This is part 2 of Fergal Guihen’s travel adventure from Roscommon, Ireland to Sydney, Australia. You can listen to Part 1 here. (https://www.seektravelride.com/podcast-ep-144/)
In Part 2 of his ride from Ireland to Australia, Fergal Guihen shares what it took to push through freezing nights in China, a terrifying attack and being suspected as being a spy in Iran, discovering Afghanistan, and tackling the Ha Giang loop in Vietnam.
Fergal also speaks about how he has dealt with the loneliness he has felt many times on his journey and how doing what he says he is going to do like cycling to the top of Mt Bromo in Indonesia, has given him the confidence to continue his journey all the way to Sydney.
Follow Fergal’s adventureon Instagram @rossi_to_aussie (https://www.instagram.com/rossie_to_aussie/)
Donate to Fergal’s fundraiser for suicide prevention Mayo Roscommon Hospice & NorthWest Stop: (https://www.idonate.ie/fundraiser/RossietoAussie)
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You know, I’m here in the middle of Iran. I’m recovering with seven stitches in my foot. I have Afghanistan ahead of me. Never could I have ever imagined a scenario like this, but at that time, it’s like almost as hard to go backwards as it as it is to go forwards. And I just knew as soon as I get the green light to that I can leave the hotel and cycle again. I knew once I start to make, you know, one footstep, then two footsteps, once I start to make progress again, things will get easier. Welcome to Seek Travel Ride, where we share the stories and experiences of people taking 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 listeners. [Music] Hello listeners. Now, if you are tuning into the podcast as a brand new listener, you are about to hear part two of the interview which I conducted with amazing adventurer Fergle Gwen. Do yourself a favor, go into the podcast show notes and make sure you click on part one to hear how Fergle set out on this journey and then come back and listen to this episode. For those of you who tuned into part one, you can now enjoy the rest of my discussion with Fergle as we continue talking about what it was like making his way through the rest of China on the Tibetan plateau through grim winter temperatures and then crossing over into the hot and humid landscapes of Southeast Asia as well. And Ferg will bring us up to date with where his adventure left him there in Dilly Telestee. Okay, let’s get into part two of Fergle Gwen’s amazing journey from Rossy to Aussie. The other thing that comes with traveling through China Fergle in certain areas is the police awareness of you being there of where you are allowed and not allowed to be as well. There’s times where you’ve got police escorts. I know there’s times where as a foreigner you may not be allowed to stay in certain establishments or maybe you are but the people who run the hotels are scared of you staying there so then they call the police on you. You had to deal with that element of China as well, didn’t you? Yeah, that was from the get-go. in China obviously it’s very very different to any country I was in when I said about the language barrier but also about uh the level of security and the province that I would have started in China. So people either start from like the Soua Asia site or they start from the like stands and cross into the Xinyang province. And I think a lot would go through Kazakhstan or Kuryasan Kazakhstan and then do a little bit of this Xinyang province. But for me I did an entire length because they had to get where my bicycle was where the girls left it off. And it was six weeks cycling through the Takamaka desert. And the thing is in this region it’s where the weaguer people are and they’re ethnic Muslims of this uh region in China and there was a lot of history with it. I won’t really get into it but basically there’s a lot of surveillance for foreigners that are in this part of China. So for me cycling every single day we had undercover police cars following us and it was very scary at the time. you know, you don’t know if your social media is being watched. They don’t know if they’re watching you all the time, if they can see messages on your WeChat chat, which is what you use in China. And uh anytime I went to camp, they would show up out of nowhere and they would be like, “No, you can’t camp here.” And they’d make force us to go to a hotel or they’d make us camp at the police station. So, after a while, we obviously got used to this happening to us. And we started to, you know, have a bit of a standoff with them where we were like, “Okay, well, we’re not going to a hotel unless you’re paying for it.” And after maybe, you know, a half hour standoff, they’d eventually pay for our hotel. So, that that was great. But, uh, at one stage, we’re like, “Okay, no, we want to camp tonight.” So, it was about to get dark. It was, uh, the sun was about to set and we went down a slip road that a car could follow us and we could see the police car following us undercover. So, we went down a road that couldn’t follow us. Uh, right as it was getting dark and put up our tents and that was grand. We had a good night’s sleep or whatever. But the next morning, we went to a restaurant for breakfast and this woman comes running out from the restaurant and she like takes her phone out and she writes in Google Translate. She shows us us what she said and she said, “Everyone in the village was looking for you until 2:00 a.m. last night. There’s bears and wolves in this region.” But the thing is I I don’t believe there is bears and wolves in this in this region, but it’s just what the police kind of tell people to increase that security. And I I don’t really know, but I know I know for certain there was no bears and wolves near us. And yeah, it was crazy that people were up all night searching for us. So thankfully, we had a good camp spot. But this is just one story that how the rest of the time through this province went. And you can imagine the fears you have uh especially on social media cuz I would be you know taking videos of the police and everything. So yeah carried on and the worst thing is you would drive to a hotel and next thing oh this hotel doesn’t accept foreigners. So it was very frustrating and yeah it was so foreign you didn’t know what was happen. You never got answers. Um so you’d arrive at the hotel and next thing you check in. You get into your hotel room. Next thing I’d see the blue lights shining on the roof of uh my bedroom because it would be the police siren outside. That’s on. And then we’d know straight away that we’d have to move hotel or to be coming in to check our passport. So yeah, different challenges. Every every part of my journey has had its own challenges. I remember one time with the challenge with the police escorts there Fergle and I can’t recall whether or not you were in a hotel beded down for the night and then they turned up or whether they had taken you out of town and then said no you got to continue on but you had to they they forced you to ride on 50 km in the night. It’s -6 and it got to worse. I think your phone died because it was so cold the battery died on you. And you had to do 50 km in the night in these grim temperatures to get to another town where the police weren’t waiting. And then you hook up into a hotel and then all of a sudden the police turn up there because they’ve been alerted to you. Like you can reflect on it and tell the story about it now, but in the moment that must have been like, “Oh my goodness, what am I doing?” Like to put it a different way, Fergle, how many times along this journey, would you have nearly had the out of- body experience of looking on yourself going, “What the WTF?” Like, what’s going on? Oh, that was every single day in China, you had that you had that moment. But also in Afghanistan, you’re like, “What am I doing here? Cycling on my bicycle through it.” But the with that in China, that was desperate. Like I was after camping out inus 22°. The only reason I think I slept or survived that night is because where we camped was right beside a Buddhist temple and there was a monk that lived in this tiny little shack like not fit for anyone but himself. And he came out and gave me a blanket in the middle of the night and if he didn’t give me that there was no way I would have like really survived that night uh in Adibis comfortable. But then we packed up that next morning and we climbed to the top of uh I think it was 3,500 uh meter elevation and like I was struggling to to breed. It was still you know middle of the day but it was still – 10 – 12° and there was people selling uh snow leopard uh pelts at the top. So, we were talking to them for a while and then we descended a small bit and when we got to this little village, we go in for um for some food in a restaurant, but as soon as we do, a police car sees us. And apparently the mountain that we’re on is not permitted for any foreigners to be there. So, we’re in this kind of excluded region that foreigners can’t go. And the police were pretty much saying, “You can’t stay here. You need to go.” And we’re like, “Okay, well, we’ll cycle.” And they’re like, “No, no, you need to get in our police car.” So, this is where you’re having one of those Mexican standoff moments and you’re like, “No, you want to cycle as much as you can, but the police here are so adamant and you put up a flight, but eventually these police put us in their