This week for Episode 57 of The What’s Going On Show we have Lewis, a man from Portsmouth who is going to cycle from Portsmouth to the furthest point in Indonesia.
Like many young people in their 20s do, Lewis went travelling to try and find himself. But unlike many other people in their early 20s Lewis was gone for 7 years and after he came back to the UK he decided to start his own foundation to help out people in remote villages access education. To raise money and gain exposure for his foundation, Lewis is embarking on a life changing voyage to Indonesia, from Portsmouth, by bicycle.
In this episode we talk about how to cycle from the UK to Indonesia, what things to consider when cycling that far, pushing the boundaries of what is possible and what it means by “finding your purpose”.
Chapters:
0:00 Intro/Trailer
01:37 Who is Lewis?
03:17 Love for travelling
04:40 Revelations from travelling
06:28 Getting into super yachts
09:17 Sailing from Thailand to the uk
10:28 luxury and loss
20:07 How I’m prepping for the trip
22:12 How are you going to charge your kit?
24:30 The route from the UK to Indonesia
34:17 How can you ensure what you are doing isn’t in vein?
39:22 Questions for the people
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People, we’re back in Portsmouth and this week we’ve got a guy called Lewis who’s cycling from Portsmouth to Indonesia. So, I’m Lewis. I’m from Portsmouth. I left traveling 7 years ago, traveled to over 36 countries from like backpacking to building to working on super yachts. But then like when I when I was traveling, I really found my purpose through giving back and like going to all these remote communities around the world. That’s that’s what my purpose was. I can honestly say I’m not a cyclist. I really wanted to start my own nonprofit organization. So I was thinking like how can I start this? Like you need money, you need donors, you need sponsorships. So I thought okay like set up an organization called belief organization foundation and now I’ve set a challenge up where I’m cycling from the UK to Indonesia. If you want something, you put your mind to it, it can happen. All right, welcome to the show, man. Thank you. Cheers for having me. I’m looking forward to this one. Really am. This is a This is a different one. Let’s say that for sure. Yeah. It’s not a normal thing you do. No, no, no, it isn’t. Um All right, cool. So, welcome to the What’s Going On Show. Show where we shine a light on people doing things in communities really. and um you yourself, you’re doing something and we’re going to go in a bit today. So, first things first, instead of me giving you an introduction, I’d like to just give it straight over to you. So, who in a nutshell is Louis? So, I’m Lewis. I’m from Portsmouth. Um I left traveling 7 years ago, traveled to over 36 countries. It was quite a crazy uh traveling experience to be fair because I started off backpacking around the world. Um and then went went on to I met a guy in Thailand called Pierce. Um he’s like I’ll come to Nepal. I was like what’s happening there? He’s like oh we’re going to build a school uh for charity from the earthquake in 2015. I was like all right. I was super interested. I had a van I bought I was I was more keen on building this van. But then when I come across this project in Nepal I was thinking I’ll put my fan to the side and I’ll go check it out. um like 3 months in I was like mom can you put my van in the drive like I’m like super clued clued to this uh experience in Nepal. So I ended up doing like 6 months in Nepal. Um and it was it was to totally eye opener like climbing up like this village in the mountains and waking up in a tent and then building schools like it was it’s incredible experience. Um and then after that I went from uh scuba diving um went to Brazil as done my dive masters and then I went on to working on the super yachts and then I was thinking luxury and loss completely changed me. So I found my purpose in obviously giving back to the community and making the change. So interesting. Yeah. All right. Cool. So we’ll dive a bit in that today and um Cool. So you say you’re from Portsmouth. Yeah. Where else? Um, so I was born and b in Lee Park. Uh, it’s quite quite bad back in the day. Um, but as everywhere is every every area has got a bad name for itself. Um, it’s not it’s not who you are, it’s where you’re from. Um, and Waterville based from Lee Park to Waterville. Okay. Interesting. So, did you always have a passion for or an eagerness to go traveling? Not really. It was until I was I grew up a group of friends in Mort went to a lot of festivals and there was like hippies, MC’s, DJs. It was it was a great bunch of lads to be fair. Um and a few few um couples a couple called Jake and Shere at the time. They’ve just come back from India and they was like, “Oh, you should go follow follow the hippie trail.” I was like, “In India, first country?” I was like, “Maybe.” Done a little bit of research and I was thinking, “Okay, I’m going to set a little challenge