltic Sea and spent 74 days cycling and hiking across New Zealand’s North and South Islands.
Watch the Curious Pedals documentary on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=KHtXsy10rp3vh3cM&v=sDf3Lr8Mfcc&feature=youtu.be) and keep up with Vallu’s future adventures on Instagram at @curiouspedals (https://www.instagram.com/curiouspedals/) .
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we have no money left our Visa is running out in two days and we have no phone connection and we figure well we have to try there’s no other option so we go to the Border but it’s just military personnel and they say sorry The Border’s closed like what do you mean we have everything with the ministry of Tourism everything’s figured out they’re like yeah sorry but a war has started two hours ago and we’ve been forced to close all borders so kyrgistan and Tajikistan have still 30% I think of their border under disput and every you know few years they have some small battles between each other so they had gotten an order to close off the border so we couldn’t cross but we told them we have no money we got no food we can’t cycle back to dambe it took us 30 days to get here welcome to the SE travel ride podcast where we share the stories and experiences of people who have undertaken Amazing Adventures by bike whether it’s crossing state borders mountain ranges countries or continents we want to share that Spirit of adventuring on two wheels with our [Music] listeners hello I’m your host Bella Malloy and I’m excited to introduce my guest for today’s episode of seek travel ride valo Hana in June 2022 Valu embarked on an adventure which saw him cycle with his best friend Alvis 15,000 km through 21 countries from Finland to Singapore despite facing adversity and some sickness along the way Valu encountered countless acts of kindness from strangers shattering any previous misconceptions about traveling through so-called dangerous countries he had some challenging moments the high mountains of Tajikistan having to navigate problems posed by closed border crossings being in the rush of crowded cities in India to the physicality of traversing the anera trail this journey was certainly one of Countess experiences since ending the journey in Singapore Valu has continued to push his limits in Outdoor Pursuits he’s paddle boarded 320 km across the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Finland and also spent 74 days cycling and Hiking his way across New Zealand’s North and South Islands it would certainly seem that Valu gets the best from himself when he’s fully immersed in physical Pursuits in nature yet he has also gone through the transformative process of spending 10 days in complete silence all these experiences added up have no doubt offered up invaluable life lessons in resilience and living in the present moment I am super Keen to explore this theme more with value today and learn more about his amazing Journeys Val welcome to the show thanks for having me Bella oh I’m stoked to be speaking with you Val I think it’s going to be a real fun conversation that we have ourselves today but a question which I start my show with and I asked this of all my guests is Val do you remember the very first bike you ever rode oh that’s a that’s a tough one I have very faint memory it definitely had those uh you know three wheels in the back I was that small I think I rote that thing for yeah a couple years we lived in the UK when I was like zero to five years old there I think it was in our garage this little bike that I got to play with cuz I was here thinking oh you know I’m speaking to a guy he’s from Finland I wonder whether his first bike memories are going to be is it going to be some hardcore finish story of yeah I cycled on the you know the icy roads or something but you were in the UK where abouts were you there we lived in in s so near London for my dad’s work for a few years so it was really lucky to grow up abroad and after that we moved to California for another four or five years before then coming to Finland and getting the finished childhood and you’re in New Zealand now can I ask the question like what aspects of finish life do you miss being like literally sort of diagonally on the other side of the world the sauna for sure now it’s getting pretty chilly in New Zealand the Winter’s coming uh we have snow on the Peaks here around wanka there’s not a lot of easy access to saunas so and I got quite into the habit of hitting a sauna almost every night now before I came to New Zealand so I really missed a sauna then obviously uh friends and family and other basic aspects like rye bread the bread isn’t super great in New Zealand but yeah hunger is a good spicing to have and I’m usually pretty hungry here on the adventure so I don’t really mind what I eat you ate anything when you’re really really hungry yeah can I ask then Val like like I mentioned in the intro there it seems to me like you’re energized by being outside being out there with nature you know moving around and living in different parts of the world was that a theme with you from growing up as well were you always an outdoors sort of kid in your childhood or has that been something you’ve sort of grasped on to more so as an adult I think more of the latter more as an adult as a kid obviously we did go on family holidays and we went skiing and stuff but how I perceive nature now is very different from like how I perceived it as a kid grassy field somewhere would have been nature for me but right now nature is mostly I think about nature as untouched while as well humans are we have to remember we are also nature boring 747 is nature because we have created it and we don’t want to distance ourselves too much from nature but when I say nature I mean like being in the mountains or Wilderness kind of isolated from society and from constant cell connection and internet and that when I was a kid I I didn’t have pretty much at all so wasn’t like a super outdoorsy person always exploring the creeks and forests and really stoked and then as I got older I made more use of it I think it’s more as an adult I realized wow there’s a lot of cool places to explore getting away from the noise into true nature is is really uh fruitful for me and helps me understand myself better did you have like a a light bulb sort of aha moment where that sort of happened for you was there like a certain pivotal trip where you were like oh I’m energized because I’ve been away from the the white noise the constant being in contact with people was there that Stark realization or is this just sort of slowly seeped into your psyche I think more of a gradual thing starts with like going with Alvis actually to Norway doing like hikes overnight hike sleeping on the mountain peak just realizing like wow seeing the sunrise and sunset is really epic it’s really natural also but in a city often during Sunrise I’d be asleep and during sunset I’d be somewhere inside doing something so just kind of like getting in I don’t know maybe in touch with the cccadi and Rhythm or something and through that realizing like wow this is uh pretty sweet and then doing more and more of that and always somehow get the pulse higher as well so it hasn’t just been to go sit in nature but do something there go hiking or go cycling or go paddle boarding or or surfing or something with activity in nature so it came on graduat it’s a long answer to a short question but came on gradually instead of this light bulb moment something in a way figuratively speaking came on gradually as in it did take a while to get there your journey from Helsinki to Singapore was obviously a long gradual experience of being out there to toally vulnerable in nature at times as well how did the idea of taking such a longdistance journey come to being like were you someone that was taking any form of bike travel prior to this trip no so I didn’t actually even own a bike prior to this trip and all is funnily in the sauna said hey he’s considering on cycling from Cairo to Cape Town but he was also in the military then when he said this idea and he talked about with these military lieutenants and Personnel who had been peacekeeper ERS in different African nations and they said you got to be careful it can be dangerous in some parts and hearing this I told him yo let’s go to Asia I’ll join you he was like okay sure let’s go and then we looked at a map and uh Singapore seemed like a nice Peninsula or Island at the end of a peninsula and that’s how it came to be but I yeah hadn’t done anything of the sort or even cycled a lot when we committed to this idea oh wow having a bike for a longdistance bike to is sort of a prerequisite there but from having that conversation in the sauna with you know one of your best friends to then actually pedling your way out of hellsinki did you do some smaller trips beforehand or was it purely a baptism of fire it was yeah that’s what put baptism a fire pretty much I did do like a short four night five night trip in Sweden just seeing do I actually like to cycle how does this work out and kind of maybe understanding what kind of bike I want to get for the trip itself but that’s pretty much all all the training and planning I did for the trip was that few overnight trips in Sweden you mentioned you sort of looked at a map Helsinki Singapore looks like a good ending spot but did you both then plot like a vague route or did you sort of I don’t want to say feel your way you have to have a general idea especially when there’s border crossings in place but yeah there are so many different ways you could make your way to Singapore like how did you even decide in general how you would get there which countries you would even pass through yeah we kind of figured just Eastern Europe didn’t maybe name the countries and then figured ah we’d heard about the pummer highway we’re like oh Central Asia would be cool to get in there oh and from Central Asia we can just go through China and then drop down into Vietnam and then it’s just uh we’re already almost there like and that was a kind of initial plan but we were flexible with it and then the war in Ukraine broke loose and we had to obviously go around Ukraine instead of through it yeah and lots of Border issues on the way but then we just adapted and made the trip look like us even though we had to take a flight or two during the trip that has been something that has come up more and more with previous guests of mine as well with closed border crossings and I think aaban is still closed off I think Turkmenistan going through Central Asia is still an area that I don’t think you can travel across getting into China is problematic which I believe you both faced it that was your initial plan was to go through China if I’m correct there yeah I actually lived in China for half a year during my studies and uh I was really stoked about getting to cycle through there uh with Allis and getting kind of like that secondhand experience of seeing him get really excited about this country so rich in history and culture and with Incredible Landscapes but then um yeah we couldn’t cross Overland borders and we were not going to fly to Finland to get a visa and fly back and go through