police car, but they only take us maybe 40 km and let us out and then we have a long descent.” So, we’re going, “Oh, great. We can we can cycle.” And they’re like, “At the bottom of this ascent, there’s going to be more policemen waiting for you.” So, we’re like, “Okay, right. Well, we need to make it to the policemen.” They said, “You can’t camp along the way. The policeman will come looking for you.” And bear in mind, at this stage, it was just about to get dark. It was sunset. It was -16° and we were left descending like you’re going whatever 30 km an hour in -6° heat or weather. You’re so cold. Like your fingers are almost falling off. They’re that cold. And we had to descend for maybe like 50 kilometers. And it was the worst experience. like you would be trying to do it fast to get there quicker, but the faster you went, the colder you would be. And there was no all around us. It was down through this valley. And when we get down to this town, there was no police waiting for us. We we were there like, “Where’s the police station? No police waiting for us.” And then we’re like, “Okay, it’s so cold. We see a hotel. Let’s go and check into the hotel.” We get to the hotel and the reception lady’s like, “Oh, no tourists can be here.” She straight away calls the police. The police come to us and then we have to tell the police how the other policeman told us that you were waiting for us. But what pretty much happened was the policeman just wanted us out of their region so that we’d enter a new region and them policemen would have to deal with us. So the policeman screwed us over in making us cycle down 50 km in that cold judge could not be met by policemen and then for them policemen to then have to deal with us. So, long story short, we were then had to be put into a car at 2:00 a.m. and driven to the nearest town, which was Gini, uh, which was 100 km away. And, yeah, it was a pity not to be able to cycle this, but just we still have no reasons why foreigners can’t enter this region. And now, at the end of the day, we didn’t get mad at anyone. It’s not the policeman’s fault that we couldn’t be there. It’s just the protocol for that region. But at the time, you’re thinking, what is happening? And even right now looking back, I still have more questions than answers. Were there ever moments there where you just thought, you know what, Fergle out? I just want to get out of China now and I don’t want to deal with this or I want to get to a different region. I don’t want to be dealing with this. In fact, I’ll take you away from China. I want to take you back to Iran. Iran was a country that had huge hospitality overwhelmingly for you. And it’s one where if people come across a post and you you’re talking about Iran or if people ask you questions, you will say, “Iran’s the first country I’d want to go back to cuz the hospitality I experienced from those people was immense.” But you had a I would say a significant event occur to you in Iran that would probably give a lot of people in your situation pause for wanting to continue. You were attacked. I think you were drugged, ended up in hospital, not well at all and and things occurred there. The way that you talk about that event now, Fergle, is you separate that event from Iran itself and the people of Iran itself, and you talk about that as an incident, but I want to, if it’s okay, spend some time with that and actually understand what happened and and how did you motivate yourself to potentially continue on your journey when you had a forced pause because bad stuff’s happened to you on the road? because it’s not all blue sky unicorns and fairy tales and certainly when you’re talking about China there. It certainly wasn’t that when you’re descending s you know in grim freezing cold weather but I I’d like to understand the psyche of what’s going through Fergle’s mind when stuff like that happens. Yeah. Um so Iran was uh just one of those things where you’re letting yourself be so vulnerable every single day to experience the country to its fullest. And unfortunately, and I would say this was a one ina million chance that I did come across one bad person that did try to take advantage of me. And uh to give pretext, which I always do, is how amazing Iran is. Like to this day, it’s the one country of my entire uh journey I want to return to. people I met, the culture around every single corner, getting offered food and water out the uh window of moving cars and just being invited into everyone’s home um along the way. But it was when I was um I think I was in the country maybe two three weeks at the time and I was leaving the fertile basin and climbing up towards the kind of desert plateau near towards the Afghan border and the scenery was starting to change to more, you know, less trees. So I was, you know, cycling 45° heat. 1:00 p.m. I was looking for a tree to hide under. And as soon as I finally found a tree, a car pulled in beside me. And it’s not, you know, something new. Cars always pull in and hand me stuff. But this guy comes over and he straight away hugs me and kisses me. And I straight away have a bad feeling. And that is something I didn’t really have much at all. But I was thinking, okay, what’s the worst that could happen? So this guy then takes out a Persian carpet out of the bonnet of his uh the boot of his car and he puts it underneath the tree. And then he also opens up his glove box as I’m watching him and he takes out two juice carrots like a capri son. So the two of us sit underneath the tree and I’m thinking he’ll be gone in a second. I start cooking beans for lunch. I have bread and start cooking beans. So he then hands me one of the juice cartons and I drink it and within 1 minute I knew something was wrong. Uh he injected something into the juice carton. I don’t know what exactly but my motor skills started to uh disintegrate. I couldn’t move my hands properly and uh I guess being a nurse I would be very aware of my my own body and very much into fitness. So I straight away started to pack up all my stuff. I started to curse at him and tell him to leave me alone. And I cycle away into the 45 degree heat and uh I’m like almost falling off my bike. I’m just getting more and more disorientated. And I managed to find a place to hide from the sun in a stormer train underneath the road. Uh I can’t even tell you how many kilometers further. I I don’t really remember. And I send my friends a video and I’m pretty much saying how I after being drugged, I’m hiding underneath a road. My friend sitting here back from me for hours. So they call my family. They ring the Irish consulate in Iran and uh in the meantime I’m there in this stormage drain and the guy comes back and he finds me and I’m very disorientated at this time and I’m just holding on to my bicycle and I’m screaming at him to leave me alone and it was definitely the most vulnerable I was because he could really have done anything to me but I still had enough uh cognitive ability to be like able to grab him and pull him to the ground as he’s tried to take stuff from my bicycle and he managed Uh, so in Iran you need to wear trousers everywhere um to respect the the culture and I managed to rip my trousers to steal my wallet. So then I stand up and I’m chasing after him uh while he runs away with my wallet and it’s like a scene from the Wolf of Wall Street where I’m like running but I’m face planting myself. I stand up again, take three steps and face plant myself like I have absolutely no coordination. And I get up on top of the bank and right before his tire, he speeds off and I face plant myself a meter from his wheel. So I start looking at my hands, my legs, and I have a massive cut along my foot. Um, which I must have happened when I was trying to fight him and loads of cuts all over my hand. And I get back to my bicycle and I managed to bring my bike up to the road and a car sees me. And long story short, they see the sale I’m in and bring me to the hospital. So, in the hospital, this is another story. Um, straight away, everyone is apologizing. They’re like, I can’t believe something like this can happen to you in in our country. Like, so apologetic straight away. The radiographers, the consultants, the nurses. And me being a nurse, I work in the emergency department. I’m very comfortable in emergency uh department because that’s where I works back in Ireland. And I end up having to get seven stitches on my foot. And the police come to ask me what happened. And I have the whole thing recorded on my 360 camera. So I have footage of the guy’s car, of his face, of the number plate, of even the juice cartons that he drugged me with. So I showed the police this and great news, they managed to arrest them. But then the question comes, why does this foreigner have all these hidden cameras? So while I was recovering for the next week in a hospital, I was background checks into seeing if I’m a spy. I couldn’t leave where I was. It was a very much a time of like it felt like pog purgatory where I couldn’t go forward and I couldn’t go backwards. I was stuck in this hotel recovering. I couldn’t contact my family properly because of uh VPNs were so bad and uh yeah it was a very much a difficult time but on the back of it there was so many great experiences like the people in the hotel I feel like family now they took care of me so well. I still in contact with the consultants, the radiographers, and I can’t wait to someday return to that hospital