there.” It’s first ever country leaving England. I went from Delhi oneway flight to Delhi and then my second flight was from Goa a month later. So I set myself a challenge there and I completed 10 cities. Um I went to Delhi, Agura, Jaipur, Pushka, Jodpur, Jase, Udapur, Mumbai, Hampy and Goa and then I flew to Thailand and I was thinking wow that was experience and a half like that really opened my eyes up like India is like a great place but at the same time overwhelming, smelly, dirty, the people are awesome. Um, but yeah, it really opened my eyes as like leaving for the first country for sure. Imagine. So, what do you mean by open your eyes? Uh, it’s totally different to the UK like especially like where I’ve not traveled and I’ve just gone in and then it was like complete boom in your face. It was like an eye opener. Yeah, now I can imagine. Okay, cool. So, you go India, that’s a big eye opener for you. Then you end up in Thailand. Now, how was Thailand? What was the comparison? Um, so I flew from Goa to Thailand and my brother, he’s um, his dad’s married to a Thai lady. So I went straight to the village. So I went into like another little culture shop because it was totally different aspects to India. It was like more farmland, like Thai culture. Um, yeah, that was really, really good. Um, and then obviously I went over down south after spending a week with him and his family in the village. I went down to the south. Um, but then I had to cut cut cross. I got a phone call saying my brother, he lost his leg. He was in a coma. So 2 days before Christmas, I was like, I’m done with traveling. I need to be there for my brother. So I flew back. Flew back to England. Wow. To be with him. Yeah. Yeah. Gosh. So, okay. So, you had that. So, you come back to England. Um, what was you doing at the time for work then? Was you just So, I’ve I’ve always been like hands-on. Okay. Creative building building work. Um so I’ve I always started off like as a labor and then selftaught worked in many different trades doing roofing for a fair few years. Um and yeah just become a handyman. Fair fair. So okay then. Cool. So there’s this whole period here where you’re doing like this handyman stuff. You’re probably doing a little bit here and there. You say you got into superyachts. Yeah. How did that come about? Um, so when I went off to Bahamas, obviously after my my course in Brazil doing my dive masters, slowly running them out running out of money. I was thinking, all right, I got my dive masters. How can I make money? Can I can I work as a scuba dive instructor? Um, and then I got an email saying, “Hey, Louis, um, co CO’s still about, but we we can open the project in uh, the Bahamas, but it’s only US citizens, but we can get the staff internationally.” I was like, “Hey, what what’s the job role? Tell me a bit more depth.” Um, so yeah, they was like, “Okay, we need a site supervisor for the roofing teams. You’re going to have five volunteers per per day per and you get your own truck.” And I was like, “Cool.” So I was like 9 months in the Bahamas. Um and then I was like ah I found like a rental boat rental um in the Bahamas on the weekends off. So I was thinking okay like what can we do like with the volunteers like make them have more of an enjoyable experience. So I was like okay I’m going to I’m going to rent a boat and take it out myself and yeah pretty pretty done drive it. All right. So I ended up like planning weekends full of volunteers. Okay, let’s like it’s going to be it’s going to cost this much like with a massive discount. And then I took the volunteers out on the weekends and then as I was driving around the um the marinas in like Hopetown and um Marsh Harour, I come I come across the captain. He was like, “Oh, you drive you’re driving a quite a big boat there. Have you ever thought about getting in super yachts?” I was like totally different aspect to me. Like I could check it out. I look at look more into it. But at the time I was so focused on making the change in the Bahamas, building school, building these redoing these schools, rebuilding these houses for the communities. Not until that project finished, I then went back home and obviously I’m from Portsmouth. I went over to Lawite and I looked at a course doing obviously working in super yachts. So yeah, I spent two weeks learning how to work on a super yacht. got all my SDCW. Um and then I went on to working on working on the yachts. What did you do on the yachts then? Uh so I was a deck hand. Okay. Um so I had a fair few jobs, fair few different boats. I was a dehand dive master on one of them. I was a deck hand on one of them. I was a first mate on another in Thailand. I spent almost two years in Thailand. Different boats. Um and then I got onto a 47 me boat. He said we’re leaving from Thailand. We’re going to sail Europe. So I was like, “Yeah.” So I ended up jumping from one boat to another, taking obviously the best opportunity as possible and then I sailed we sailed um to Europe. From Thailand. From Thailand. [ __ ] That was