the hassle so but we have shaken on it that someday we’ll cycle through China for a few months with Alvis so that journey is in the planning oh gosh I’m putting my request in here for podcast followup with with both you and Alvis cuz I mentioned Alvis there as well you have both got a beautiful film which listeners is available on YouTube if you search for Curious pedals you will see this and perhaps you already have if the algorithm has been as kind to you as was to me because I feel watching the visuals of something it really brings starkly to me that journey of how far you travel when the landscape changes so much and I don’t know whether you reflect back on that yourself as well Valu like there’s times where you’re in farmed rolling Countryside through Europe then all of a sudden you’re in Dusty high altitude Mountain Rocky scree on into jikan and then you’re sweating buckets in Southeast Asia like it’s such the world changes so much in those 15,000 kilometers doesn’t it yeah and you change so much in those 15,000 kilometers that as well kind of looking back you feel like a different person than who left on that Journey so that also makes it seem much longer than it actually is and makes the eight months that we were on the road seem like multiple years because the change that happens within ourselves is equivalent to what happened for example during the whole length of our studies or our adult was that realization something that you were aware of during the trip itself were you reflecting back and actually starting to see changes in your perceptions and in your personal personality might be the wrong word but in in the way that you were like did you notice those changes yourself during this journey or is it through reflecting back now that you see that so starkly probably already during the journey I noticed my emotions being magnified more living kind of in a deeper key being more vulnerable and having so much space to being Mindful and stuck in my head or stuck in the landscape around me or kind of yeah analyzing the situations and myself and then realizing like oh all this thoughts and Analysis doesn’t matter experience matters and having that kind of realizations I couldn’t have got by staying home so I think obviously it happened so gradually the change that you can’t really notice it or put your finger on like oh this morning I’m a different person than two weeks ago go but you can kind of sense like something’s going on here and it’s pretty sweet what’s happening because I’m getting more comfortable with how things are and how the world is and a lot of prejudices are flying out and a lot of the programming I’ve put into my mind during my years are is getting kind of a a little update a little thump to the system so to say it can’t be anything but we do travel with a certain amount of preconception sometimes especially you know we go through areas where we have heard something or maybe even just our thoughts and I’ve often wondered for those of my guests who’ve taken such vast long distance travel what it’s been like when you’re faced with those preconceptions and meeting them up with reality as well in the moment realize this might be a silly question but I was wondering is there somewhere where that was really evident to you at the time like I I could understand as you near the end of your journey perhaps through your experiences on the trip itself your pre conceptions have just dissolved away but perhaps more at the beginning of the trip were there times where you’re like oh wow I didn’t expect this at all yeah probably like India was one where we had a lot of prejudice from stuff that we’ve thought about ourselves but also what people told us like oh you’re going to have a lot of stomach bugs people are going to try to hassle you make sure to have a good lock on your bike oh it’s so dirty everywhere and it’s so messy and cars won’t watch out for you like always wear a helmet and then we go to India and and it’s everything except the above we have zero stomach problems nobody tried to haggle us beautiful roads very pristine nature up near the Himalayas where Rec cycled obviously when we talk about India you can’t say India is this or that because it’s such a massive country biggest country in the world now by population but the little scratch that we saw of India was everything except what we expected so we had a very pleasant experience and um maybe sometime we paid $1 instead of 50 cents for a meal but it’s not like they’re driving Ferraris so we we felt very safe and welcome and obviously people are curious about these two cyclists from a foreign land especially in places where they probably never see foreigners but um everybody was respectful and they have their own upbringing that maybe you know has them staring at us for a very long period of time next to a 10 in the morning but which might be intimidating for us but like what’s up how are we doing this morning and it was always fine you know when you talk about the perceptions that other people put on to you about another country as well oh India is going to be hectic it’s going to be not safe it’s scary lock your bikes and stuff I think something that I came up on one of your it’s probably an Instagram post I think Val was your anecdote of reflecting back the countries you locked your bike up in the least were apparently the most dangerous ones that other people were warning you about as well like from a security perspective the way that we perceive places is in the western media is so far from the truth sometimes as well yeah for sure and I was planning oh Tajikistan you Google that and it’s on like the red list of countries uh you shouldn’t visit in The Finnish forign Ministry and I’m like Oh no I got to get some duct tape because I got a nice red bike I got to make it look bad so nobody wants to steal it and then we get there and I’m like H I’m such a fool for thinking that like this is the safest country of our whole trip it seemed the further we went from home and the more exotic the country was the safer we felt but it’s good to remember this is two dudes pretty well built so we can’t speak for other Travelers but we we felt surprisingly safe and the further we were from home so I think that stands pretty well yeah for the whole trip because most adversity came from animals and those animals were in Eastern Europe dogs running after us and us you know having dreams and nightmares of dogs attacking us and we were all the time on the watch because these Shepherd dogs were chasing us down roads and barking pretty loudly and don’t look super friendly and trying to get a bite at our Cales and then as we went further on there was less maybe Wildlife that was dangerous and people seemed to be more welcoming Kinder and more Curious the shepherd dogs are something that always comes to my mind and and especially you know when I think of Eastern Europe I say that I mean living in France I’ve had my experience being chased by a panine dog which isn’t Fun either and I mean when I think of it I mean they are Shepherd dogs too aren’t they and they’re there to do a job they’re there to protect their flock but it’s a question I’ve often had and it’s weird because it doesn’t seem to be one solution provided by a guest that’s a uniform solution as to what to do and I have some guests tell me get off the bike don’t look at them in the eye be very subservient and I’ve had others say you’ve got to ride as fast as you can I’ve got others say you got to throw some sticks and stones and sometimes not to hit them but to just keep them away and show them who boss I want to know did you have like one tactic between you and Alvis in terms of what you were going to do to fend yourself from the shepherd dogs I want to know what’s your routine that no other than uh yeah we tried everything nothing seemed to work we tried the oh just speak nicely calm me to them get off your bike but they seem to get more angry and we did this like turtle shell that we put like our bikes around us and we were in the middle of the bikes with our paneers and front wheels kind of blocking us and I have a big frame bag so they can’t get through the F frame but then we’d have to wait for like 10 minutes for the dogs to calm down and let us go and it was often like big flocks of dogs and in the end we after so many encounters and nothing happened to us we maybe gained a little bit of confidence that they’re not going to actually bite or attack us and then we kind of just pedal through and just kept our Pace tried not to hit them but yeah no tactics seemed to work we got even pepper spray because they told told us in Romania oh here’s pepper spray for dogs we got a few hits and first feel bad like shooting pepper spray at a dog but then they just got more Angry you know we’re sneezing a bit but still chasing us wanting us for lunch so it didn’t really work either maybe they’re like people you know we’re not all the same are we we have different personalities too so yeah i’ I’d love to tap into a dog’s mind of what they perceive cyclist to be because pedestrians they don’t mind they let them go but at bicycle they can hear the bike coming from like a mile away and you hear them barking like how can they know we’re coming like have I forgot to crease my you know Center Hub is it squeaking and hurting their ears do they think we’re sheep what’s going on here because we were so curious on why dogs get so angry about bicycles actually while we’re on the theme of wildlife watching your film there I’m trying to remember what country you were in but I think you were in like a road tunnel and then all of a sudden there was like a bear was it Romania if I’m thinking correctly and there was like a yeah I’ve spoken to people about bears before and sometimes I think I overhype it but I mean there is obviously some sort of inherent danger but were you worried in that moment were you sort of was it a surreal type of moment what was that like CU you’re not alone let me just set it up for you listeners it’s not like you’re in the middle of the Wilderness and Valu and Alvis are the only people on bikes there were cars around you coming in both directions as well yeah so that was actually like the second bear we saw and we happened to have the cameras out the first bear encounter we were driving down the transfar and like Road and mountains and it’s a beautiful Road I think Top Gear or some show was there we’re driving down and then cars start honking at us and we’re like oh hi because they always honk at us and we wave to them but now nobody’s waving and then one car pulls down their window and like screams like don’t go there’s Bears ahead and there was a mama and bear and three Cubs like on the curb of the road because people are I guess throwing them sandwiches or feeding them and they come then to the side of the road I’m like okay well what do we do and then this car says wait I’ll turn around and you can just I’ll be between you and the Bears and for all this this is like ah perfect problem solved I’m like hold up it’s still Bears we’re talking about and it’s like a station wagon car so it’s not super high then it goes slowly we’re going towards the Bears then the mama bear gets on her for