Cycling Adventure From Rossi to Aussie: Fergal Guihen (Pt 1)

From not knowing how to fix a puncture to leaving Ireland to cycle to Australia via  Iran, Afghanistan, China and beyond, Fergal Guihen shows how saying yes to fear can change everything.

Listen if: You’ve ever thought, “I’d love to take off on an adventure… but I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

Key takeaways:

• Fear is the compass: When faced with two routes, Fergal picked the scarier one  and discovered for him this would lead to the richest experiences.
• Hospitality beats headlines: The countries that made him most nervous (Iran, Afghanistan, China) turned out to be the most generous.
• Commit out loud: Telling others he was going made backing out impossible. Accountability is the fuel for your adventure.

Golden quote: “I’d rather try and fail than not try at all.”

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Donate to Fergal’s fundraiser for suicide prevention Mayo Roscommon Hospice & NorthWest Stop: 

• Follow Fergal on Instagram

Previous Guests and episodes mentioned:

David McCourt - Part 1 and Part 2

Emily Hulbert 

Click here to find out more about Helinox Camp Chairs

Chapters

• 5:17 Growing up in Roscommon
• 10:06 From Gaelic Football to Long Distance Running
• 16:12 The Turning Point: Deciding to Cycle to Australia
• 37:14 Facing Fears and Choosing the Route Through Iran
• 41:09 Seeking Guidance From Experienced Travellers
• 43:14 Adapting to Wild Camping
• 49:34 Mental Resilience and Vulnerability
• 56:12 Unexpected Help on the Road
• 1:08:14 Navigating China and Cultural Experiences