that was a sick sick journey. Yeah. I couldn’t imagine. Well, how did what Europe did you take there? What route? Um so we went from obviously Thailand headed towards Sri Lanka and then we went from the the Gulf of Eden through the canal and then through Europe through Turkey through Europe. Yeah, it was I can’t really remember how how long it took, but it I think it was like two months at sea. Yeah, it was intense to be fair. Like doing 6 hours on, 6 hours off in the in the in the captain’s chair like Yeah, it was it was tiring, but it was like Yeah. Wow. Worth it. Yeah. So you said that changed your life that whole um like all the experiences I’ve done like it’s all like mindb blowing and mind changing like totally different like aspects like from like backpacking to building to working on super yachts. But then like when I when I was traveling I really found my purpose through giving back and like going to all these remote communities around the world. That’s that’s what my purpose was. But then once I I realized this after I worked on the yachts, seeing luxury and loss, it completely changed me. What do you mean by luxury and loss? So like seeing luxury and seeing people who don’t really have particularly nothing in life like luxury and loss is like totally different waves there. So like seeing like people have money and seeing people who don’t that’s really like eye opener. Yeah. It teaches us about like the fragility of life and yeah I guess it it shows how grateful you are like living in England to going over to like say Nepal or even the Bahamas where they have money but soon as like a hurricane comes they don’t have nothing. So it’s no matter where you are in life like you could have all the money in the world but one click of your fingers it can change. You say you found your purpose, but let’s say in another world you didn’t like what when you set out to travel, was that your aim to find your purpose? Um, obly going through 36 countries, every country I was looking for something and I never really found what I was looking for, but until G I I found a job, giving back and seeing that change, that’s what that’s that’s what I found. That’s I thought that was my purpose and how can I how can I go about it? How can I make this a full-time thing? Wow. So, how long ago was this when you did this? So, I left 7 years ago. Okay. Um and I recently got back last July. Wow. Yeah. So, coming back, how was that for you coming back from that life changing trip? Um, it’s it’s totally different like when you’re away from England for so long. Like a lot of people grow up, a lot of people have children. Um, yeah. It’s just like I just came back and just got stuck in with work and looking to save for my next project. Okay. So my question to you then is you said that a lot of your mates settled down, had kids, set up a family, but why was that never the thing for you to do in your early years, in your early 20s? I don’t know. When I took that oneway flight to India and seeing that manic chaos and seeing what life is about, like I was thinking, yeah, this is this is quite sick. Like I want more of it. Yeah, I hear it. Yeah, cuz a lot of people say they just say, “Oh, yeah. I want to be rich, have a house with two kids with a dog and all this stuff.” What’s your views on that? Everyone’s everyone’s to their own. Um, to be fair, like money comes and goes, but if I could have one thing, it would it would be to be com comfortable with myself and still do what I do what I like doing. Okay, that’s that’s solid. Okay, so You said you wanted to make that your purpose. How did you go about then making your purpose? So, since being back from the UK, I’ve I’ve been obviously working, saving my money. Um, I’ve come up with a challenge. Uh, it’s a pretty intense challenge. Yeah. Go on, elaborate, please. So, yeah, I I can honestly say I’m not a cyclist. Um, I loved traveling and I was thinking like, okay, I’ve always since I’ve worked for them nonprofit organizations when I where I found my purpose. I really wanted to start my own nonprofit organization. Um, so I was thinking like how can I start this like you need money, you need donors, you need sponsorships. So I thought okay like set up a organization called belief organization foundation. Uh the word from belief comes in like you got to believe in yourself for once for instance. Um so I’ve I’ve set up a a nonprofit organization called Belief Organization Foundation. So I’ve set that up and now I’ve set a challenge up where I’m cycling from the UK to Indonesia. Um and I was looking for a company in the Philippines to part do partnership with. I was searching and searching for like months and not getting no responses. It really plays on your mind when you’re emailing companies and no one replies to you. You feel like giving up but then you got to believe in yourself. So like from the nonprofit organization you got to keep belief. Fair. So why then why Indonesia? So Indonesia is the last the furthest point of Asia. Okay. Um and obviously once I reach