legs and then on her hind legs and is just towering above the car right when we’re next to it and then we don’t look back and just power down and that was pretty exhilarating realizing the size of this animal when it stands up and realizing the car can’t really protect us could easily come over the car and then later on we were in the tunnel and there was a bear at the entrance of the tunnel we were going downhill so if it came into the tunnel we’d kind of be trapped because we can’t cycle super fast uphill back in the tunnel and that was exciting as well um and you put your spidey in stinks on and see go with the gut feeling and what feels the safest that was fine it was a small bear sorry I’m just trying to think of what it would have been like a mama bear with Cubs as well she’d be protective up on her hind legs I’d feel pretty vulnerable then I’ve always thought Nature has a way of making you feel really teeny tiny small and that would be a casing point but I don’t want to focus on Wildlife encounters being chased by dogs and bears cuz by gosh you must have had some amazing Wildlife encounters which were just so wow look what witnessing here as well I imagine that would have been the case just seeing wildlife and its natural habitat around you not feeling vulnerable or insecure or unsafe in those moments too yeah we had some not like crazy amount of wildlife on our route though I can’t like recall any extremely Blissful Wildlife moments on the RO because it is a lot of barren land where not a lot of animals live but obviously seeing like a flock of birds just crossing through the sunrise or Sunset seeing huge vultures in Nepal and the Himalayas those are pretty special moments and but other than that there’s no crazy Wildlife experiences that come to mind other than the dogs I don’t want to focus this on the dogs let’s move on from that something I was wondering and actually I think this is pretty unique in that I’ve certainly interviewed guests who have done a very similar journey to yourself there Val and I’ve interviewed people who have done a tour as a team of two but they’ve always been a couple or a father and a daughter or something whereas you’re touring there with your best mid what was it like to ride and be in each other’s company for so long and did that solidify your friendship or did it strain it or did it depend on the moments of the day yeah that’s a great question often people expect that we’re now like way better friends than when we left because we’ve spent so much time together and experienced so much but now obviously we live in different countries I say we’re way deeper friends because only Alvis can understand what I’ve been through and only I can understand what he’s been through kind of like if you you know your War Pals even though if you think differently you become very deep friends because you’ve experienced something together and there’s nothing that like brings people together like experiencing stuff together yeah I think all this was my kind of how would I put it my Catalyst for personal growth because I started reflecting on him my suffering I would start res venting him for not being the person of my imagination the person I’ve created in my imagination even though he’s staying himself and then realizing like oh there’s nothing wrong with him it’s actually in me and then being able to realize that and work on myself and so he was in a way a mirror for me of seeing how I’m doing myself and fueling my diary on days when I was angry or disappointed with him and then kind of realizing he hasn’t changed I can’t change him why be angry I can only change my myself start accepting and that was a yeah being alone I don’t think I would have had that similar growth like now doing these few Adventures alone I haven’t had that Catalyst for kind of learning through someone else and I think that’s brilliant I actually have a quote here about like staying with people that kind of push you to fall it says join with those who experiment take risks fall get hurt and then take some more risks stay away from those who do not think like them people who have never once taken a step unless they were sure they would be respected for doing so and who prefer certaines to doubts so I think this shows like Allis is definitely a risk taker who loves to take risks and go towards uncertainty and being with him on the journey helped me embrace uncertainty and take risks much more as well yeah it’s very a multitude of aspects what’s it like to travel with your best buddy but yeah you can’t put it towards uh there’s so much you can learn more in a way when you travel with a friend but then Solitude is nice as well being alone and we had that moment and the Paul went he went to do a 10day silent meditation and I went on my own journey and then we realize like wow it’s really cool to have a cycling buddy and you regain that appreciation and gratitude and after that period of being away for 10 days uh it was like starting the trip all over again yeah and I can imagine both of the experiences gained in in doing vastly different activities at the time like you said Alvis was doing that 10day silent meditation which I believe you’ve done yourself since haven’t you uh yeah I did that uh here here in New Zealand I want to get into that in a little bit but while Alvis was doing that you were biking and hiker biking at times the anera trail which wow I mean I I’m a mountain lover Val so you know I’ve looked at the Himalayas of Nepal and and pictured myself on that trail and it was only about a year or so ago that I realized people actually ride there but I’ve actually wondered gosh that’s that’s some that’s different type of riding really isn’t it yeah it’s a lot of push bike for sure especially with a gravel bike where you don’t have that huge smallest gear so or biggest gear whichever it is the big disc in the back like mountain bikes have so you have to yeah 50/50 hiking and cycling then but it’s really nice because hiking when you get to a top of a mountain like G I have to go down and you know you bust your knees but when you have your bike up there it’s pretty nice then to just like fly down you are right I think the biggest toll on our body is when we’re walking or you know doing something downhill cuz that’s where your muscles are and your joints are under most strain if I’m to use the word strain though like you were in your physical limits at times on the aniper trail because you actually got really sick while you were doing that didn’t you yeah I got some infection in my throat on the trail and then yeah I got quite sick and had to rest for a few days but it it went over and it kind of yeah maybe was a good reminder to kind of like chill relax and not push because I was really trying to do huge days and put my body to the ultimate test and then this sickness took over me I was like hey maybe let’s take it easy a few days and maybe my muscles were grateful for that sickness of letting them recover and lay in a nice little tea Hut in the mountains I guess there’s also a difference between acknowledging when you need to pause because you’re physically ill to also pushing yourself to your physical limits illness versus exhaustion sometimes because I think I don’t know if enjoy is the right word to use here Valu but you do like to physically to put yourself under some physical strain in the activities that you’re pursuing at TOS as well because I feel like you experience more deeply when you are at your limit would I be right to assume that 100% yeah I really yeah enjoyment is aough word because you kind of uh often connect that to like a big smile on your face and like pleasure but I find like putting the body to the ultimate test is like really fruitful you get a whole new set of chemicals in your mind you get kind of like an altered state of consciousness you get really deep gratitude for certain things and you can become incredibly proud of yourself proud of your body realize the capabilities you have that you didn’t know of yeah there’s multiple aspects why I kind of yeah find fruitful to push myself and do stuff that has a risk of failure in a way then the achievement of getting through that feels even greater just like uh with the whole trip to Singapore or then even a single day when we decide we’re going to climb 2,000 MERS today like oh that’s a big climb here at you know 4,000 meter altitude but once you get it and the more difficult it is the bigger the rewards are I think that’s why I like the challenge yeah and I guess is definitely a big element of personal growth that comes from finding your boundaries and and or Meeting those challenges and seeing what you are capable of we were saying enjoyment is not the right word but I think there is also reflecting back and that self assuredness that comes with taking things on like that as well learning more about yourself there’s even there would have to be a sense of Pride at what you achieve doing those things too right yeah 100% yeah it’s and you kind of start to realize what matters and life is simplified when you’re like in true adversity and you won’t complain anymore when you go to the restaurant and the you know table next to you gets the meal first even though you ordered first uh you’re just grateful to be alive I’m thinking and you know I’m thinking of moments that you had of adversity during your trip which you know I watched in your film and just the the triviality of being in a restaurant waiting for your dinner is so far off the Spectrum and and so such a first world problem as we like to call it when I think of moments of of adversity I think of the I think I pronounce it in jigan the wakon valley is this before connecting to the premier highway or is it part of the prier highway I’ve not been there and it’s all mountainous and looks incredible but you had some tough times of adversity there right yeah it’s like a little detour or not so little we thought it’s a little detour off the pmer highway but and then we spent probably a week or two there we plan to do like 60 70k a day but any ended up doing like 30 or 40 because the climbing was really intense I had a stomach bug we had all kinds of obstacles shoot our way and um yeah it was maybe the closest thing to being like what’s the show Amazing Race having to like figure stuff out where do we find food gas spare parts uh where can we sleep is it safe here and we have to negotiate with people negotiate with the locals understand what we have ahead of us because the map definitely isn’t the territory when it comes to Tajikistan yeah you get to really be maybe in the most unexplored Off the Grid place we could go with our bikes on this journey and yeah we had some true suffering and true adventure definitely and what we call whack Valley now wack Valley I guess it’s really pushing yourself to the limits of vulnerability but you know you talk about Amazing Race I guess that’s a really way of putting at front of your mind what we as humans like your B basic needs of survival yeah I remember watching in the film there was a I I think this ran over the course of a day but you’d left early with not enough water because you just assumed well we’ll get water in 10 km and I imagine like