Transcript

0:00

Yeah, so we're camp out at this beach together for night. We cook our own dinner, have a few cans, and then the next day we separate. But then I'm just thinking, okay, this is where I can, you know, change my route entirely. Am I gonna fight fears and go to Iran and whatever countries after that took Stan or Afghanistan, or am I going to go with my original route, which was through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan. And, uh, in the weeks of follow up, I was, you know, contemplating which one to take. And the one that was more frightening stood out to me, which was, uh, the one to Iran and heard so many great things about the country. And me being Irish, I would've met so many English and American cycle tourists that can't travel to Iran.. But I knew my passport, I can enter the country. So this is where I just, when I got to Tbilisi in Georgia, I went to the embassy. I applied for the Visa and I got approved and yeah, that was it. I was telling my family I was going to Iran and I honestly don't know what they were thinking because my family didn't even know what to say to me when I was leaving on this trip. 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. Hello everyone. Bella here, host from the show. Just quickly before we get into this episode, I have done it again. I have once more interview to guest whose story is too incredible to condense down into one single episode. The guest today is Fergal Guihen, and you will be hearing part one out of two parts. I caught up with Fergal while he was in Timor Less Day. We had a very interesting and long podcast session, one of the longest ones I think I've ever done, which also involved a power cut and a scene change for Fergal. At one point, I was speaking to him completely in the dark. It was quite hilarious. Anyway, in this episode, you're gonna hear about how Fergal got the idea for his journey, how he planned and set out on this adventure, and also what helped him choose to take the more adventurous and unknown route to where he is now. And then in next week, we will continue the journey on. So saddle up and enjoy this session, part one of two with Fergal Guihen. Hello listeners. It's Bella Malloy here, host of the show, and today on Seek Travel Ride. I'm joined by someone who's in the middle of an absolutely incredible bike adventure. It was way back in March, 2024 when Fergal Ghan set off from his home in Rocom Island Destination Sydney, Australia. The thing is, before he started, Fergal didn't really have much cycling experience and he himself admits he didn't even know how to fix a puncture. Since then, his ride has taken him across Europe through the Balkans into Turkey, where it was a chance meeting with another bike traveler heading in the opposite direction that completely changed the course of his trip. Instead of taking what many would consider to be the safer route through Central Asia. Fergal chose the adventurous path, and soon enough found himself cycling through Iran and Afghanistan countries. Most of us only hear about in headlines, but where he says he's discovered incredible hospitality and had the most unforgettable experiences. He also cycled across China where he found himself cycling in temperatures down as low as minus 20 in remote deserts in the middle of winter. He had challenging moments with police escorts navigated the mega cities there, and also collected insights from regions. Many of us, dare I say, probably don't even know exist. Fergal has wild camp throughout. He's had the challenges of doing so with a broken tent in Southeast Asia and has experienced temperatures climbing close to 50 degrees. His journey has been filled with challenges, surprises, and extraordinary kindness from strangers around the world. In every country he has traveled through. We're catching up while he's in Dili t more less day, with just one final stretch left before Australia. I cannot wait to hear about what it's really like to take on such a huge adventure with no prior cycling background, the moments which have shaped AL'S perspective and what he's learned as he makes his way from Rossie to Ozzy. Fergal. Guihen, you absolute legend. A big warm welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Bonai. It was really to bring back a lot of memories here in, uh, that intro. And, uh, I'm happy to be joining the list of all the amazing guests and friends that, uh, you've interviewed throughout the, your podcast. It's a pleasure to have you on the show, Fergal, and it's something you said there just quickly, like the friends that you've made on this journey, bike traveling gives you fast friendships and I can't think of the countless long list of people that you have now, you know, can count on as friends there from your travels. Speaking of long lists, Fergal, I've got a long list of questions for you, but the question I start my show with and I ask it of all my guests is Fergal. Guihen, do you remember the very first bike you ever rode? Uh, the exact bike. I don't really have much an an idea. I never really cycled before this challenge, but, uh, I do remember when I was in primary school in the summertime, like the last few days of school, I remember. Taking off with my friends to cycle towards their house in the heat and we'd go like messing around the hay bales.'cause I come from like really countryside Ireland. So, uh, yeah, I just remember like cycling to my friend's house and kind of playing around the fields. And uh, I guess next bike after that would've been like a long stint all through school. After that, I never really cycled until I got to university and in Dublin, uh, I would've traveled around on my sister's bicycle. So that was really it. I would've just cycled my friend's house when I was little and then around, uh, Dublin to commute to college and uh, to work and stuff. But I was never really much of a bicycle person before this. Yeah. Do you think you're a, you'll be a bicycle person after this? Do you think you'll be someone who just rides a bike for sport or is riding a bike? It, it's a travel thing for you. It's the vessel to propel you to the other side of the world. At the moment, now, I call myself a cyclist, but for so long in this, uh, this tour, I never counted myself as a cyclist because really, like when