Indonesia I will fly over to meet the organization I’m partnered with. So obviously when I was searching for them um organizations I I come across a um a company but not a company but organization called the Yellow Boat of Help Hope Foundation. I looked really like I read a lot about them and they’re doing really amazing things around remote communities of the Philippines. So about 10 years ago they they they started building yellow boats for the kids to get to school. Um and on YouTube if you click on yellow boat of hope foundation they really built these school school boats for the kids to get to school because the kids was just swimming to school. It was just ruining the uniforms the education books and stuff. So that’s when I think, oh, okay, like now they’ve they’ve started building yellow boats and then they’ve expanded as an organization and now they’re building schools. So that’s what really caught my eye. Not only that they’re building yellow boats for the kids to get to school, now they expanded as an organization, now they’re actually building schools. So I’ve I’ve spoke to them. Um I’ve had many Zoom phone calls with them. Uh a great organization, a great team behind them. Um so yeah I will fly to the Philippines meet the organization and they’re going to uh locate me um area where I can actually build a school. So from cycling to Indonesia that’s project one. Okay. With the money raised through that that cycling journey I will then fly to the Philippines and make that change and use that money raised to build a school personally with the volunteers of the school. Fair. So I’m intrigued then. So you say obviously um you said a statement it was like loss and luxury and loss. Luxury and loss. So can you tell me of an example that really stuck out to you where you saw someone with nothing that really inspired you? So obviously I when I went to build the schools in Nepal like the community high up in the mountains end up becoming like family. So obviously once that project was closed and finished I still had the contact. So like 2 years on I’m like giving them message on Facebook. I’m like hey you still up there like yeah come up. So like I’ve always like kept in contact with the community. So I don’t just go and build that school like I end up growing the family. So, I I’ll keep going back. Keep going back. And it really opened my eyes one um one one morning when I’m like literally I just woke up on a wooden like a it’s like a a really thin bamboo mat on the floor and like smoke coming through the floorboards and then you open up and the clouds are like out the house and it’s it’s just totally that’s totally different. Wow. So, can you tell me like cuz when you were there, um, I don’t know about you, but I’ve been to a I went I’ve been to Asia and around the world and to these remote communities and I’ve always found that people are so much happier there even though they have nothing. Yeah. Than compared to people here who have got arguably everything. Yeah. Yeah. What’s your views on that? I I totally agree. It’s it’s like it’s no matter where you’re from or no match no matter like how much you have in life like everyone’s equal. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone’s equal. So what are some differences then between uh what do you mean by that by equal by the way? Equal. So we’re all human beings. We all have the same blood. Obviously we share different religions but we are human beings. So, but why do you think they’re happy then? Why do you think they’re happier in the East? I I think I think it’s like if you if you if you if you grow up with no phones, no no media, that’s what that’s what you’re you’re drawn to, you know, like you don’t know no different. And then you go to the western side of the world and we have everything. And I think if we if we us as a western people if we got brought up with no laptops, no phones would be as equal as people in Asia. Okay then. So cool. Coming back to the cycle then. You said you’re not a cycler. You’re not a cyclist. So why have you chosen to cycle then? It’s a challenge. It’s like I I used to been a I used to do a lot of running. Okay. Um and I thought back like it was about eight years ago. I just went for a bike ride and I completed like 50 miles. I obly I looked on my app and I was thinking, “Wow, it’s like it’s been a whole day riding. I’ve done 50 miles. That was easy.” So then obviously like thinking of like setting up this nonprofit organization. How can I raise money? So I was thinking, okay, buy a bike, like cycle, not one like it’s it’s a sport I could potentially enjoy once I’ve obviously I’ve got into it. Um, and two, I’m obviously circling through all these countries, so it’s a part of what I love as well. Okay. I mean, have you put any thought into how much prep this will take though? I have I have been I have been training when I can cuz obviously I’m working as well. So like fitting, working, self-funded project cuz obviously I from UK to Indonesia I’m I’m basically covering it all. Like I’m