you’re at elevation so I could imagine you’d not want the extra weight if you didn’t need it but then how the rest of that day transpired it just seemed to be one thing piling onto the next of could this get any worse and it just seemed to just they kept becoming extra problems come your way that you had to face didn’t there yeah and uh in the film of course uh when we are actually like truly suffering we don’t like to pull out the camera so much so it’s hard to capture the reality of the day but in the morning we didn’t think about saving weight not having water we just didn’t have a water source figured oh just a few kilometers ahead there’s a stream and we make it to that stream after like an hour of cycling because we’re at 4,000 meters elevation and I have diarrhea from the previous stays so very low energy and then we make it to the stream and it’s just dark brown water like oh there’s a lake ahead let’s go there and we now are like running on drops and then Al’s rack breaks down there’s no shade I have to go under my bike I have the frame back to get some shade have a pulsating headache there’s no cars coming by and we realize like oh this actually isn’t like too funny anymore yeah in the afternoon we make to the lake and then it’s a saltwater lake yeah that was a low Moment In the Journey but Allis made sure we pushed through because I got a puncture but I didn’t have the energy to remove my tire from the rim so he had to help me out we fixed that puncture and I was like let’s just boil this water and drink the drops and he realized that’s just going to take forever and we’re not going to get enough water to like you know keep ourselves going and we don’t know if we have enough gas to even do that and then um he made sure we push to the pump Highway which was in another 10 km ahead and then eventually we make it there and meet this truck driver who drives past and we treat him like God who has brought us some water liquid Bliss oh yeah you know when some people they get off a really badly built Road and they get to the ashal and then they get down on their knees and they kiss the road I bet you really wanted to kiss and hug that driver so much when he’s bringing you like yeah the fluid of Life there so to speak and you know when you were saying oh you know it’s only 10 km further here or 10 km further to the a you have to put it into the context of you’re at what 4,000 M of elevation the sun’s beating down on you you’ve got diarrhea you have no energy you both have no water you’re not on a cycle tour where you’re riding you know 15 to 20 km an hour at that point by any measure I think was some of the slowest travel of the trip probably yeah and the road was kind of like you have to either decide to ride on these little bumps you know that car wheels have caused over the years like when they break or accelerate tiny little bumps so so you either go on those and you go maybe 5 km an hour or then you go in soft sand off the road 5 km an hour but pedaling like with all your muscle strength just stay like on top of the bike or then you can push bike and those are like your three options and they’re just bad or worse so yeah the pace isn’t what we kind of expected and meeting that paved road on the pummer highway yeah that was pretty special as well we didn’t kiss the road but we felt like powder skiing uh after being on that gravel for probably two or three weeks by then it feel like you just all of a sudden got a tail wind instead of like a Monumental head wind or something although you can’t travel 15,000 kilomet without experience the adversity of a a full-on brutal headwind as well no doubt yeah that’s crazy how much that plays with your head that you’re pedaling but you’re not moving I didn’t realize ever before how intense mentally it is to Pedal to headwind I don’t think everybody who doesn’t cycle realizes that but headwind is The Worst Enemy on the road for sure final boss in the mindfulness practice if you become content with the headwind you can be content with anything have you mastered that yet like that mental Warfare have you have you won that battle no way that’s why I’m in New Zealand right now and not home still I think maybe in my next lifetime I’ll win that battle or the next one but yeah no I I got a long way to go I do want to go down that tract of mindfulness and meditation and that sort of process as well because it’s definitely something that this journey and a lot of your physical Pursuits and your time in nature has taught you it I often hear when people talk about meditation value that it’s not something that you automatically learn and then that’s it like you are constantly on a journey of learning and stuff like that as well had you started this trip already open to the idea of the practice of mindfulness and and seeking that type of experience or was it this journe and traveling through it which really puts you on the trajectory of where you are now yeah definitely the journey more set that trajectory and realizing like the easiest way to change the world is by changing myself and my perceptions of it I can’t affect the world around me a lot but I can affect myself and what chemicals are being released in my brain in which situation two people have the same experience one might you know find it the most wonderful experience and the one might find it you know really horrendous even though the exact same experience and yeah I think that just sitting on a saddle for so many hours a day and having space to think and become more self-aware maybe of your emotions feelings thoughts your Consciousness and realizing that seldom you place the order for the thoughts that come to your head like you have no agency over what comes in your head but then kind of how you react to those and you seldom place the order for experiences around you but you get certain experiences and you can never know what happens but you can affect you know how you react to them so I think that definitely was a big theme on the cycling Journey for both of us and then fueling that with podcasts and books around maybe not spirituality but psychology and philosophy and realizing how little we know about ourselves and the processes that our mind likes to do on its own I felt also and this was through watching the film that the that you’re you’re cycling to a took put you into countries which Embrace this side a lot more as well like you know when you were in India and I’m not to say this didn’t happen before but I could really tell that both yourself and Alvis you were in a place where you embracing the spirituality where you embracing that sort of meditative state where you embracing the mindfulness of the area because you were invariably finding yourself in places where that is something that is celebrated and that is something that is practiced was that how it was sort of playing out as well I think we’d lose our mind if uh if we didn’t have that aspect in New Delhi because the environment is so crazy there’s constant noise constant car horns constant people wanting your attention and if you kind of would you know let yourself be thrown around with that and react to everything then yeah it would be really intense but pretty soon we kind of realize like oh this is why mindfulness is so huge here CU you’d go crazy without it and you need that counterbalance to the the chaos of the city and then we could make it actually quite fun cycling in for example Deli by being like hey it’s like Mario Kart and uh just you know navigating through traffic and realizing you can’t really fall because there’s so much traffic that there’s a car on or like a rick saww on each side of you so it’s not that dangerous and you become like you get into a wonderful Flow State where you are a part of the traffic instead of navigating through it and then you see kind of the beauty of this crazy city which kind of operates like a natural ecosystem itself where things just flow smoothly even though on the outside it can seem like just total chaos but then within the chaos there’s this immense Harmony my preconception about India is it’s fullon and there’s people everywhere you don’t have your own personal space and I believe that’s probably true but what people tell me overwhelmingly that really is an assault to their senses is the noise it’s just so noisy everywhere and you were sort of saying that straight up as well I could imagine just the need to sort of be mindful to try and process to allow that to be the case without it getting to you and the hecticness of it as well I just can’t imagine that because New Delhi and being an India wasn’t the plan you were planning like we mentioned earlier to go over to China and that just couldn’t happen yeah had either of you experienced India before this journey no so that was a culture shock for both of us we didn’t know a lot about India except what we had heard from people then obviously coming to Delhi we’re like oh no we’re going to be doing 40K a day again every day because there’s just such crazy traffic but once we got out of the city towards utarak like the province near the Himalayas uh on the east side of Nepal it just on the west side of Nepal got much more peaceful and we didn’t see a lot of cars no traffic you know monkeys and trees and tigers and forests and white peaks in the background and we’re like wow this is not the India we presumed it would be so that was a cool balance that just one day after being in Delhi we were like in pristine jungle I’m like wow this is quite the contrast to where we were 24 hours ago was it on that section where you were on these roads where they were the roads were just landslides all around you sort of like yeah it was raining quite hard and yeah only traffic was closed by huge landslides just the whole like face of a cliff falling off and pulling the road down with it and then yeah few hours go by and there’s a new road built and maybe even paved they were really efficient in fixing them but it definitely kept things interesting and making sure our battles are not between ourselves or each other but between us and the environments when we were navigating these steep mountain roads that occasionally fall off I can ask you it’s such a superficial question we’ve been talking about sort of deeper topics but what is your ultimate scene in nature you know I’m a mountain lover I move from Australia to be in the mountains that’s where I get my energy from what about yourself because you have done things which you know have taken you to all different sort of Landscapes and you’ve lived in cities you’ve you’re now in war there in New Zealand and you know experiencing pure oxygen of nature now as well is there sort of like a a natural scene where you really love to be in like you Embrace more than others H that’s a great question maybe FS it kind of combines the mountains and the ocean in a way I like the combination of like just crazy Cliff face standing out of water and the combination of those because I do do like the ocean but I also like mountains so I guess the fs kind of combine those like Northern Norway senia loten I find those Landscapes incredibly beautiful in those we’ve explored with all this quite a bit yeah those are some places of yeah