I left on this journey, I, I never even practiced cycling because I was recovering from an injury. So I think at this stage in the game, I would find it hard to remove myself from a bicycle. Uh, and I think you would have lots of guests that were the same, that took up the bicycle as the best vessel to explore the world. And yeah, it's gonna be hard to remove it from myself when this is said and done. Nimrod your bike has, I mean, he's gone through a few iterations. It's got a few new parts on it as well. Uh, you've definitely ridden it into the ground in places, but, uh, it's part of your personality too now, right? Yeah, completely. Nimrod has come with me the, the whole way. And, uh, there's lots of times Nimrod broker me, uh, so people would buy, you know, a brand new bike for this type of travel. But I, uh, was on crutches at the time and I was committing to myself to go ahead with this grand plan. I have the cycle from Ireland to Australia, and the first thing I had to do was, you know, buy a bicycle. That's what I had to do. And, uh, I was freshly off getting my, uh, cruciate ligaments, my knee operated on, and uh, I was off work and it was around the time where like, okay, I need to commit to this travel or not. And I said, right, look up online, see your frame bike. That's all I knew. Need a steal frame bike. And, uh. I seen the first theater bike. I sent the person a message. I literally hopped in my car on crutches and I went and collected it. And it's so funny going back now, I have a video of, uh, me kind of, you know, assessing the bike after I bought it to send a video to my friend. And I, I don't know the terminology for anything. I'm like, well, there's a few scrapes here on the, the break, which I was pointing at. The shifter, the pedal, you know, was a bit worn and I was pointing at the whole chain ring. The cassettes. The cassettes. I, I don't even know what it called. I didn't even know what a spoke was. That's how raw I was before this. Yeah. You've used, I mean, you've used zip ties as spokes on this journey for a bit too, right? Yeah, yeah. Lots of times, especially there in, uh, Southeast Asia. I think I went eight spokes, uh, missing on my bicycle. But I think Emily Holbert speaks me to which she had something like 12 missing. Oh my gosh. Em. Absolute legend of a human being currently in the High Mountains in Nepal, doing absolutely great things on her water cycle tour. Yeah. Oh, I, I, have you seen the little video with em and her broken spokes on that section? It's absolutely ridiculous. It looks awful. And for me, now, I am heading into my Australian cycle. And originally, you know, I thought, okay, I've built up enough confidence, I'll take on the route that, that Emily took. But, uh, I, I think after seeing that video and, uh, maybe with the seasons being a little hotter now, I, I'm not kicking that route. Well, I, I think also you'd nearly be coming into it just before wet season starts too. So that would be quite interesting to see you take a bit of a route if, if you were, if you were heading in Northwestern Australia as well, and up in, through Darwin too. Oh my gosh. Jumping across to Australia. I wanna jump back in time Il back to before the, this trip even started for you, right? I wanna know what growing up in Ross Common was actually like, you, you handle on, on Instagram rossie to Ossie Rossie short for Ross. Common. What was Ross Common like? It's Ireland, so I'm picturing very lush green fields, but tell me more about Ross. Common. Yeah, so growing up in the west of Ireland, uh, Ross Common is, you know, it's on the border where the west meets the Midland. So I would always call it the west. It's west of the river Shannon. And I guess growing up there was only one thing you do as a child and it's play Gaelic football. So all my life I would be playing Gillick football. For those that don't know, it's uh, maybe a bit like Aussie rules, but it's a sport that we play with our hands and our feet. And it's very, I guess, tribal sport because you play for where you're born. And all my life I was playing for, you know, my small little village. And I come from a very rural place in my primary school, which is eight age groups, uh, like eight classes. There was only 32 in the entire school. 32 pupils. Oh wow. Yeah. Very rural. And, uh, I would be a farmer as well. So I think you can't live in the west of Ireland without being, uh, a farmer. You know, everyone would've manned the land when they were younger generations ago. So every family has land and my parents would've grown up with sheep and cows. So even though they have their own jobs and we don't have, you know, a big enough farm to, uh, to actually have full-time, I would've grown up going out into the winter, the fish elements, moving cows, dosing sheep, clipping sheep, you know, and it's all mountainous terrain. Where I come from is the mountain of Orna. It's a coal mine and village. So, yeah, it's very, I guess people would say it's in the middle of nowhere, but to us it's the hidden gem of Ireland. And when I was practicing for this cycle, trip, you know, I was recovering obviously with my knee, so I didn't do much. But I remember taking into the, the mountains and being like humbled very quickly. And I'm very lucky that that didn't, uh, you know, I didn't lose enough confidence in taking on them mountains because, uh, I think it was the Alps or the next ones that were as tough after that. But yeah, that's kind of the, the west of Ireland, what really Moja and, yeah, I, I guess would've grew up with testing myself playing Gaelic football. It was really my way of, uh, my outlet. It was always pushing myself. And then when COVID hit, uh, we weren't able to play Gaelic football anymore, and I took up running. So I was working as a nurse in the hospital at the time. Uh, I was still a student, but they needed help in the intensive care ward. So I was helping up there. And, you know, obviously during COVID it was a very hard time, um, me only being, I think I was 2120 at the time, and I would've been working with patients, getting to know them and then honestly, you know, building rapport and then seeing them unfortunately pass away in the last few days of their life. And I guess to me, it really made me know that I'm not gonna be around forever