doing the self project so I’m funding everything. So I’m trying to get more work days in and more training days. Fair. No, that makes sense. That makes total sense. I mean how is that balancing? So how much train are you doing um a week? So I’m so I’m cycling out every Sunday. Obviously not today because obviously we’re on we’re on the show. Yeah. Um, thanks for having me. No, it’s grateful, man. I’m so grateful. But yeah, every every Sunday I’ve been going out. Um, yeah, it’s it’s going the road, but I’ll get up to 80 km and my knees are screaming at me. So, yeah, I’ve got to got to really have a think about this challenge, but yeah, I mean, so yeah, I was going to say like we’ve said off camera before, but have you put any thought into like, you know, your nutrition side of things and stuff like that? Um, well, it’s because I’m I’ve never cycled across the world, so I don’t really know how much things are. Yeah. Um, it could be really cheap. It could be really expensive. Um, I know Europe’s going to be quite pricey, especially if I’m if I’m going to want to eat out every day and stuff like that. So, I’ve decided I’m going to like take loads of tin tins of tuna, mackerel, pasta, and I’m going to be camping every night. Um there’s a there’s an app on your phone called warm showers. Um so you there’s a map and there’s like like loads of like dotted where people live and they take in other soak lists. So I’m probably going to try and use them once or twice a week. So I have a freshen up, have a shower. Um but yeah, I’m going to try and camp most of it because I enjoy just waking up, listening to the birds in the mornings, making the morning coffee, and smelling the green grass. So yeah, I’m I’m going to try and do as much camping as possible. I get that. I mean, where would you charge all your stuff? Where are you going to charge your kit? So, I have solar panels in my bike. Um before I go, I’m thinking about getting um it’s the front wheel on my bike. You can actually like get portable. So, every time the wheel spins, it’s charging your USB. Looked into it, but it’s quite pricey. Could it? Um so, yeah, I’m I’m not I’m hesitating about that because obviously 300 quid is a lot of money. Yeah. Yeah. Um so, yeah, I’m I am going to probably buy just loads of solar panels and Okay. Okay. Just go from there. Hopefully. I mean, when do you set off? Uh, mid-occtober. So, hopefully there’s enough summer. Yeah, hopefully. Well, I am leaving the to I’m leaving the wrong time of the year, but I’m super eager to go. I mean, would you think about like leaving it another year or you eager to just get on with it? I’m eager. Yeah. Okay, fair. Yeah, I’ve organized everything with the the organization I partnered with and yeah, I’m just I’m excited. Like, I hear it. I hear it. I mean, yeah, cuz that’s that was an like intriguing part for me. I mean, on the nutrition side again, like Yeah, cuz there’s it’s how much calories you’re burning. So, if you’re doing And I do like to eat a lot, but I’m just I’m I just stay slim. I just grow tall and I don’t I don’t get fat. Yeah, cuz you’re quite a tall guy. I mean, yeah. So, what that’s got to be I mean, how much you burn on a 50? Did you say 50 miles? Uh, I’d say So, I’m going to I was originally going to aim for 100 kilometers a day. How many What’s that in miles? That’s about 63 miles. Fair. That’s like the aisle of white every day. Yeah. Fair. Fair. You’ve done that, right? It’s about six six and a half eight hours with food. Yeah. Yeah. With I I think if you if you have often breaks and you get you you keep fueling up. Like it’s it’s possible you could do 100 km as an if you’re not a cyclist. Yeah. You do need to take breaks and you do need to refuel cuz if you just keep cycling and keep cycling, you’re just going to burn yourself out. Yeah. Are you going to take like days off for the first two weeks? I’m not. I’m just gonna just keep going. Go forward. Yeah. And yeah, I have to really put myself through the challenge cuz it’s going to take it’s going to take at least 10 days to get used to a saddle. Yeah. Word. So I I don’t want to I don’t want to get on the road 5 days, have a break. I I want to get stuck into it, feel the pain, and then say, “Okay, we need need to have a break now.” Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what is the route then? I’m intrigued. I’ve I’ve looked at a couple of routes. Um it’s been changing because of the wars was what the war what the war has been happening. The visa is kind of like difficult. Um yeah. So my route at the moment it stands with going from France to Belgium to Germany down to Switzerland through Italy um Croatia, Montego, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, and then through Turkey. Okay. And then I’m going to be staying two months around about two months in Turkey because obviously I’ll get a three-month visa for Turkey. So I’ve worked out it’s going to take me a whole month to get through the whole of Turkey to Georgia. So, I’m going to basically I found a hotel. Um, they’re