where the mind is at rest and the eyes are at rest I guess as well we were talking about the different experiences you had on this journey I know you know you’re in New Zealand now I know that you’ve cycled the North Island and you hiked your way through the south island did you get opportunities to combine do some hiking while you were doing your longer trip from Helsinki to Singapore as well actually yeah we did a few hikes we hiked in Georgia in the Caucasus Mountains when we realized we can’t cross into aeran over land borders because they’re closed we had to buy flights to Tajikistan because we couldn’t also go through Russia uh they’re not too keen on giving visas for Finnish citizens uh to Cheta I don’t think our parents would have been too stoked if we did that and then like you said earlier Turkmenistan was closed so we bought flights and then we had like a week just to kill time and if we just stay in a city after cycling every day and having like a purpose you know you’re going forward you have to find shelter food water once you come to a city and stop it’s like okay so now what and your mind might start playing tricks on you and you have all this blood that normally went into your body now is going to your brain or I like to think that and that’s why I get so much turmoil stopping in these cities where you know people are in a rush they’re doing their thing and you’re on this journey and it can get quite overwhelming so we figured let’s go do some hikes in the cxus mountains that was uh super cool to explore Georgia Mountains and then we did the same actually in kyrgistan near kako Lake that’s a beautiful beautiful part of the world one of my best friends is actually from Caracol so I I’ve seen images of this and Kyan it was actually crossing the border to go into Kyan is a massive story in itself isn’t it holy like take me on that day take us to what happened there yeah I guess that’s kind of like a day or two days where we put everything we had learned so far on the road to the test and really a test of our tenacity and spirits and maybe stubbornness as well yeah for those who haven’t seen the documentary we were planning to cross from Tajikistan into kyrgistan but all the locals we met said oh The Border’s closed it’s been closed for two years you can’t cross over anymore and that kind of killed our Spirits like it’s a pretty sad journey to fly into damb Bay do a loop and then fly out of damb bay which would have been the only option then we met these two motorcyclists who said oh they’ve been talking with the ministry of tourism in kyrgystan and they’ve got a special permit to cross the border over land borders and they’ll let us know if they’re able to cross it and then we actually never hear from them because we don’t have cell reception anywhere in wacon Valley or after to figure out were they able to get across we approach this Porter town and we’ve sent to the ministry of Tourism as well like pictures of our passports and an email saying we want to cross but we haven’t got a response and we come to this Border Town which is 70 km away from the border also at like 3,800 meters altitude or something and we’re wondering okay should we go and we are you know we have no money left our Visa is running out in two days and we have no phone connection and we figure well we have to try there’s no other option so we go to the Border but it’s just military personnel and they say sorry the borders closed like what do you mean we have everything with the ministry of Tourism everything’s figured out they’re like yeah yeah there was the motorcyclist who crossed a few days ago you must know them like yeah we know them like yeah sorry but a war has started two hours ago and we’ve been forced to close all borders so kyrgistan and Tajikistan have still 30% I think of their border under disput and every you know few years they have some small battles between each other so they had gotten an order to close off the border so we couldn’t cross but we tell them we have no money we got no food we can’t cycle back to damb it took us 30 days to get here when you talk about unplanned right like you have a plan and then it’s like no and then you find a way and then it’s like no turn back you must have been gutted when you were told that yeah that was super sad and we kind of then didn’t know what to do we had a week before met like two ministers like hiring the government who invited us for like a night of vodka and dinner and one of the towns and we figured they’re pretty well connected with the military that let’s go back to that town because that’s only a week away and let’s go find the minister and negotiate with him in order either to get some money from him to borrow because there’s no ATMs in the country and then figure out a way get to back to damb or see if he’s connected in the military and let us cross the border somehow pulling some strings but then we see SUV drive up to the Border like oh it must be a military person let’s stop it when it comes back and when it comes back from from the border there’s an American Girl in the passenger seat and she’s like hey guys how are you doing we’re like yeah we’re stuck here she’s like yeah I got a flight out of Kyan as well I came to try if I can cross but I can’t I have to go all the way back to damb Bay it’s a two-day drive and she had a private driver and she gave us a fat stack of cash and then like $100 worth of cash that could help us buy some food and survive if we have to cycle back and that was super kind of her and then we kind of gave up started cycling back all had really bad altitude sickness during this whole time cuz the border is 4,400 M or something so we’re cycling back and then we see other military car coming towards us and we’re like oh is it a tourist or is a military this time and we stop it and we notice all of them are soldiers holding weapons and we asked for like General General do you have some like someone high up in your car and everybody points at the passenger seat and there’s an older man and we tell him no money no a big problem we want into kyrgystan and luckily this was the last spot where they had cell reception from the cell tower below so they can make a call and the general calls someone says our story Finlandia tourist yada yada and then shows us thumbs up I’m like hold up what just happened can we cross now and then we chase the car back up the mountain but it takes us a good four or five hours to go back up to the Border because we have crazy headwind and uphill and already has a pretty intense altitude sickness we make it to the Border but just before we make it the same military car comes driving back and I’m like oh no I hope they remember to tell them that we’re coming again because the guy at the border had the previous night been pretty insistent that we’re not going to be able to cross for a few weeks and uh he had a gun and he was kind of like shoving us away with his gun when we were really desperate and asking for food or water and then they did give us some bread but forced us to go back town which we didn’t do we just camped near the border at night so now we come back and the guy sees us and he walks up to the gate I’m like please be nice please open the gate he opens the gate wide open he’s like hey welcome like we’re his old buddies transformation that guy in the car was pretty high up wasn’t he he had some influence yeah and then uh yeah they let us through but they forgot to stamp our passports so once we get to the Kyan border they’re like you haven’t left t yet and we’re like oh yeah we did for sure like we came over the Border everything they’re like you’re not stamped out but then uh they believed our story that it’s just military personnel and not the Border personnel there and they stamped us into kyrgistan and everything was fine and we celebrated and we’re pretty happy what a wild story again all unplanned and I just sort of think like things had to slot in place for all of that to even take place right to even be in a spot where there was cell reception to be able to phone ahead and all those sort of things as well I was also thinking there Val you know how people sometimes look through a passport and look at the stamps and remembers the moment that stamp in your passport you’d nearly when your passport gets renewed you nearly keep that page and put in a little frame somewhere wouldn’t you like what you had to do to get that stamp yeah that was a yeah special day and obviously nobody speaks English and just trying to communicate without with a huge language barrier to everybody and no Google translate with no cell reception and but yeah and once we got through that we realized like oh we can get through anything like don’t take the word of people like oh you can’t cross the border or even the soldiers are like you will for sure not cross the border for the next two weeks or three weeks like there’s a war going on it’s not safe to be here and then 24 hours later we happily cycle across so it kind of in maybe a good or bad way made us more stubborn as well was that actually like where you were there like was it tense actually being there like was there an element where you were just a bit you needed to go that direction to keep pushing forward but was there some tension in the air of is this actually safe yeah they were building like barricades and like you know those um sand sacks stacking them up so it kind of felt real and they were yeah obviously it was just military personnel instead of Border personnel there so there was that aspect to it but we didn’t hear any shooting or fighting or anything and we kind of knew the history of like the borders and they have lots of little colonies in each country country that are like the other countries and been disputed since the collapse of the Soviet Union and it’s they often play like this 40 chest that they put you know some rocket somewhere and they say if you shoot there we’re going to shoot here and yeah but unfortunately conflicts like this happen but also unfortunately Finnish newspapers wrote about this conflict and our parents knew that we’re near the border and nobody could reach us so once we did get cell reception and Wi-Fi in kyrgystan our phones were filled with missed calls and worried messages from our parents and friends and followers even who knew that were near the border because of this news article that made it to the main main newspaper in Finland that sort of takes a different toll doesn’t it mentally because it’s one thing to be in a situation know what’s going on but it’s another to place yourself in the the shoes of loved ones and their minds and what they’re worrying about as well because they’re helpless and they have no way of contacting you you know when you said you cannot order the thoughts that come into your mind that would be that would be quite an order that you didn’t want to know right yeah and it was like we don’t want to cause anybody else suffering because of our trip because of our journey obviously both of our mothers are very loving and caring and they naturally as mothers get worried and I can imagine they got quite worried about this and they had actually like met up and everything and made like a