and thank them all for taking care of me during that really difficult moment. Yeah. Oh my gosh, that must have been maddening because you know that situation that you I mean, first and foremost, that whole situation, you know, what a what a horrible incident to have had to live through and to have occurred. And I’m really glad that you’ve got the footage so that that person was caught. But then what happens next I think is potentially a lot of bike travelers fears when going through a run like the the misfortune of what if the police decide that maybe I’m a spy and then so you go through that side of things as well and there’s a few bike travelers that are in Iran at the moment who knows what’s going to be happening with them through a similar scenario. I mean, what was that like to to live through and and do you know what convinced them to understand that you were just, you know, freewheeling Fergle going across from Rosie to Aussie? Like, how did how did you get out of that situation? Yeah, I guess that was the hardest time of my entire travels because it was, you know, I’m here in the middle of Iran. I’m recovering with seven stitches in my foot. I have Afghanistan ahead of me. Never could I have ever imagined a scenario like this. But at that time, it’s like almost as hard to go backwards as it as it is to go forwards. And I just knew as soon as I get the green light to that I can leave the hotel and cycle again. I knew once I start to make, you know, one footstep, then two footsteps, once I start to make progress again, things will get easier. And that’s what happened. I just knew once I could move again, things would would get easier. And that’s exactly what happened. I then ended up making it to the city of Mashad and I spent my birthday there which is just about one year ago now and uh it was a very different to how I spent my birthday this year. Very I guess lonely and um foreign time is the best way to explain it. But then I had Afghanistan right after that. And I like I said with the road how it provides I would have met a French and a German cyclist in Iran earlier and we three of us teamed up to take on Afghanistan together and I genuinely think from hearing other people’s experiences in Afghanistan we would not have had as good of a time unless we all teamed up together because we had a great time traveling through the country. Uh it was a very again a very foreign time but a very eyeopening and uh an experience that would stick to me for a long time. Yeah. Cuz I actually think it was when you were in Afghanistan that you first came up onto my radar. the algorithm obviously suggested something to me because the very first thing that I remember distinctly seeing from you sharing Fergle was actually it was one of your stories while you were in Afghanistan and um it was you in I don’t know where but there were three or four kids in a gun turret of an army tank spinning around and it was sort of like this is their playground sort of thing or you know it might not have been but I I sort of pictured like me myself at that age if I was spinning around on something. It was like a merrygoround in my rear era. It was like a metal merry-goround of like not not luxurious playground. Those things were with were were death warrants in themselves. But that to me really starkly put oh my gosh, what’s it like to be a little child growing up in this very war torn country where what you’re playing on, you know, military equipment that’s been left behind a war torn, you know, environment. the the impetus to continue to go through Afghanistan. That that’s an interesting decision in itself, but what was it like experiencing Afghanistan? It’s like going back in time. Um like the children that were playing on the tanks, they were Soviet tanks. Like there’s a piece of history everywhere around each corner. Soviet tanks from the 1960s or ‘ 70s when the Russians were invading. And like you said, it’s a playground to them kids. And everyone’s wearing I forget the name of it, but the long uh kind of dress thing that all the males even wear. You have to wear them toain in Afghanistan. And it’s a even the vibe there. It’s very surreal. There’s a really eerie feeling to there being no women. Um it was you know Iran at least you still seen women in the streets and everything working in the shop but in Afghanistan you know you’d see them at a distance walking from one house to another to get water or something. It’s uh it was a really surreal feeling and um still even with that there was such a sense of like like the first day when we entered the country we entered into a sandstorm. So bear in mind, we didn’t know how it would be received by the Taliban, but also we were being head first into a sandstorm. I never would have seen a scenery like this before in my life. So we get to this first village after cycling for 70, 80 km, and we’re like, “Okay, we need to camp, but we can’t camp cuz it’s too windy.” So the guys at this village, there’s loads of children playing out the front and they’re all mud hut houses everywhere. Like never would have seen the lights anywhere before. And these children are all coming up running around us like really playfully like not intimidate no intimidation at all which is something we did not expect. And they then got few of the like older people from the village and they brought us to um to a mosque where we could uh like sleep inside. But then a guy brought us again further on and brought us into his own uh guest house. So we ended up uh bringing our sleeping bags in there and camping around. That whole evening was incredible. It was a conveyor belt of people coming into the room to talk to us through Google Translate. People were big beards like uh it was the very surreal moment thinking back now how I was very fearful entering Afghanistan, but yes, I was met by such kindness. Like we had such an amazing meal. Like Afghanistan had some of the best food I’ve had on this trip. uh which is something I don’t know if many people say but the bread in Afghanistan I don’t think you’ll ever get nicer bread anywhere but along with that like I had so many great experiences but there is a bit of an underlying experience with that there was no women like the women that cooked our meals there was no sign of them even yeah it was very eerie in that sense it’s hard to know how a woman would experience it either like I don’t know a is it possible for a woman to like if I wanted to go through Afghanist I don’t know. Could I? But also my other question on that Fergle is like I mean I guess you’re only observing what you can see but like is there even like like is it from a certain age there’s no women like you know when the kids are playing together is it like they’re segregated from a young age as well to like little girls can’t play with little boy like you know at like say the age of 10 or something I don’t know like what was your observations from that? That’s the thing with this type of travel. It’s like you come away with more questions than answers. Like Afghanistan is a tribal country. So they have I don’t know how many provinces, 50, 40 or 50 provinces. Uh e even because the Taliban are only recently the government. It’s very hard for them people to follow the rules of the Taliban in each each province like it’s a tribal. So in one province it might be very strict. You know every man has to have their uh has to have a beard to camp shaven. But then I got to another province and there’ll be a man clean shaven next to a Taliban official and he’d be laughing. He’d be gesturing that his friend should be arresting him. So but when it comes to women that’s again it it changes per province. So I don’t have a an answer but at the beginning when I was saying there was children playing at the front of this village there was no women. there was no children girls playing so I don’t know where they were but then when I did get to the place where the Soviet tank the city of Bameyan there was then children uh men uh boys anchors playing together around there so it does differ and that kind of goes in with the Taliban is usually on the streets you see um soldiers that are really young you know you’re thinking 19 20 and the thing is they don’t fully maybe I I I’m only presuming coming here, but they don’t fully align with the values of the Taliban. They just want a job. It’s very hard to have a job in Afghanistan, make money. So, it’s the high up Taliban officials are probably the most misogynistic and the where the evil values come from or the I guess the repressing values to women. But on the street, like they’re happy to get a photo with you. It’s Yeah, it is. I come away with more questions than answers. And I’d love to go back to experience it and understand it better. But at the time, I was so early in my travels that things were happening that I couldn’t even comprehend. And that’s it. All along the way, you’re stimulated by so many things that you can only comprehend what you can comprehend. There’s things happening that I would have noticed that one of the guys I was traveling with didn’t notice. And vice versa. So, I can’t sit here and be like, Afghanistan’s like this when I was only there for a certain amount of weeks. and only experienced it in certain areas. Uh, everyone’s going to come around a different story. So, as a whole, I did enjoy it, but I was traveling with two other Westerners, which did make it easier and at half the brain power