building a hostel, which I thought, okay, like I can build. So, have you got any place to stay for me? Can you give me free food? And they was like, oh, can you send a bit about yourself and what you do? And I was like, absolutely. We’ll take you on. I was like, oh, Kushi. So, nice. Yeah. So, from Turkey, then you’re going to go obviously through Georgia, but do you know your route then? So, from Georgia, this is my new route up today. Um, from Georgia, I’m going to fly over to Kazakhstan. Okay. Um, because obviously the from Azubakistan to Kazakhstan, the land border is closed. So, you could normally get a ferry, but that’s obviously been closed since co. So, my I’m going to fly from Georgia to Kazakhstan, cycle from Kazakhstan to Ubakiststan, and then fly from Ubistan into India. And then from India, you’re going to through India, I cycle up to Nepal. Um, and then once I’m in the pool, I’m going to have to then fly again cuz of me. It’s a civil war. Um, it’s impossible to go through. If I could, I would. Um, then I’ll fly over to Laos and then that would be my last thing of just cycling. Wow. Jeez. Jeez. How much is it going to take you? I I’ve estimated it’s going to take me a year. So I leave I leave in October hoping to reach uh Philippines by December. Fair. Yeah. Fair fair. It’s going to it’s going to be a it’s going to be an epic journey. It’s either going to make me or break me, but I think once I’m on the road, I’m not going to be thinking about it. I’m just going to keep keep enjoying going through new countries one pedal at a time. M I think that say there I think it might it seems in my head not impossible but it seems like one of those it will break you but in that process it will make you. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Cuz there’s no doubt. I mean I did the aisle of white in a day. It’s not it’s not going to be easy. That was a tough feat. I was feeling that for a few days and yeah to do that every day that’s hats off there. I mean you got to be Yeah. You got to be eating. You become a machine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I remember when I was cycling that you was eating on the go and you didn’t I don’t think I went toilet for the whole day cuz you’re just reusing that energy. Yeah. Yeah. That’s going to be intense. So from So where are we? So from here, sorry. Where from Portsmouth? Are you going to like Do or No. So in from obviously I’m from Portsmouth. I want to leave from Portsmouth. I don’t want to go all the way to Dover. I want to leave from my hometown. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I’m going to get a ferry from Portsouth over to Lehav in front. Okay. So you’re going straight from Oh, okay. I see. I see. It’s just direct straight across the water. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that’s really cool. Yeah. Cuz I don’t know why I thought in my head that you might have been cycling to do then from Dover you might have been going. But fair. Yeah. But no, I I think I I want to put myself through the first bit of challenge and go from LA to Belgium cuz that’s quite quite a distance as it is. I think it takes like seven days just to get to Belgium. Fair. So fair. Could have had the home crowd. We could have been like Are you learning any languages? No. No. Okay. No, I pick up when I do travel, I do try and learn the basics, but my mind’s like a sie. I just forget. But if I was basing somewhere long enough, I think I’d pick it up. Okay. Interesting. So fun question then. So what’s your philosophy to life? Do you think about that a lot? What do you mean philosophy? Like what’s the mantra that you live by? Cuz to do all this crazy stuff like not crazy but to to travel around the world to get oneway tickets to setting up foundations and going like bootstrapping it, paying for it yourself. You got to be a a selfarter, you know. Okay. So, yeah, I think with anything, if you want something, you put your mind to it, it can happen. And that’s when belief comes involved. So, you don’t know until you don’t try and Yeah. If it does, if it if it doesn’t break you, it’s going to make you. You say you’re funding it yourself. Um, would you like a team on it or do you want to do it solely by yourself? Um, to be honest, like it’s reaching that it’s reaching that goal, you know, like the the fundraising side of things, like finding sponsors. I would happily put that on my t-shirt and do regular shouts out and stuff like that because I don’t want I don’t personally want the money. I want that money to go into that that that fundraising. So, I want to reach that goal and actually making that change at the end of the journey. So yeah, if anyone wants to sponsor me, I’m happy to put you on my t-shirts, do regular shouts out on the media pages. And yeah, I don’t want the money personally. I want that to go straight into the GoFundMe. I mean, what does money mean to you then? Like I said, it comes it comes and goes. It’s nice when you have it and it’s nice when you when you don’t cuz when you don’t have