plan and we’re like the first time we called them they were actually together they became kind of friends during our trip which was lovely because they had this thing that connected them that their sons are traveling across the world but um yeah it was u a bit uncomfortable but that’s I guess one of the costs of the journey is I guess on the theme of communication there and you know not so much communicating with your family and you you hinted and mentioned this just before language barriers is definitely a thing that you face when you’re traveling through countries where you don’t read cerlic you don’t speak the language or especially then when you’re moving into China or not China but into southeast Asia where the language is very and I’ve had previous guests of the show Roxy and Tommy I remember I caught up with them when they were in La I know them yeah they’re actually in Australia at the moment they’re in Perth hello but I remember they were telling me I think when they were in Lao at that stage even sign language seemed to be different so even the the normal signs you would make would be different so much of a journey like this Valu from what people tell me is the experiences that you have with those people that you can’t communicate fully with but somehow you seem to have conversations with them in a manner which really connect your souls in a way does that resonate as well yeah 100% And this is kind of like a cliche but like a smile is a universal language it’s the easiest way of communicating with anybody is just smiling showing like I’m not dangerous and they smile back like I’m not either like awesome now we can have a laugh together yeah I think things that are funny are kind of also Universal in a way like this is pretty childish but farts like there’s nothing as fun as like farting with a tajic guy on the side of the road or something and just getting a lap of like the most simple human things yeah you definitely do I’m so GNA put that quote up no way man I’m gonna I’m going to so put that quote up with a picture on the gram nothing quite connects you with it to jigar man like swapping farts exactly I think that’s the really cool thing you get to experience obviously neither of us have a lot of language skills so we have to cope with just like sign language smiles and in the end our needs are usually very basic can we sleep here you can show that pretty easily do you have food for us do you have water yeah it’s pretty cool to see how much you can connect with people without having a shared language other than your body gestures and Body Language hello everyone I just wanted to take a quick moment to say a big heartfelt thank you to all of you listeners who have given me a small Financial donation and supported me on buy me a coffee all of those donations do make a difference they help to support the running cost of this podcast so that I can keep producing episodes for you each week and I really appreciate all of you who’ve clicked on the buy me a coffee link and sent me through a small donation if you are listening and would like to support the show you can do so quite easily I’ve provided a link to buy me a coffee you will find it in the show notes if you click on that link and you can choose to buy me a coffee which again is just a small donation which helps towards the running cost of the show thank you all so much okay now let’s go back to the show did you see then also like there are you know there’s so many things that make us difference but there’s so much more that shows us that we are the same did you feel more connected having experience that so starkly yeah 100% maybe in the beginning when we left I could have said we’re going to explore new cultures but as the journey went on I’ve maybe become a bit more resistant towards cultures and kind of more excited of exploring the human Nest beneath those cultures cultures are kind of like the ultimate Cults they tell you how to behave and how to be because you’re part of some culture you’re born somewhere and this is like how you out to be but beneath that there’s the humanness the one who wants to laugh about the farts regardless where you’re from and that was really cool to see like how we are all the same regardless what background we have regardless where we’re from what kind of lives we’re living we have the same basic needs we want to be held and heard and loved and it’s you know Universal Being Human and then on top of that we have all this pscho you live in a nicer house and you have opportunities to travel further or do that or that but in the end there’s this very rooted human aspect down beneath that you can kind of maybe get in touch with more when you don’t have that shared language or that shared shallow culture it’s very early on in your film like very very early on when you’re explaining the concept of why you’re even doing the trip and people are saying oh what are you going to do in Singapore where what will you do there and and you say the journey is the destination it’s not about Singapore it’s about everything that happens all along the way and these sort of things that we’re talking about now Valu you know when I said at the start and you said these trips change you these Journeys and experiences change you they’re sort of the learnings that you can only benefit from having undertaken this it was unknown that’s a real case in point of the journey is the destination exactly yeah you only realize that on the journey itself like oh we’re not trying to get anywhere we’re not trying to be anything we’re not seeking anything because if you start seeking something like if we had a plan how we want to grow or what we want to see or what we want to do already in Finland then you make the expectation that you know enough of the future to know what to look for you go looking for you know silver on a beach with a silver detector not knowing there’s actually gold there and you’ll never find the gold because you’re looking for or something else yeah kind of getting that open mindset as early on as possible and not looking for a certain experience or to get like we didn’t really in the end mind so much do we get to Singapore or not because it just started being like a Sandbox for learning the whole journey like we can try out new things do our thing and we’re on this journey that’s between Finland and Singapore the world is kind of like Disney World where we can play and be nice and kind and share fun experiences with people we would normally never meet or have experiences with it became like a I don’t know like a general house cleansing of the Mind the the journey itself it reminds me there’s a quote I came across from you actually Valu and it was if everything meets your expectations life is pretty boring that’s that case right there in point is it I wonder are you the sort of person that revisits a place that goes back to something that you experienced before were there places that you went through on this journey that you’d like to return to or is it a case that you always seek new experiences because again you already know what’s there and you want to learn you want to keep things fresh yeah well the Buddhist thing goes you can’t step in the same river twice or I’m not sure if it’s Buddhist or somebody says that but um I can never again go to the same place for example uh because I won’t be the same person who was there before but definitely um yeah Tajikistan I want to go back there as a place uh there’s lots of experiences to be had I think it’s a place where I can easily get real Adventure it’s a place where I can be certain I have no clue what will happen tomorrow yeah and then maybe I don’t know Thailand or Malaysia I could go back to those places maybe on a holiday but there’s a much more certainty much less adventure maybe on for example on a biking tour because you have incredible beaches super friendly people great infrastructure good food and there’s not a lot of room for challenge for stuff to go wrong and that’s like when we came to Southeast Asia we realized like wow this cycling is a pretty easy now punctures they don’t make it to the diary anymore what used to be like a challenge for us now is like pretty you know every day we’ve got into the routine of having you know some setbacks and we’re like okay how do we make this interesting how do we get some challenge how do we get something new out of this okay let’s see what happens if we don’t eat for 48 hours okay let’s fast for 48 hours and continue cycling you’re like whoa this is challenging for sure wow it sort of goes back to what we were talking about very early in the show about seeking your physical limitations sometimes but you’re you’re looking at putting yourself into a place of discomfort on purpose and you’re seeking personal growth from that as well aren’t you yeah and I don’t know is it a bit like masochistic or where it lies is it a healthy habit it might go with the age of you know being 27 and wanting to grow and have new experiences uh and at some point maybe in my life I want to settle down and be more in comfort and have a bit more certainty over the future which will obviously never happen but um yeah I think it once we got this ultimate freedom on the road it can really easily become like a endless Buffet of just shallow experiences and to get that depth you need kind of Challenge and something new going on and I think the world is enough places where you can challenge yourself for a lifetime here can I just say I’m such a food lover you know I often think there’s two types of people in this world valo there’s people who food is what you need to put into your body to fuel you to survive and then there’s people like Bella me where it’s like food is life you you know it’s what we celebrate with it’s what we do it yeah and it’s like a art form yeah so I don’t think like oh look of course I could survive 48 hours without it but I wouldn’t want to um I don’t know that I can take that type of Challenge on I so going superficial here then I’ve done this a couple of times already but um what was that first meal that you had after 48 Hours like do you remember what you had well the rule of thumb is like don’t stuff yourself because your you know your stomach has uh shrinked a bit and you can you know get pretty uncomfortable if youve taken a huge meal so I did exactly that I had like a big fish burger or something something and felt pretty bad after it your sense of hunger goes away around after after you hit into this ketosis so like after 12 24 hours you lose the sense of hunger and then you’re not even like so stoked about the first meal but more maybe you’re yeah quite stoked about like the first flavors hitting your tongue so Gregory the French guy he had a piece of Mandarin and he really like devoured that Mandarin he loved just the experience of like having it yeah so I should have maybe followed his footsteps instead of being like I’m going to get the biggest baddest meanest burger and then be like oh that was horrible oh that would be so me i’ I’d so be like you Val mind you you talk about amandin and if I was to describe the flavor it freshness that beautiful burst of citrus you sort of feel like it’s nutrient for your soul exactly