and what do I want to do with my life? And at the same time, I was really invested into this kind of long distance run. I was doing a hundred kilometer, uh, runs a week, so. When, you know, things started to open up again. I said I was, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. A hundred kilometer runs a week. Was it a hundred kilometers of running or were you running like a trail run every week? Uh, I was running a hundred kilometers plus a week. So not at one go, but during the week, I, yeah. Okay. But I said to myself I would run, uh, an ultra marathon and then I, I told my friends I was gonna run an ultra marathon and then I do know what happened. Uh, things opened up. The pubs opened up, I guess is the biggest excuse I have. And, uh, I lost confidence'cause I told people I was gonna run an ultra marathon and I didn't, and. That really, you know, I took a hit with that 'cause I wasn't the person I said I was. And then fast forward another year or so, I ended up, you know, going on a very quick cycle tour with one of my, uh, friends from Amsterdam to Sher Berg in France, which is like six days cycle. And it was, I, I don't even know how we came up with this idea. I'm gonna send him a message and find out. But it was my first introduction to Cycle tour. He would've cycled, uh, I think it was Iceland before, and I was like, oh, okay, we'll do this. And that was for me and him took go from Amsterdam, build our bikes at the airport and straight away camping on the beach near the hike in, uh, the Netherlands. And it was so cold, even though it was like the 1st of April. But it was, you know, such a great experience. My first time actually camping, I can't remember ever camping as a child. And then three of our friends would've flown to Paris and then met us for the last three days of our tour. And this is where I think my real love for bicycle touring came from because we were all cycling. So that's a group of me and my friend. And then the three friends we met up with, we were cycling through Aurora, France and we stopped for lunch, eat our own stuff outside this house in the countryside. And a guy comes over, he starts talking to us and he invites us in for tea. So we get talking to him, it's like really nice, like getting to, you know, see a French house and like obviously, you know, happy to see some people in Royal France. And next thing we're like, oh, it's, you know, quite a big house. Uh, they're building a house beside this house. So we're like, it's quite a big house that you're building here. And we knew he was newly engaged. He told us. And then he said, well, I never told anyone this. You're the first people I'm telling, but me and my wife are expecting. And the first people, this random French man told us that he was gonna have a child. What's the five Irish lads that rocked up to his house on bicycles? And it was such a warm. Nice moments and it's such a really stuck with me that this is the really best way of travel to meet people.'cause whenever would I be in a situation to meet someone like that. Yeah. Yeah. I guess then I, I arrived back to Ireland and uh, it's coming to the stage of my life where everyone my age, you know, I was 25 at the time, is moving to Australia or they're going to be staying in Ireland and saving up for a house. That's kind of the, the two decisions you have at the, that 25 years, uh, of age in Ireland and Australia is, you know, the number one. Everyone my age is moving out there, especially me being a qualified nurse, I'd be able to get a, a job very easily. Yeah. I, I remember thinking during the summer beforehand, wouldn't it be amazing the cycle there? Like how many more of them experiences them, interactions would I have along the way? I said to myself that I can, you know, I love enjoyed sports. Running it would obviously take too long, so why not do it by bicycle? And, uh, I started to tell everyone, uh, that was the first thing I did. I started to tell my friends, started to tell my family. And at first, you know, my family were like, okay, right. These just saying this, nothing will happen. And then I tore my cruciate ligament in my knee. After, uh, I ran a marathon a few days later, I, I fell off my bicycle, actually tore my c in my knee, and I had to get a, it operated on. So this was the pinnacle where it's like, okay, I need to make a decision here. Am I gonna stick to what I was telling everyone? And in six months, months time, I'm gonna leave and cycle to Australia, or am I going to just be like, oh, that's it. Like I can't, this is a, a sign not to do it. And I went with the, the first one, I, I said, right, no, this obstacle, which would me tear, my crucial ligament led to. Me having the time off work to plan such a enormous trip and it led gave me time to call people that have done this before. Like I would've been on, uh, zoom calls of five or so people that have cycled from Ireland to Australia or parts of it. I would've had time to plan my route and in the same time I was telling everyone, because if I kept it to myself, I knew I wouldn't commit to it. And also I knew I needed an external motivation more than just my own ignorance. The two charities that are very important to me are, and hostage foundation because, um, my great granny would've passed away when she was the age of 99. And for us, my family, she got care in her home house where she, you know, lived her own life rather than unfortunately passing away or, or passing away in the hospital. So. It was really nice for our family that my granny passed away the last few days of her life in her home house. So I knew this was a very special charity organization and me being a nurse, I, you know, of course, is a great one. And the other one that I chose was Northwest Stop Suicide Prevention Services. So unfortunately, my own family would've had members that lost their life to suicide. Most recently, when I was actually eight months into this cycle trip, I was in Tajikistan. I just left Afghanistan after, you know, two months a month. We ran and went through Afghanistan and I was in Tajikistan taking a well earned break. And unfortunately, uh, I got the news that my cousin Tom had passed away from suicide. And yeah, it just shows how prevalent suicide is in the west of Ireland, or in, I guess Ireland, how