that you had to do, like where to camp and what to carry to eat. [Music] Listeners, if you’ve ever done a long day on a bike packing trip or a cycle tour and ended up sitting on the ground, in the grass, or on a rock, well, you know the value of a good camp chair. I personally use the Helenox Chair Zero. I love it because it’s super light, it packs down tiny, and honestly, it makes evenings at camp way more comfortable. Now, I don’t have a discount code for you, but if you’re thinking of picking a camp chair up, hit up my affiliate link, which you’ll find in the show notes. That will help support me and this podcast out at no extra cost to you. Thanks so much. And now back to the episode. Yeah. And it sort of also highlights another thing that your experience is not going to be necessarily what everyone’s experience is going to be either. It’s something that I really feel distinctly as the host of this show speaking to so many different bike travelers is what someone experiences in a country isn’t a guarantee of what everyone that goes to that country will experience and and even people who travel as a team of two like their perspective of how a day went. If I asked one to talk about a day and that same person, the other person to talk about that same day, I get two different stories sometimes because what we remember and how we felt during the time and whether we were feeling good or whether we were feeling sad, that impacts our experiences as well, doesn’t it? And it sort of also to me makes me think about how differently women experience these type of long-distance journeys compared to men as well. Earlier on in the show, Fergle, you were saying how the narrative that was taken on you, you noticed how people were saying it went from you can’t do this to oh only you could do this and you know people saying you can’t go around the world, you’ll die to now you’re nearly there but people have this perspective oh yeah know you can do it but not everyone can do it and that’s an interesting thing to have be able to reflect on but it also makes me reflect on how differently the women I’ve interviewed have experienced the world compared to say the men that I’ve interviewed as well. Yeah. Um I guess women do have to think about so much extra. You know, for me the worst thing is uh debt, but to a woman there’s so many more fears that you can have and things that can happen. And it’s a double-edged sword, isn’t it? Like me and you have talked about this a lot where it’s you want to recommend bicycle touring to everyone like for men and for women but for women there is that extra uh security they have to take and the extra risk but the reward is still so worth it. The experiences you have the scenery you see the people you meet it’s worth taking that risk but it’s still a double-edged sword because it’s still a lot more risk for a woman unfortunately. Yeah. or or it’s a really troubling thing for me to talk about too because I don’t even know if it’s necessarily I know that we experience travel especially on our own differently and I think a lot of it also has to do with extra perceived risk from everyone and everyone perceives it to be extra hard for women as well and so then we have that to sort of wrestle with too and whether one meets the reality or not it’s hard to to say what I would say is if there’s women listening to this podcast for inspiration for their adventures listening to Fergle story and other people’s story and you want to listen to some awesome kick-ass women who’ve done solo travel and get their views on it and how it’s been episodes that I’ll shout out quickly now off the top of my head. Steph Derey, Claire Wyatt, M Halbert, oh my gosh, Vipka Luman, Miriam Belkael, I could go on because I’m very proud to champion the stories of women. Cersa Potty, every woman, Laura Williton, listen to their stories and hear how they’ve experienced it as well is what I would say and hear what their thoughts on traveling solo through many different countries around the world have been. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s through maybe platforms like your own here, this podcast, that people can listen to other travelers that have done it and assess if this is something that they would like to do. And I guess take resources like if I had had a podcast like this before I left if I if I knew about your podcast it would have been brilliant. I would have so many of my fears would have been uh you know I would have had so much confidence in how much this is possible. That’s where my journey is unique is how actually naive I was. But on the far side of it, it’s like brilliant that there is podcasts and people like you that are showing and telling uh what it’s like on these uh journeys. Yeah. Another woman that I’ve just come up with as well, people Tara Weir, her story is amazing, too. Okay, I’m going to change tactic. Wow, Fergle, this is a mega episode. And listeners, there’s a there’s a potential that you’re listening to this in two parts. And if you are, thank you for holding on. Gosh, where do I take you to now, Fergle? There’s so many places in the world I could take you to. I know you’re in East Teeour or Teeour Lee there in Dilly. I want to take you to Northern Vietnam. I want to take you You’ve You’ve traveled through China now and you’re in northern Vietnam. And I want to take you to the Hajang Loop. I I’m not sure how you pronounce it. How do you pronounce it? The Hang Loop. Yeah. Oh, there we go. That was something that you were really looking forward to doing when you got there. What is this loop and and what was it like to actually be there and do it? So for me before I left Ireland I knew I’d be passing through Vietnam and I said if I was to arrive in Vietnam I would 100% take on the Hang Loop. So uh I would have seen friends traveling all around Southeast Asia for you know the year I was cycling or the years previous. And the Hang Loop is famous to tourists for how unbelievable scenery. Like it’s the most scenic place you could visit. Unfortunately when I was there it was a bit overcast but it was still incredible. like rice fields going through villages um like Vietnamese villages with people out making different types of crafts. They have the traditional wear. It was a very unique experience and everyone comes away from it loving it because uh most people do it by motorbike. So that’s the done thing. Uh tourists come, they spend three nights, four days on a motorbike going around this loop. But I uh I don’t know when I left Ireland if I said I’d do it by bicycle. But by the time I did get to uh Northern Vietnam, I said, “Okay, I’ve confident enough on a bicycle, I’ll take it on.” And uh I thought it might take more than, you know, four 4 days cuz that’s how long it takes a motorbike, but me on a bicycle, it take a bit longer. But there’s an Irish girl who worked in a hostel there, and she offered up free accommodation in all the places uh of the hostel that they had along the loop. So the first day I cycled far enough to make it to the first hostel. So I would have met everyone that left on their motorbikes that day, the 60 70 odd people. And I had such a great night with them. It was like drinking happy water, which is rice wine that the local Vietnamese people drink there. And I mean, you don’t just have one. You have about 10 of them. And there’s a whole chance that they go along with it, the the Vietnamese uh people sing. So, uh, bear in mind there’s also a lot of Vietnamese people doing it, too, because all the motorbike riders are Vietnamese men. So, they’re obviously you’re you’re experiencing it along with Vietnamese people. So, I have a great night. It’s a mix of endurance. It’s a mix of uh fun, drinking, partying. Uh, so it’s everything I kind of want, but it’s hard to sustain that. But the next morning I wake up and I’m like, “Okay, the next home stay is 60 70 km away, 2,000 m elevation.” I was like, “Oh jeez, I’m very hung over, but maybe I can make it.” And I really wanted to meet the same people I met the night before. So, I I managed to do it. So, that was two days. Then I I did 2,000 m elevation consecutively, and I was up drinking all night again, drinking happy water, having fun. And then the next morning rolled around and I was like, “Can I do it? Can I do a three three nights in a row? H can I make it to the next homestead? So the next day I managed to do another 2,000 m elevation gain uh over and I mean these are steep steep roads. These are like 15 to 20 25 degree um an addition um steepness and you’re I I haven’t even talked about the scenery like you’re looking down over rice fields and thankfully I have a drone that captures it all like beautifully and uh only for me I’m so bad at sharing stuff I I need to start uh I have so much footage but I need to start sharing more of it and I managed to arrive then to the next um homeay again and the same thing again having the mix of endurance, the mix of cycling through this very foreign place, interacting with the locals too cuz it’s through these little villages where you’d stop and have dinner. Uh you’d be playing with the kids and then at the end of the day you’d be there with some people. There was people from Ireland, people from France, Netherlands, and being able to drink with them at the end of the day and talk to the easy riders that are Vietnamese people. So, it really is a special experience and I think a lot of the tourists that do go to travel