yeah we mentioned Gregory there the Frenchman and this again goes with the idea that nothing is planned with your trip and set in stone like you you finished your trip as a team of three didn’t you how did that come to be well it started as joke in a bar in bokara in Nepal which is like the base camp for a lot of different hikes and uh mountains in Nepal and I was with Gregory a guy I met on the anera circuit and we were in a bar and he was like ah what you guys are doing is super cool I told him you should join us and uh he’s like yeah for sure what leg should I do on my like just Bangkok to Singapore that’s a nice like because he was going to Thailand anyways he’s like perfect when are you going to be there I was like I don’t know maybe December January and then December comes along and the dude messages me on Instagram after like two months of radio silence like yo I just arrived in Bangkok I’m buying my bike when are you guys arriving I’m like wow we’re going to be there in two weeks so two weeks he went cycling around the city prepared himself got himself a helmet and uh yeah hit the road with us and that was a super blessing in disguise and really yeah gave the trip a whole new Vibe and kind of initiated the honeymoon mode again because you have somebody who’s never done cycle touring in their life and they’re super stoked about everything and the first puncture is like you know uh really exciting and and that just overflows to us and then as a person he’s a really humorous guy he doesn’t dive into the deep mindfulness stuff uh he keeps like fun and it gave a really good fun vibe to the last month of cycling and we got to learn through him and with him and yeah his just a joy of Life overflowed to us fire fins pretty well yeah I mean I’m I’m smiling just hearing you say that CU that’s what I got from him on the film like you can just see yeah he brought humor and a different type of energy to the team of two I’m not saying that you and Alvis didn’t have humorous Moments by any measure but yeah just seemed to be like that extra bit the third musketeer as he called himself too exactly and after seven months of being just me and Alvis you know we’ve kind of explored a lot of the themes and conversations that can be had so the dynamic wasn’t so energetic between us anymore but then this french guy Pops in full of energy we switch our language from Finnish to English and just a whole new Dynamic uh in the trio emerges and uh yeah he has a hammock because as a joke we told him to get a hammock instead of a tent so now every evening we have to find a spot with two trees or two lamp post for him to put his H in uh with no rain tarp so if it’s raining we have to find like a cave or a bus stop where he can sleep under the shed so that also added fun new spicing to every evening but yeah what a serendipitous moment to just have even met him in a bar on the anapon circuit yeah what was it like then to just reach that Final Destination point of sing PA did it feel surreal did it feel antimima were you wishing that it would never come you wanted the trip to just stay on forever or were you ready to bring things to a close with this journey yeah that’s like a wonderful question but always super hard to vocalize because it’s such a rush of new emotions new chemicals so much conflict in your brain not wanting to you know cross the border into Singapore because the most incredible journey of your life is coming to an end and in a way it’s the G gravestone of the adventure while again it’s you know you can be incredibly proud of yourself you can celebrate appreciate what you’ve done reflect when we were crossing from Malaysia to Singapore we were on the highway and there’s a shot actually on the documentary where everybody’s uh giving their horn because we were going so slow and there were scooters behind us we made a team like oh everybody’s celebrating us let’s go and um the day penned out that we went first to the Finnish Embassy where we had a nice Gathering and got some Finnish beers and had like people who had followed our journey but not really anybody we truly knew and then a journalist followed us through the day as we cycle like to Marina Bay Sands like the center of the city and you know we shared with her learnings from the journey and we had our cameras rolling and we were like a this is the last piece of footage we need to film everything and you know we take cool photos and everything’s like nice but it’s kind of like no emotions are really rolling in you haven’t really understood what’s going on because you’re kind of still living through the camera you’re sharing you’re verbalizing the experience you’re telling yeah this was our favorite country and we did this and this and then Gregory he was staying in a different place than us so he leaves off to his warm showers and me and Alvis are then at the Bayfront we had stolen some beers from the Finish Embassy and the journalist leaves and all the cameras are now away and then we just break out into emotion and tears and just Tak in what’s just gone through and only then once we were like alone and without the cameras rolling we could fully kind of comprehend where we are what we’ve just done what kind of Journey lies behind us but it required kind of that space to just like remember that the experience is always primary and then you know friendship secondary and documentary the third thing on the list yeah just settling down and kind of letting go fully of trying to be like oh we’re in Singapore I’m supposed to feel this way let’s celebrate I’m so proud of myself for trying to analyze how you’re feeling instead of just being the experience itself and letting those chemicals be released in your brain it would it would almost feel superficial when you were there with the journalist but it was those rural moments that you had alone with each other where the emotions come out where you’re really feeling the impact of what you both have gone through I guess this is the beauty of traveling together in this way while your experiences and your perceptions of what’s happened is your own individual thoughts you have shared memories and experiences so you forever will be able to connect and there’ll be something weird you’ll you know you’ll smell something or the light will shine on a tree in a weird way and you go oh my gosh and Alvis do you remember when we were here or you will get the second puncture in a row on a day and go wow this takes me back to the wack on Valley or whatever you know and you’ve got someone who you can connect with so deeply there more than you know an image on a camera lens or something like that too and they gifts that you’ve given yourself from taking on such a journey which you can’t plan for it’s such a beautiful thing I do want to ask you it’s a question I do ask people because it is such a massive trip when someone says oh tell me about your trip it’s like where do you even start and I got this idea from an awesome guest Jack Greenwood who went right through South America and he again traveled a lot of this journey with one of his friends and he said I think the best question asked someone isn’t about tell me about the whole of your trip it’s tell me about one day of your trip and I want to ask you this question here Val tell me about one day of your trip take me and the listeners there put us in your shoes what happened on this day can be in any country any moment you want but take us there oh wow that’s a tough one there’s so many different kinds of days to choose from from like sickness to funny moment to uh yeah maybe yeah I’ll take us back to Tajikistan just because I love the country so much such a gem of a place and wack Valley actually another day there the day before we ran out of water or yeah a few days before the day of extreme dehydration but um we were cycling in Wacom Valley where we thought we would meet no other people because um there shouldn’t be any housing there or much going on and as we’re cycling through we see this little cottage hidden behind a mountain off the main road and we’re like what’s going on here maybe we should check it out because we don’t definitely don’t have enough food to last us for the whole valley maybe we can buy some we go there and we knock on the door and we suspect it’s abandoned but then the old woman and man let us in and uh have us take a seat on their couch and they ask where are we from we say Finlandia like ah sauna they have a sauna in their home and right away the old woman goes and starts heating it up and we’re like wow this is wild uh we’re in the middle of wack Valley and there’s a finished sauna then the man brings us some uh soup and we have a little bit of soup and then we’re able to wash ourselves in their sauna then they start telling about Marco Polo and obviously is like oh yeah we’re on the Silk Road like Marco Polo traveled here they’re like yeah Marco Polo this and Marco Polo that in Russian and we’re just nodding kind of like acting like we’re making sense what they’re saying and we’re creating this narrative in our mind oh Marco Polo must have traveled through here he must have been in the walkon valley and then they make a gesture of oh we shot Marco Polo I’m like what Marco Polo died here somebody shot him here we’re Bamboozled and they’re wondering why we’re so Bamboozled and then they point to the wall and there’s a huge painting of this mountain goat and they say Marco po Po and we realized oh Marco polos are mountain goats uh and uh have a good laugh and they realized that we thought that they were talking about Marco Polo the Explorer and then as we’re about to leave their son arrives and it’s uh September 1st and the hunting season runs from I think September to January and he had just made the first kill of a Marco Polo this season and had it or the pieces of meat on the back of his truck and before we leave goes into the garage takes an Axe and comes out with a huge bag of 3 kilos of meat for us like Marco Polo filet I’m like oh no we don’t know what to do with this like uh where do we put it we don’t have a fridge or anything so we take this filet put it on the back of our bikes and continue cycling and realize we have to eat this today because it’s so warm that it’s going to get you know the meat’s going to go bad and we realize there’s zero trees there’s nothing that we can burn we definitely not going to like cook it on cow poop what uh is pretty much the only thing available and then we find an old shed where the door has fully broken down um there’s nothing there and realize we can burn parts of the door uh that’s like in pieces on the ground and we figure okay we make a little fire we take our extra spokes uh that we had as spare parts and we make Little Marco Polo pieces onto the spoke so we make skewers always had some salt from from like a saltwater lake in Turkey still in his bike as like a souvenir we used that as the salt and then um we had some proper Marco Polo which was yeah pretty nice what a story forever now whenever you see a mountain goat you just go Marco Polo like Marco Polo yeah exactly I have to ask this is the day before the day on wack Valley did Marco Polo make you sick no this was like two days before the next day we