I'm out here raising funds for suicide prevention. But yet that's also the reason I had to fly home. Oh, al feral. I'm so sorry. I, I knew that you had gone home because. He'd passed away unexpectedly. I, I didn't actually know that he had that. It was due to suicide. My heart breaks for you.'cause I can't imagine what it's like for you. I can't imagine what it's like for your family. Yeah. A charity close to your heart and then just another, yeah. Another reason why that would've been really hard to deal with at the time. I can't even imagine what's going through your head at that moment. Yeah. It was, you know, a very, uh, poignant moment because I just left Iran, Afghanistan after fighting so many fears, and I'll get into that later. But it was a time I was, you know, questioning a lot of stuff. And then next thing I get the news and, you know, we'd be a very tight knit family. Yeah. I, you know, straightaway knew I had to fly home here and I was very fortunate I wasn't in Iran or Afghanistan, that I was somewhere that I could get a flight from. I was in the city of the Shabe, Tajikistan, so I flew home and, uh. Nice to be there with my family during that time, but obviously a very sad time. And then after that, I would've had to fly back. Uh, I only spent three, four days at home.'cause you know, I wanted to be there for the funeral and everything, but I didn't want to be there for anything more. Like I, I was still so in the middle of my trip. And also the fact that I am raising funds for suicide prevention, when I did return to my bicycle and continue cycling, it gave me more motivation and it, uh, yeah, it really made what I'm raising funds for to be that bit more significant And. Here I am, I guess I'm in Dili now after quite a lot further and we have 90 grand raised for the two charities now. So that's me clapping my hands and listeners, feral. I'm gonna put links into your fundraiser in the podcast, show notes and listeners, I definitely encourage you to hit them up. And if you're somewhere and you're thinking in a different country even, and you're thinking about organizations maybe closer to home that you can contribute to as well, maybe this is a little poignant reminder for yourself to look and seek those out there as well. But Fergal, it's, oh my gosh, there's so many things I wanna wind back on and and touch on there. But to add that extra sense of purpose and a poignant extra sense of purpose to your trip as well, um, I'm sure has helped keep your pedals turning, so to speak. Something else that you mentioned early on here was the idea of committing to it by saying it out loud. By saying it out loud. It's what has. Led you to commit to it. You, you even had the great excuse, the bailout excuse, oh, I've, I've hurt my knee, I've gotta reconstruct it. So unfortunately I had that planned, but, you know, life's thrown me a curve ball, and now I'm on a two different trajectory. But you even consciously knew that you could use that as an excuse, but chose to stick to what you had said. I also really, really loved that it was that random experience in rural France with perfect stranger showing you hospitality that made you dream about all the types of experiences and acts of hospitality you'd receive all the way along. And that's really been an undertone of your journey, hasn't it? Like I see that in your updates constantly. I can't imagine there's been many days where you haven't had an interaction or a sign of hospitality shown to you by a, a stranger in every single country, right? Yeah, I, when I first left on this, on this, uh, journey, it was meant to be, you know, endurance. I thought to try and get there from A to B as fast as I can. You know, 11 months was my deadline, but straight away I was hit with how can I do this so quick when there's so many meaningful interactions along the way. So many like cultures to experience people to meet. And I am, they only meant to take 11 months. I'm not even finished yet, and I'm, uh, currently 18 months into my, my cycle. So, uh, I really, I guess took my time is one way to put it. But like you said, there, I came across so many amazing people along my journey and I think most of them great experiences I had came on when I let myself be most vulnerable. And an example of that would've been when I just crossed into Vietnam and I was back cycling by myself. I was cycling with someone all throughout China. So I left China, I entered Vietnam. A new country left China. China was very safe. You're maybe in Vietnam, you dunno what the people are liking. I set up my tent in this, you know, beside a, a rice field and just a little bit of flat ground. And I was on the phone to my, my dad and next thing a lights start shining on my, on my tent. So what's this like? Uh, you know, the fears start comes straight away. You're like, is someone gonna attack me? Are they gonna steal something? Everything comes rushing through your heads. This person comes to my tent and I unzip it and, uh, they're just, you know, trying to speak Vietnamese to me. I can't. And then, and it, anyways, uh, he's gesturing for me to follow him. So I end up getting Google translate and, uh, I, I think he wants me to, to leave the field. I thought it was his field, but he ended up saying, no, no, come with me to my house. So I end up leaving my, my tent there just at the other side of the rice field is this house behind a few, uh, shrubs. And when I come around, I, uh, I entered the house and he. Three grandchildren waiting for me at the door, and they start being like jumping up and down, excited to see this foreigner coming. And by me, like initially I didn't want to follow this man, I was gonna be like, no, no, no, I want to stay here. I, 'cause I knew, you know, he wanted to bring me into his house by that stage. But I was like, okay, no, maybe this will be all right. And I follow him and I end up having the best nights. It was so meaningful to be able to be invited into a Vietnamese home, see what it's like, have dinner with them. I sat down, ed with them, got playing with, uh, this guy's grandchildren who were, I think 10, eight and seven. And they were so full of life. And kids are the best people to be around. They're so full of joy. And I think as we get older, we kind of lose that optimism and sense of playfulness