around Southeast Asia, the Hajang Loop is one of their favorite places. And I managed to complete it in the four days, the same amount of days that people on a motorbike do it. And uh that’s something now that I look back on and wonder if I can do it again because it was extremely difficult. And yeah, having a hung overhead every day taken into them climbs make it easier. But uh I guess it does prove that I am Irish. Yeah, getting into the getting to the happy water. It reminds me when I lived in Australia, we had uh neighbors across the road from us who were Austrian and they referred to something something as holy water when we visited them one night and it was actually schnar. So, we call that in Ireland. What I laugh about Fergle is I remember again flicking through your stories of of this loop and you’re right, the scenery looks incredible and very atmospheric when you were doing it because it’s a lowhanging cloud and fog and stuff, but I remember you getting to this scenic lookout. Apparently, it’s really really beautiful here. It’s nice and scenic and it’s just thick white fog. It’s like ha soup fog we’d call it in Australia. You’ve got like 10 m of visibility. But I never really touched on the fact that it was right after I completed four months in China without seeing any tourists. And it was my first time being back cycling by myself in something like five or so months. So there was uh a lot of added like to be able to experience a country with other tourists was something I didn’t experience since Greece. You’re talking I went through Turkey I guess Iran, Afghanistan to Jigstan, China without seeing any tourists really. And then to then come across like 60 tourists on a motorbike traveling through the same mountain range I’m traveling through. Crazy. Yeah, it was crazy. Oh my gosh. Actually, was it there that you met Sam? It was. Oh, what an amazing man. Samar, that was my first time and I wish I could have spent more time with him. I reached out to Sam knowing that I was going to interview you and Sam’s got a question for you as well. So, bear with me as I find it. All right, listen to what Sam has for you. Again, another question from someone who probably can only ask these questions having traveled long distances himself. Listeners, if you’ve not heard of Sam before, I’ll link his episodes in the podcast description. He’s someone who’s traveled all around the world, six continents. Here’s what Sam has to ask you. Fergle, Fergle, absolute legend. It’s been great to follow your trip since we met in North Vietnam near the Hajang Loop. I know you’re getting close towards close to Australia and I know you’ve been powering through Indonesia and Southeast Asia and I just want to know I guess what keeps you ticking every day. Are you motivated to finish? Are you just excited to tackle each day where you are? Are you just excited for the next step and to get to Australia where you start your next challenge? What is it for you that uh is your biggest source of motivation? Anyways, man, keep it up, bro. you’re doing great and uh hope to cross path again somewhere out there in the world. Take care. There we go. There’s Sam’s question for you. Yeah. Uh it’s awesome just hearing his voice actually and it was funny just watching your smile light up as you heard his question. Yeah. Oh, he’s a man like I call him a big-hearted robot because he obviously is a great person to be around. But then the man if the term locked in hasn’t been coined yet. I think uh he can coin it because that man is a machine. if he needs to make ground, he will make ground and uh very impressive to see what he’s done. But uh what a great question and I think me and Samar would be very similar in the sense that um we can both we have the ability to break our trips down like I when I left Ireland wasn’t cycling from Ireland to Australia. All I was doing was cycling from Ireland to Paris and then from Paris I was cycling to my friends in Munich and then from Munich I was cycling to Greece. like it was the ability to break down such a big uh like enormous challenge into these little steps. And uh it wasn’t something that I had to do consciously. It was just the fact that okay, all I’m thinking about is to get to Paris for St. Patrick’s Day like a week after I left and be friends there. And that the whole way along I was able to break it down and he’s similar. He thinks the same way. And that’s how you I guess you do achieve big things is by breaking it down. What motivates me? Um, I guess every day I wake up and I’m like, well, what amazing people am I going to see? Like, I’m only going to be in Indonesia, say, for another two weeks. How much more of it can I experience? How much can I wonder today, can I get invited into an Indonesian home and taste uh homemade Indonesian food and see uh like what Indonesian child learns in school? like if they learn anything like there’s the what it’s actually like to live in that country but then also I have the motivation that is the two charities I’m raising funds for and that has been testimonial to me uh especially there when I was did have that awful incident in Iran I didn’t talk about at the time but the having them two charities to keep me from skipping certain sections was really important um like two charities that are so close to my heart me being a nurse and then obviously having family members that have passed away from from suicide. It’s two things that I’m very happy to be raising funds for and they motivate me to keep going. So yeah, I I guess that is what keeps me going. But the experiences and the people definitely is is massive up there. And being able to share that with the world, like there’s so much awful things happening right now in the world and you turn on your phone and you don’t know what you’re going to see, usually negative. and to be able to show my experiences day in day out to other people and show them how the world isn’t as dangerous as we think it is and how people are people everywhere. Yeah. Just how people are people everywhere. Yeah. I wonder how much Fergle that answer would have changed if we were if we were able to say to you at the start of your trip, what are you most excited about? because I feel there’s something and you’ve spoken about it a couple of times, how there’s that endurance challenge that you really set off with as well and that really has flipped to being an experience with people challenge in a way now, hasn’t it? Like it’s not the I need to cycle every single kilometer to Australia by any measure anymore. It’s it’s what excites you is oh I wonder if I’m going to meet someone who’s inviting me into their home and I’m going to have a share a meal with them today. Like what a thing to be excited about each and every day. Yeah, that’s where I struggled at the beginning because it was how do you mix endurance and how do you mix experience and culture? One has to give for the other one. And for me, it was obviously going to be trying to do this endurance wise, but how could you skip over all these countries by just cycling as fast as you can through them? So I made the conscious decision to be like, okay, no, I need to slow down cuz I’m not going to be in experiencing country this intimately ever again really. And it was like cycling through Europe initially. I thought get through it as quickly as possible because it’s going to be expensive. It’s a long trip. But then I get to the Balkans and I was having amazing experiences every single day like learning about the history there. But like staying at a hostel in couture Montenegro and talking to uh people from Germany from Australia like really that first aspects of what travel is like the really enjoyment of it and I was like I can’t just go rushing through all these countries and I then changed my type of travel to be like right okay when I tell myself I’m going to make something endurancebased I’m going to do it and the best example of that would be like the hajang loop. told myself I would cycle it, yet I could have hitchhiked so many parts of it, but I purposely made sure that I cycled every single part of it. And same with Indonesia here, like Mount Bromo. Oh, I wanted to bring up Mount Bromo. This is this is great that it’s just naturally come up because can I just say that was something you had set yourself as a challenge and you nearly talked yourself out of it, didn’t you? I did. Yeah. It was um a time where you know, you gain confidence by by doing what you say you’re going to do. So for me, if I, let’s say, didn’t go on the cycle trip, I would have lost confidence because I told people I was going to do it. And that’s the same as this. I told myself I was going to cycle up Mount Bromo. This is a mountain in in the a volcano in Indonesia on the island of Java. And I arrived there and I took a rest day. And I was like, okay, the next day I’m going to take it on. But then I end up taking another rest day. And then another day rolls around and I’m like, not one bit of me wants to cycle up this mountain. I like after cycling over 20,000 kilometers at this stage. I, you know, easily could do what the tourists that come there and do and just do a sunrise tour up to the top in a jeep, come back to my bicycle and cycle around the mountain. But I told myself I was going to cycle up that mountain. And if I didn’t do it, no one would know about it, but I I would. I would have lost confidence in not doing what I said I would do. So, it got it