cycled there was one stream and there was cows next to the stream and we wondered should we hike all the way above the cows I’m like nah it was more like a you know like a Gorge it was really rushing the water we figured ah there’s so much water can’t be contaminated even though there was like a bunch of cows right next to it and we drank from that and we didn’t have any water purification tablets or filters or any of that stuff that now we figured could have been a good idea and our stomachs had been fine so long so we had confidence with that yeah my stomach went a little bad after that that water bad water will do it unfortunately yeah not to say that it is a given but I don’t know that you could take a journey from Helsinki to Singapore and get away without without a batch of diarrhea or food poisoning or something along the way somewhere so yeah it all adds to The Experience on that on that other day in wack Valley yeah listeners to the show will have heard us talk about your film a few times if people want to follow you and actually piece the bits of your conversation with the visuals what’s the best way of finding that it’s out on YouTube what’s the YouTube channel it’s under alvar’s YouTube channel Alvar POA it’s just called curious pedals pedals like cycling pedals not like flower pedals and also yeah you can find it through through our Instagram curious pedals those are probably the best way to follow our future Adventures as well will definitely keep on coming I think and actually I mean before I wind the show up here Val I do want to touch on something on a little bit of a name plate on Curious pedals you you did take something which you called curious paddles on I mentioned it in my introduction standup paddle boarding between Sweden and Finland and actually I know you’ve also done the same through the cook straight the north and south island of New Zealand both of those Journeys are no joke wow like is this another case of you seeking out that physical challenge yeah I think it’s kind of that physical challenge as well as just getting kind of especially on the Baltic Sea trip uh the mental space to be alone travel alone for once do something that you know puts my body to the test every day I’m going towards something kind of like a micro version of the Singapore trip because uh every day you have to figure out where do I sleep where do I get water how do I survive through this day trusting your body to move forward and finally arriving at some destination but the destination itself has zero value other than that’s kind of where the journey ends yeah it started as a joke as when we were kayaking in Cambodia like ha we’re like Curious paddles now I was like huh curious paddles and then I was like I haven’t been in the ocean much before I could explore maybe that somehow this summer to have kind of something to look forward to in The Angst of having our Singapore trip finished yeah the idea started and I ended up getting a paddle board and paddling that nice little body of water nice little body of water just downplay it a little bit what an experience and again it’s an Insight if it’s anything I’ve learned from chatting to you today it is just you do yearn those it’s like a it’s a challenge it’s a quest but also pushing towards a goal pushing towards an unknown what’s going to happen during this journey how am I going to deal with it this is really what energizes you my gosh I can only imagine the adventures that are ahead of you there you have hinted that you’ve got some plans and I’m definitely going to keep an eye out to see what they are Someone Like You Val I don’t think you could I don’t think you could be content sitting through each week each day without plotting something and I definitely know the outdoors is what energizes you for sure yeah but I do like to say because I obviously understand everybody can’t go and you know hop on a bike for eight months people have responsibilities famili so Adventures can happen in in many ways having a kid can be quite the adventure of a lifetime you know having to raise someone into this wild world there’s many ways of of doing adventures and having adventures and yeah I don’t think I’ll ever be content with like extreme comfort and just a lot of certainty in life but not necessarily always uh will the adventures be like uh some crazy cross the world biking Journeys they might be taking a job that I would have never taken on and seeing where that takes me and a job that where I don’t know what will happen tomorrow I think that’s um the coolest part of the journeys is embracing the uncertainty that is there the wisdom that these sort of Journeys have given you that give you this Outlook as well The Devil’s Advocate onto myself um it’s good to yeah get enough like I did this 10day vipasana meditation the silent meditation you mentioned and I was like oh 10 days it’s such a long time couldn’t we just you know can’t I learn the tools in just a few days and then I realized 10 days is definitely the minimum time to kind of get your mind uh sticky enough to take in the learnings of of the experience so there’s something about like uh getting away from distractions and the noise of society for prolonged periods of time that opens up the opportunity for immense personal growth again it’s the other end of the spectrum it’s not the physical challenge of enduring something physical that’s giving you this personal growth it’s it’s the challenge gosh listeners to the show you can tell I’m an extrovert I’m a talker I Val I said I don’t think I could go 48 hours without food that would be a challenge 10 days of Silence wow probably be some people happy to not hear me for 10 days well Val I am going to bring this to a close and there’s three quick questions that I ask each of my guests to wrap the show up with the first one is music related there is a seek travel ride music playlist now and it can consists of one song chosen by each guest that has recorded an interview on the podcast and you get to now add to that and the question is what song would you pick to be the soundtrack to your adventure oh I hope it’s not on there yet but Henry texier he’s a French basist uh who we both very much enjoyed list during the journey and uh his ah it’s a French word I’m not good with French but let P like l e and then p i r o guu i e r and that’s uh also in our documentary I think in Tajikistan um it kind of has the vibe and beat the vibe of our journey and kind of the beat and the Rhythm and uh the flow kind of reflects on what we felt cycling to Singapore awesome well you are there you’re now added and listeners you can find the playlist there on Spotify and apple and I have got a link in the show notes as well this playlist is now over 4 hours long and it’s so eclectic I love it I hear each song and I go on my guest’s Journeys so it always leaves me with wonderlust which is awesome you don’t know what’s next you can have something that’s quite somber and then something that’s almost like drum and bass it takes you to the roller coaster of emotions of a long distance tour for sure do you still remember who uploaded which one I proudly do and I I have it as a challenge I think this is interview number 75 maybe once I get to you know 175 that might be a bit more of a challenge we’ll see wow final question for you Val or final two questions but they are quick ones the first one I reckon I know the answer to this but anyway I have to ask it you were given the choice one day Val you can ride your bike up a constant never ending hill climb or instead into a constant headwind which one are you going to choose headwind yeah you’re passion is where your pain is I think that would be I need to become content with the wind and I can’t become content with it if I don’t experience it I had an inkling that you were going to say headwind for this reason because when we were mentioning headwind and how they were mental suffering and it was such a battle and something to overcome I thought you know Val likes overcoming stuff and learning and I reckon he’s going to choose the headwind welcome to team headwind there’s only about 5 to 10% of you of the guests on this this team yeah I love your answer that’s awesome all right valo final question one day you given the choice you’re only going to be cycling for 4 hours but you can choose to cycle for four hours on your own or for four hours with other people are you going to be on your alone or with others right now I choose with others yeah I’ve been alone long enough on uh in New Zealand on the trails so I wouldn’t mind learning from other people and tapping into their mind and asking what kind of Dad issues are they having to deal with be cycling here with me awesome oh my gosh I love these answers and I love that you know yourself to know which of those you require at the time like you know it might be 5 months down the track you want to be on your own in your own thoughts again the thoughts that you didn’t want to be served up you can’t choose them exactly Val H it has been an absolute pleasure to speak with you and to learn more about your journey I am certainly energized hearing about the experiences that you’ve had hearing how they’ve transformed you and I’ve taken a few learnings away as well I perhaps will always look at goats and call them Marco Polo now and in the Pyrenees we have a few very apt mountain goats around as well thank you so so much for sharing your story and experiences here on seek travel ride thank you and let me know if you’re H Ever around in wanica let’s go seek and travel and ride the nature here I’m super energized having just spoken with Val there and hearing about his experiences on this awesome trip it really struck me just how much he has taken away from this journey from the ability to process his own thoughts to being mindful to even the idea that you would set yourself extra manyi challenges just to push yourself to see what you can do sometimes I think it takes going on such a big journey to get the self assuredness and that belief in yourself as well I was just captiv ated hearing him discuss this and also to be able to sort of drill into what’s it like to take a journey with a really good friend and how that friendship evolved over time the balance of having Gregory the Frenchman join and just having that extra Dynamic come in at the seventh month Mark and how that lifted and changed the sort of vibe between the group as well it was really really awesome I encourage you fully to check out the Curious pedals documentary film on this it’s out there on YouTube and I have provided a link in these show notes as well thank you Val I’m looking forward to seeing what’s ahead of you around the corner if you’re enjoying seek travel ride make sure to sign up to the seek travel ride monthly newsletter in it I share who our future guests are going to be a little bit about our past guests and also news from within our community letting you know how you can get involved in the podcast to sign up just click on on the newsletter sign up link in the show notes and you will have fresh seek travel ride news delivered straight to your inbox each month until the next episode I’m Bella Malloy thanks for listening [Music]