it, you don’t want it. Of course, it’s nice to have money, but then you’ve got to earn it. You don’t get money given to you. So you don’t you’ve got to work for it in this day and age. You don’t. So before you go, what kind of fundraising are you do before you go? What? Sorry, was that? So what kind of fundraising activities and events are you doing? Are you doing any? Well, I have three months, to be fair, like I’ve I’ve reached almost $350. I’m not I’ve not even left yet. It’s just like I’ve I’ve created an intro video. I’m slowly putting it out there. People seeing it. So yeah, I’ve I’ve actually got some funding at the moment and that’s I’ve not even left yet. So Okay. Interesting. Interesting. Well, we’ve come to a lovely close. So to people who think about doing something but never do it, because you get a lot of those. I think it’s not they they don’t want to do it. They want to do it but they don’t know how. And with with people who do do it, they share it, but they don’t share into details, you know, like with fees and how easy is it to get a visa or how cheap it cheap is it to do it. So when when I do my my my challenge, I’m going to sort of change it. You know what I mean? Like I’m going to show you how to get the visas, show you how easy it is to stay somewhere, you know, like. So I’m going to like cuz I want to inspire people like if I if I can do it, you can do it. But this is how you do it, you know? I’m I’m going to give that platform out there and make that change for people who would want to do it. Yeah, I get you. Yeah. Why do you think then? That’s interesting. Why don’t you think people who have done it before actually disclose how to actually do it? I I think they’re I think they’re more interested in sharing their sharing their story and they’ve not actually thought about it like where I’ve watched it. Yeah. And I want to do it but I don’t know how. Yeah. Like so I’m going to make that I’m going to like make that change cuz I would love like if I if I end up leaving from Portsmouth cuz I’ve noticed there’s not many people from the south of England I’ve heard of that cycled across the world. There’s a few few guys from the north. Uh Sam bike packing the world. Okay. He’s just reached out to Australia. He’s flying. He’s he’s now in in now he’s he’s in UK. Wow. Um and there’s another guy called Jay Harvey’s. Um his dad done it 40 years ago. So he’s following his dad’s like footsteps which is really interesting because you see a picture of his dad 40 years ago in base camp in Nepal in the Himalayas and then you see him 2025. Like what what a story. What a story. Yeah. Wow. So how important is leaving a legacy to you? What do you mean by that? So like obviously you’re going to cycle around the world. Do you know what I mean? Like you wouldn’t do that if and you’re you’re building you’re aiming to help people out who are in need. All of these things. Um you wouldn’t just do that if you didn’t care about making a change, if you will. So, how would you like to be remembered? Um, how would I well like when you make that change for these remote communities, they’re always going to remember you. You’ve made a massive change to their life. And that that’s that’s all I would like to be fair is just just to be remembered, you know, but like not I don’t only want to go and build a school. I want to keep visiting every year and seeing how it’s doing and just see if they need any any help in other any other way. That’s all right. Now, that’s interesting cuz I know some projects that are building schools. Okay. So, here’s here’s one for you. So, in a place where like these remote towns where they’ve never had this infrastructure, they’ve never had the education, they’ve never had the means to do anything. If you build something out of nowhere for people who’ve never had anything, how can you be sure that they’ll use it in the way that you intend it for? That’s a good question because well, I think with with when you go into these really remote communities like yeah, you can build a foundation, but you need that foundation to be used, right? M and that’s when I think organizations send up gathering teachers who come from like say there look at island next door with a few teachers they will make their way to that island on that yellow boat they build. Oh interesting. So that’s how they source it where with the yellow boat. Yeah. So with the with the Yellow Boat Health Foundation, they when they get to these remote communities in the in in the Philippines, they use these yellow boats to bring over materials, bring over teachers. So not like teach there could be no teachers on one island, but they could be next door. So they use they will use that yellow boat to keep coming back and forth. Okay. Yeah, it’s a really interesting organization. Yeah, it is. Yeah, we have to check them out. Okay. Now, that was a burning question. Um I mean with that then interesting interesting yeah because the lack of education is a real thing. So with you going back year on year that’s interesting. So