rolled around to 4 4:00 p.m. I think it was, and you know, it was starting to get dark at half 5. So, I was like, “No, okay, I need to lock in here and and go for it.” And that was it. I think I even seen Samar’s uh video h of he was cycling through Saudi Arabia at the time, could have been like a video from 2 a.m. cycling through the night in like 40°ree heat. And he said something like how he just had to lock in. And to me, it was the exact same thing. I just had to lock in, do what I said I was going to do. and I took into the mountain really steep inclines in um in the dark and I get to the very top. I set up my tent. I’m wrecked. I’m emotional because I’m like proven to myself I am who I say I am. And the next morning, my, you know, I reap the rewards because I woke up to the most magical sunrise you could imagine with looking at Mount Bromo with steam coming out of the volcano and there’s mist all around the sand dunes, the planes all around the crater. And it’s just one of those things where probably the most surreal experience I was ever in, the most beautiful scenery I ever seen. And it’s a moment that will stand in me forever and it was even more powerful because I cycled there and I told myself that once. So yeah, it’s uh just being able to break down your challenges, especially on a long trip like this that okay, this part’s going to be endurance based. This part I’m going to do slower, but I hopefully can experience the culture more. And that’s how I have been operating this whole entire cycle challenge. And I’m very happy that is how I broke down my my uh my journey. Yeah. Could I just say cuz I remember seeing the images that you put about Bromo there and the story you posted about your internal turmo turmoil about whether to go there or not or to lock out and where even where to continue on through when you were in Indonesia as well. Like that has been something that’s been on your mind like do I want to keep doing this? I’m not sure. Do I want to fast forward to Australia and get there earlier or not? And but hearing you talk about that sunrise like it’s where nature just hands you the best experience on a plate and says congratulations here’s your reward. Like that gave me goosebumps hearing that Fergle. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s something I can’t even put into words. It’s almost something that I hope this podcast does do for people that it inspires them to get out and see sceneries like that themselves and to challenge themselves because it’s one thing to see amazing scenery, but it’s another thing to have worked hard to get there. And it makes it that extra bit special and it’s something that us cycle tourists really uh I guess we don’t really acknowledge that the we’re appreciating something so much more because we work for it. If we’re just going to lift to this place, you wouldn’t appreciate it. Yeah. And you know what? It’s even in the manner that you’ve done it and what I equate it to, my bike adventures listeners are so teenytiny compared to people like Fergle. But um I remember Fergle, my husband and I, we cycled across the Pyrenees, fully loaded, paniers and all that sort of stuff up and over endless mountain passes it felt at times. And because I live in this beautiful part of the world, I’ve also had the experience of riding these mountains on a very lightweight road bike with unencumbered with any luggage. But I can tell you hand on heart now, while it may have taken me two and a half or three times as long to get up some of those climbs fully loaded, the views, the feeling, the experience of doing it, the satisfaction I took overwhelmingly doing it slower and fully loaded is what I enjoyed so much more. My god, there were times where I feel like it would have been faster to walk, but I actually couldn’t walk because I would not have been able to physically have pushed my bike up the thing. So, and you you laugh because you know exactly what I’m talking about here. Like, you’ve felt this before, too. But yeah, it is that satisfaction of I have earned this. I have earned this view. I have earned that beautiful sunrise view at Mount Bromo. I have earned seeing the mist in that volcano. I’ve earned seeing looking at the caldera. You know, all of that type of stuff you’ve earned, right? Yeah. Yeah. And it’s that’s what I guess cycle touring’s all about. It’s that the fact that you’re getting yourself to these remote places and you enjoy it that bit more. And you summed it up perfectly. It’s uh through the challenge of it all, isn’t it? It’s like the challenge of can I do this? Can I get up here sweating it out? But at the end of it, you just reap the rewards of the serotonin, the benefits to your body. And then also the visuals that you see and with that as well, the camaraderie you make with people that you’re doing it with. So like cycling through uh Afghanistan with let’s say the two guys I cycle with. um for me to meet them again. I have countless stories with them that only I can talk to them about because we experience it together. And yeah, it’s the beauty of of this type of travel. [Music] Listeners, I want to give a huge shout out to Zeralei who are supporting Seek Travel Ride. I’m honestly stoked to be working with them because they are an Aussie company doing outdoor gear, right? Everything they make is designed by people who actually spend time adventuring outdoors, so they get what works and what doesn’t. What I really love is how environmentally conscious they are as a company. They are designing products, thinking about their environmental impact. They’re using both sustainable and ethical materials to create gear that will last. I absolutely love their line of Marino products. They’re brilliant, lightweight, breathable. You wear it for days, you don’t get smelly, and trust me, when you’re out on the road or a trail for a few days at a time on a bike adventure, not feeling like you’re smelly wearing the same t-shirt is a big plus. They don’t just make clothing, though. They also have tents, they have sleep mats, they make trail shoes, hats, everything. So, if you are in the market for some of that outdoor type equipment, please hit up the affiliate link in the show notes and another big monumental thank you to Zorali for supporting the show. Now, let’s get back to the episode. Yeah. And again, the the friendships that you make, the fast friendships you make on the road as well. Something that you’ve done beautifully. You’re an experienced drone flying pilot now, really, aren’t you? like the photography from your drone is awesome. I have a drone and I know what it’s like to fly one of those things. I haven’t crashed one yet, thankfully. Um, and and just seeing the images that you’ve taken on your tour. It’s one of those things as well, though, cuz not every country has allowed it in, so you have had the complexity of navigating how to get your drone to you at times, too. But was it like like just seeing the views, that bird’s eye view? You get an extra sense of satisfaction of the landscape that you’re riding through, too, don’t you? Oh, massively. Yeah. It just gives a completely different view of everything. And uh I guess for people following along, it gives them a sense of seeing the landscapes I’m passing through from that bit of a better vantage point. That’s obviously me on a bicycle. I can only see out my phone and record what’s in front of me on the road, but with a drone, you can really get better shots. But uh it’s definitely been one of my best purchases along the way. Yeah, but the amount of times it almost killed me too because for some reason my drone will never active track me. So any of the shots you see of me cycling of me cycling and the drone following me, I am actually lying on my handlebars controlling the drone myself and I’m like descending on like 15% gradient uh on the Hajang loop here on my handlebars with only one brake working. That’s another thing. I my I my bike maintenance skills have not improved despite getting this far and I don’t know how many times I I almost died but uh I mean great shots. It’s all for the shot. Oh gosh. I want to change tact a little bit here and talk about the Irish around your travels because you have had the awesome experience of, you know, meeting up with lots of other people from Ireland, whether that’s at an embassy, whether it’s at an Irish pub. They’re everywhere, right? And and every now and then you get to see, you know, the all island final or a gar match or enjoy a a bit of Guinness. Not as creamy as it would be in Ireland, but still takes you back at home. What’s that been like to connect with Irish people all around the world? It’s probably been the best up there with one of the best experiences. Like there’s Irish all around the world. All throughout history, Irish people have been traveling whether it’s back during the time of the famine two million people had to immigrate. Then even like um back in the 1970s like I have an aunt that moved to America. There’s just Irish in every corner of the world and you can see that through Irish pups and for me to be on my bicycle traveling through the world having people from Ireland following along but then to be welcome into cities like Hanoi, Saigon, Bangkok, Koala Lumpa, Singapore where there is Irish communities there that are very strong communities because of uh like the Irish Gaelic football is the best way to make communities. It’s one of the best things about Ireland, me speaking as a a gay head. But it’s definitely been like to be on the opposite side of the world and be in a environment that’s not so foreign, like being able to sit down, have a point of Guinness with a someone that knows my cousin’s fiance, you know, that’s how small Ireland is, but you can make a connection with everyone. Crazy. Yeah. Do you know what’s funny about that? I can think of my own husband who born and raised in Australia. But I remember him telling a story of randomly meeting someone who is from the same little tiny town in uh Northern Ireland in Drama that his family was from. He actually knew his uncle. Like that is crazy. You were having the same experience. I didn’t think I would. Like when I left on this challenge, uh it was Ireland to Australia and I knew there would be a lot of Irish people in Australia, but I didn’t expect there to be some, you know, in Vietnam or Thailand. And it was really really nice, especially after going through so much hardship along along my roots. H now I I love hardship but then at the other side you know you do need a bit of TLC and a bit of uh time with some you know uh people that you can have a bit of banter with and exactly like that I get invited into like Irish gated communities around the world and they’re incredible like they’re not just for Irish people they’re for uh they’re involved in let’s say the Aussie rules teams in Bangkok and then the Aussie rules players also play on the GIC football team so it’s a real thing just to create community and to do something in the evening together. And it was really nice for me to pass through and experience this. But it also uh led to another difficulty. So all throughout my travels, you’d have different challenges like Iran, Afghanistan, the fierce, China, the cold and the fear of the police. Saudi Asia, I thought it was going to be, you know, plane sailing, meeting other tourists. It’s going to be really nice food, easy going. But no one warned me about the severity of the heat there, like the dead awful heat. And the other thing that isn’t talked enough, maybe by long-term cyclists, is the loneliness of it. Like I said, I got invited into these Irish communities, but I’m there for, you know, 3 4 days or whatever, but then I need to leave these new friends that I’ve met to go off by myself h into the unknown again to finish off this challenge that I’ve set myself. So it is extremely lonely and it’s uh something that definitely Shelby talks about and it took me a long time to identify that feeling that it was loneliness. Like I felt it all throughout now that I’m thinking back I can identify how I felt but it took me a long time to realize that it was loneliness. Um cuz it’s hard always being out there uh in the middle of nowhere by yourself and Southeast Asia. thought I would be around the most people and I was. But you make them relationships just to leave the people like that and go back to this world that is my bicycle to being back to myself, me and my bicycle. And it’s constant movement and like you’d love to maybe stay in Bangkok for months or even like when I get to Australia stay in Perth for you know uh 3 months to make money but for me this is a challenge. This is to prove endurance wise, but also to do what I said I was going to do. So like I could finish my trip now the second I arrive in Australia because that’s it, Ireland to Australia. But I said I’m going to cycle from Perth to Sydney. So because I told myself I’m going to do it. I’m going to do it. And that’s how you build confidence. But it also does have other difficulties like having to go fast through some places and usually be by yourself and experience lonely times. Um, but at the end of it, I know I’ll be a stronger person and it’s not going to be forever. And the mental strength that I would have gained from this challenge, I don’t even think I can begin to comprehend how much of a different person I have and how I can take on different challenges after this. Cuz it’s just been one challenge after the other after other. Um, it never got easier, but it definitely molded me into a person that can persevere and I Yeah, I don’t know what I’ll be doing when I finish this challenge. Yeah. But what you’ve touched on there, it’s something I’ve often thought about because a bike traveler like you sticks out like the proverbial sort of thumb when you travel through an area and you become a magnet to people like who are curious who are you, where are you going, what are you from, like what are you doing? And so you have these interactions, but sometimes you can even get deeper interactions and and be in one place for a few days and then you make great friendships, but then you have to leave or you’ve had these interactions that you’d like to, you know, deepen a bit more, but you don’t have the ability to. And so I I can feel that that sense of loneliness would impact even stronger because of that as well. And that would definitely be like the double-edged sword of it. Yeah. You know, definitely the double-edged sword. And it’s also the fact that people can’t fully comprehend what you’re doing. Like people would be traveling all around Southeast Asia, but like by bus, by motorbike, and to do it by bicycle, it’s like you’re going through 52° heat. It’s ridiculous. Like it’s it’s really at times it was dangerous. And then next thing you get to a city where you’re then just drinking in a pub and the people there don’t know the hardships you just went through. But it’s it’s very difficult to get portray that to to show how difficult it is what you’re doing. But then to go back into a normal society and be surrounded by people that aren’t doing something like that, it’s uh Yeah, it’s been difficult. Yeah. And reintegrating it all as well. I mean, I don’t want to fast forward you to the end point. You’ve you’ve still got a mega journey to go. I don’t know whether you’ve been able to figure out can you can you hitch a ride on a boat to get to Perth or not? Or will you have to fly, but Perth to Sydney will be the next leg of your journey? Have you got yourself the mini milestones of what you’re really looking forward to experiencing in Australia? Yeah. Well, everyone’s telling me now, oh, you have to be careful about the Nullar, you know, how desolate it is. That’s the southern coast of Australia there before Adelaide and after Per there’s a long stretch of nothingness and a lot of people are warning me about that but I haven’t even so much as thought about that because right now I’m in tomorstee uh in Dilly and I currently have the challenge of getting from here to Australia by boat. So ideally I want to make it to Darwin or to Perth by boat. Um, so how could I still be talking about, you know, the next challenge when I still have this one up front? Yeah. And I guess that is one of my strengths. That’s how I was able to break down this challenge. Um, and yeah, just at the moment, I’m going to the port uh completely something completely different than I’ve done before. This is going to stand to me in different ways. is like I’m going to be going to a port, see what a port’s like, what type of sailing boats and if I do get a boat, being on a sailing boat, that’s going to be a completely different experience to anything I’ve I’ve experienced so far. So, uh hopefully I will be able to find one. But look, at the end of the day, if I can’t, uh a flight is always there to make it to Perth. And uh I’m starting my Aussie uh cycle in Perth because I have a baby nephew there. And uh the nephew was born since I started this challenge. So, he’s only, I think, 14 months old. So, I look forward to to seeing him. Little Seb, do you know what I You know what I’m smiling about, Fergle? Well, firstly, the idea that you you don’t let yourself get too far ahead. You’re in the moment and you you’ve got those little mini milestones that we were talking about so important, but also you’re going to be is it little Seb? You’re going to be like the you’re going to be the adventurous uncle with all the stories as he grows up. How awesome is that, right? I love it. I love it. And also, you got other things to look forward to. I I think you definitely have to get yourself to a game of Aussie rules while you’re in Australia as well, right? And yeah, so many things to look forward to. It’s just absolutely brilliant. Holy moly, Fergle, we have chatted for so long. Listeners, this is definitely two episodes. Um, and you have stuck along for the journey here. I’m going to hold you to account. I definitely need to interview you again when you finish this up because we’ve got so many stories that we could go into, so many topics we could go into and the way you share your stories, Fergle, it’s just a pleasure to be able to listen to them. So hopefully listeners, there might be an episode three or four to come of Fergle story as well. For those who haven’t come across you before and are hearing about you for the first time, what’s the best way that they can keep up with your adventures? They can follow me on uh social media. So on Instagram it’s Rossy to Aussie or Freewheing Ferg Guen. Um and then I also have a link to donate towards my two charities that I’m raising funds for. So if you’re enjoying my journey or if the two charities resonate with you, uh it’ll all go to a good cause. So thank you Bella. No, that’s all right. Fergle listeners, I will put links to all of that in the show notes and do yourself a big