is this just your final destination if you will or where’s next for you? Um so I’ve I’ve I’ve not been to the Philippines or Africa. So, I’m going to do this world cycle and once I finish with the Philippines, I think I’ll um my my next steps will be get to Africa. Interesting. Any particular part of Africa? Um Uganda and Kenya for a start off, but I would like to go over Africa and spend a whole year over and just make that change. Live like a local, be with the locals, see see where it takes you. It is changing a culture though, you know, and that that’s one thing that I’m really interested in and been trying to explore for the past few years. How do you go about changing an ingrained culture? How do you do that? You know, that’s that’s and how many years does that take? You know, that’s those are the big questions. Um, and you know, you’re not you’re just one man, you know, if you even if you do get all these organizations behind you, what does it take? Yeah. So yeah, these these are the questions I have are fit properly rhetorical questions. Well, okay, cool. So yeah, how can we find you and how can people support? So I I have obviously my Instagram when traveling becomes home. Um I have another um the nonprofit organization, Belief Foundation. No, Belief_ganization foundation. I had a think. Um, and yeah, I hopefully I’m aiming to get a website um in the next couple of weeks. Okay, cool. Um, so just people can just take a picture of the QR code and come straight up. Okay. I mean, have you got um like a GoFundMe link or So, yeah, I I have it’s a give Butter, so it’s in US dollars. Um, it doesn’t matter. Um, you can obviously pay with an English bank card and it just does the transaction. Yeah. Was there a reason for using that particular one? Um, so with obviously the Philippines, it’s right next to America, so they’ve obviously got partners there, so it helps them a lot more. Okay. Some dollars. Fair. Fair. Well, Lewis, that kind of brings us to a lovely wrap up on this part. Yeah. And uh, no, man, I’ve enjoyed it. I’ve enjoyed listening to why you’re all doing this. Thank you. It’d be interesting to see. And, um, yeah, man. Hopefully we can catch up on some of your training sessions. Yeah. And yeah, see what it’s all about. That would be cool, man. But all right then. Cool. Well, we’ll wrap up there and then Yeah, let’s go into part two. Perfect. All right, man. Thank you. Thank you. How long do you think it would take you to cycle from Portsmouth to Indonesia? Oh god. Um, probably I’d say like a year. A year. Solid. Yeah. Yeah. A solid year. There it won’t be a quick journey, would it? So, yeah. What route would you take? Um, go here to like maybe do ferry do to like France and you can do most of you go through Europe I guess then Asia I yeah I guess I don’t know what route you would take but maybe like that far too long months years a long long time. I get it. So what route would you take? I guess you go through got to get to Europe and then go through Europe across Asia, you know, through the step of Russia, then down to Southeast Asia. Hopefully get there that way. Indonesia. I think it’s the furthest point away from the UK. So I think the furthest east. Okay. So it’s Papa. It’s Papa. So yeah, the by Papa New Guinea. I reckon that would probably take maybe a year, maybe just under a year, but something like that. Interesting. What route would you take? I don’t know what the route is. You got a problem around Iran. Can you go through China at the moment? That’s a good question. That is a good question because you’d have you can’t go Iran and Iraq are all off limits. So, you got the Stans. So you’d have to go through the stands and then through China. Across China through Laos into Thailand, Thailand down through Malaysia and then Malaysia you can hop a ferry to Somatra. I reckon about 21 days. 21 days. Really? That’s quite rapid. Is it? Do you think? Wow. I think I don’t know. It’s a random choice. I’m trying to think how you you have to use uh transport boats etc. But cuz it’s not all cycling, is it? Let’s be honest. Yeah. Well, he is apparently he is cycling straight up bike from here to there. 3 months then. There you go. Is that better? It wouldn’t happen cuz I’ I’d give up probably. That’s crazy. I don’t know. A month. Love that. Love that. Mad respect though. That’s crazy. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I mean, I cycle from Emworth to East. Yeah, that’s far. And that’s electric bike. That’s amazing. 10 years. If I’d make it 14hour flight. Oh, Dave’s going to be cocky now. 14hour flight. So, half hour. Is it downhill? I ain’t got a clue. I’m going to go. It’s got to be a Two. No, more than that. Four months. Yeah, four months. I’m thinking like a week. No, more than a week. I’ll be eight. Two months. I’m going to go. My final answer. Two months. Two months. All right. I’m going to go. Do you know the answer? No, he’s not done it yet. He’s going in October. But short Google map it. I’m going to go 6 weeks. 6 weeks. I think I’ve written here.