favor and be sure to to hit them up and and follow Fergle along and cheer him on virtually all the way there to Sydney. Fergle, time to wrap up this episode. I do that asking the same three questions. You’re a guest now. You get to choose a song that goes onto the music playlist. One song chosen by every single guest of the podcast. An eclectic mix of beats. What song are you going to pick to be the soundtrack to your adventure? Uh, well, this one might be I guess it still would be nice to listen to while riding your bicycle, but uh when I had to fly home from my uh cousin’s uh funeral uh at the church, they played uh a song called Over Gway Town. And it was my first time to hear the song, but it was definitely um a moment that brought everyone in the church to tears because it was my cousin’s favorite song. Uh, it only came out maybe like two months before he did unfortunately pass away, but it was a song he sang every day once it did come out. So, Over Galway Town. Over Gway Town. I’ve got you there for You’re going to have to send it to me. Make sure I’ve got the right song in there. I love it when people choose a song that personally connects them to a special element of their journey. And I think that is that like he’s coming along with you every day. I’m I’m 100% certain of that, too. So, a beautiful tribute to him there as well. Okay, next question. You got a choice, Fergle. You can turn left and if you do, you’ll be riding forever up the most corrugated washboard, bumpiest road in the world. There is no smooth surface to be found. Or if you go right, you’re on a nice smooth road, but you’ve got a notoriously horrendous block dirty headwind. Which one are you going to choose? Oh, the the two of them I would have come across along the the journey a lot. I thought it was an easier question, definitely when it was uh whether it’s the mountain. I’d always take the mountain. Yes, I know. I had to change it on per I had to change it. It’s too easy. Yeah, exactly. Um I think Afghanistan I would have experienced the two of them especially when I entered Afghanistan. The wind was brutal. Like I’m talking like you’re going 10 km an hour with sand too. Sand. Yeah. And so so how many kilome an hour? Oh, you’re talking like I say six, seven. And it’s like coming into your side but kind of on towards your face. And it’s not even that like your goal you’re trying to push so hard. And it was the same in China in the tackle mac and desert like one or two days we had extreme headwind and it would really test your your mental capabilities to headwinds a lot. Uh but then in Afghanistan I guess I had a very corrugated road. Um I would have went down this remote valley for three or four days no signal. It was probably one of my favorite times of the entire journey because I was completely disconnected from social media, from the outside world, just experiencing that moment with the two people I was with. But my god, did the road tear us apart. Like you think about your your palms of your hands falling apart. Like the skin on my hands completely disintegrated from the handlebars, the spokes going. But if I was to put them together, has to be the corrugated road I choose. I’ I’ I’d go with that. Um the headwind is just too much of a mental strain to take off. Take the physical beating of the bumpy road so that you don’t have to go through the mental Yeah. mental burden of a of a dirty headwind. Okay. You are team corrugations. Final question for you Fergle. for this point in time. I want you to finish the sentence for me and that is the best thing about taking a bike adventure is I didn’t really think about this question at all and I knew it was a question you ask everyone and from listening to your podcast throughout the the my the months I would have come up with answers and I think it’s the meeting people from all over the world like how just people are people everywhere and whether I’m in the tact desert I come across a man on a mountain bike in the middle of nowhere who invites me into a factory. He’s inviting me in for an experience for him too to to talk to me to be a person. And same as in Turkey being invited in the houses in Iran, everywhere people are people. What cycle touring means to me is the ability to interact with people so intimately and to be able to if you’re in a car, you can’t just hop out of a bus or a car and talk to that person on the road. You don’t have the children running along your bicycle cheering you on. Uh even there recently I was moved to tears going up a mountain um here on the island of Timour but on the Indonesian side I’m getting very near the end of my travels and there’s this group of children at the top of a climb and they’re just cheering me on and then you have the ability to talk to them too when you’re on a bicycle and the thing with children is they all love uh football soccer and uh I of course go Ronaldo and Messi and no matter what they say I always go sue which is what Ronaldo always says and it brings such a smile to children and then they do his celebration and yeah if I’m in a car if I’m in a truck I’m not having them experiences and that is what bicycle touring means to me as well as the physical challenges of taking on extreme mountains and going into the unknown every day. It’s a a mix of everything. And yeah, it’s a world that has opened up to me more so and provided me with more uh experiences and more friendly people. And yeah, the world of cycle touring is one that uh can take you places that you will never go to ever. Oh, I love it. What a beautiful answer. It’s the it’s the experiences with strangers, with humans, with children, the interactions that you have all along the way that only this form of travel can give you. Thank you for condensing my answer. And again, something that you can only come up with having had the experience of doing this yourself because it would be funny if I could ever somehow magic myself to ask pre-adventure Fergle this question, what answer would you have chosen? It would have been interesting to see, right? Oh, maybe it was like to to prove how fast and strong I am and able to get through things. Who knows? Who knows? But regardless, wow, Fergle Gwyn, what an absolute freaking pleasure it has been. It’s been a monumental effort. Listeners, you don’t know this, but Fergle, Deadset legend that he is, half of this interview was in his room with no electricity, no in the dark. He looked like the Emperor from the original Star Wars series. just this face with darkness all around him. Now he’s sitting in a corridor sweating buckets in the heat there. But he’s he’s an absolute champ. This this session has been lined up for months. And we finally got into connect. And I was happy waking up this morning knowing I was going to speak with you, Fergle, excited at the stories you would tell me, and you have delivered in spades. Overwhelmingly, it has been such an absolute pleasure. Every now and then I interview guests thinking I’m definitely going to meet them someday for real and swap stories and I really look forward to doing that with you Ferguen. What an absolute pleasure. I love the lessons of breaking it down. The fact that you armed yourself with going to people who had done the thing before you started to show you that through their experiences what you could do would be would be achievable for you and how you’ve changed your mindset along the way. how you have managed to overcome fears, go into a different form of mindset, even looking back on extreme ridiculous nights, descending down a mountain in China saying, “There’s no way you could pay me enough to do that again.” And now with the benefit of rose tinted glasses, saying, “Hell yeah, I’d do that again.” I love it. I love the friendships you’ve made, the experiences you’ve spoken about. It’s everything that I love about this podcast and more. All to say thank you so so much you dead set legend for sharing your stories and experiences here on the podcast for Seek Travel Ride. Thank you B. It’s a privilege to be entering into the hall of fame with all your previous guests. There we go. Listeners, what did you think about the rest of the discussion I had there with Fergle? very much like in part one. He is just an amazing storyteller and it was so awesome to be able to spend some proper time with him, to hear him share his story, his journey, how he’s changed along the way, and some great insights and tips from a long-distance traveler, too. I think we can all agree he doesn’t do things by halves. He doesn’t leave questions unanswered on the road, and he has allowed himself to be shaped and molded by his curiosity for adventure. I can give you an update now to say that Fergle has arrived in Australia. He’s going to be making his way across this vast country and the landscapes there will be very very different to the ones that he has encountered so far. The culture is different as well, but I’m sure he will be having a blast and I’m looking forward to see the adventure continue to unfold for Fergle as he makes his way to the Sydney Opera House. Now listeners, if you have been enjoying the podcast and listening to these guest interviews and you want to support the show, you can head to buymeacop.com/seektra ride. Buy me a coffee, but let me know what is it that you love about the podcast and where is your next bike adventure going to take you. And until the next episode, I’m Bella Malloy. Thanks for listening. [Music] [Music]