and just being around kids in these foreign countries just makes everything seem so less foreign. Because we're all so similar. At the end of the day, kids just want to play. It doesn't matter if you're a grown up or child, all they want to do is just have a good time with you. And yeah, I guess that my childlike innocence comes out as well, and I just wanna play and learn from them. And yeah, that's what this kind of travel's all about. I wouldn't have had that experience if I was traveling by bus or by car. And that's what's so beautiful about cycle touring. And I have countless other examples of, uh, this and it, it puts you right in that place. Like you, you, you're where you are, you're very present. You, you're surrounded by like, I think of the innocence of children as well that comes out there. I remember seeing, oh, I'm trying to think what country it might've been. I've scanned through every single one of your stories leading up to this interview, Fergal, just in the last couple of days. Can I say I, I reckon there's tens of thousands of them. If I got the country wrong, I don't know, but I think it might've been in Turkey, potentially. There were, there were two little kids who you'd given some sweets to and then they were just really innocently playing with every single thing in your panas and stuff like that as well. But the other thing that strikes me, you mentioned em holbert before, absolute legend that she's, and something I love about em. EM'S currently delivering water filters to places and rural communities who don't have access to clean water. And a lot of that has taken all also to schools. And what I love about her stuff is exactly what you're talking about. She's posting images of these beautiful, it's just the innocence and happiness of children. I guess there's, there's another aspect to your travels as well where there's that awesome undertone that you get to experience the innocence, happy smile, children playing, welcomed into families, shown hospitality. I guess there's the other side too, where as someone who comes from places, and I say this as someone who's also very privileged as well, to have so many opportunities, education, clean water, sanitation, warmth, air conditioning, whatever. To then experience the other raw side of the reality of what a lot of people are existing through in life. And I say existing. How has that been? How has it been to see the other end of the spectrum on your travels as well? That's a great question because you'd often forget when you leave certain areas how, like, let's say going through Iran, like the people there have so little compared to what we have, you know, job security, everything is kiosk there. And like I guess back home we don't realize how much we have until it's taken away from us or until at least we go somewhere and experience how other people live to realize what we have that we weren't appreciating. Like that. You said water and you have Emma, Emily going around delivering water filters like that is such an amazing project and I actually was meant to collect water filters and maybe bring them here to the leste and I'm on my way, but unfortunately I was a bit late in, in messaging her. But that's it. It's like something like water. You never think about that when you're back home. In Ireland, we have abundance of water, so much rain. Like we never think, oh, what if there is no water? And uh, that's just the tip of the iceberg. You know, you have to think about like job security. You have to think about future for your, your kids and everything. Like we can plant things in in the west where it's a lot more stable, but then you see these societies that aren't stable. But people are still so generous and so kind for what they have. Like the places that have the least is where I've received the most. And that goes for the best experiences, the most generous. Kind things to happen to me were always where people had the least, like going through Iran, I couldn't go a day without food and water being handed out the window of moving car cars to me. I'd stop at a restaurant at noon just to, to have lunch and the people would be trying to make me stay the night with them. Just this incredible friendly generosity that there is in the world, and for some reason it's not really there back home and not in the sense that it's not there, but we have too many distractions. It'll be really interesting for me when I do finish up this cycle tour and try to incorporate this, all these acts of generosity that I perceive to try and see if I can do it for other travelers coming through. It's been a, a struggle dealing with the, the privileges that we, that we have that I wouldn't have noticed. I've had the pleasure of interviewing many long distance bike travelers and it's something that sticks with them. It almost becomes an inherent part of your personality of this, want to always find a way to pay it forward. Always, always, always. In a, in a way. I feel deeply what you're saying there. Have you ever wondered what it is like, do you have a theory on why it is that, you know, the poorest people with nothing seem to show you the most hospitality? I can't put my finger on it. I'd love to know why, but I would say we have too many distractions and a lot of, I guess greed maybe comes into it in the West where we're always thinking about ourselves, but it's the family nature. Like family is number one in a lot of these, these countries, uh, that I would've passed through. And family breeds you to think for more than just yourself, makes you think of the people around you, the community, around you. And for that, well, as a traveler passing through, you're part of their family, you're part of their community. And a good example of that is just here in Indonesia, I'm after traveling two months through Indonesia. When you're on a boat in Indonesia, it's an island nation. You're always on a boat from one eye to the next. Uh, I'd be sitting next to someone and he'd say, oh yeah, this is, uh, this is my mother. And we'd get talking after a while and then I found out this person doesn't know this person. I'm like, you told me they're your mother. He said, oh no. We, we always say that. It's like, uh, we're all family, we're all traveling here together. We're all family at this moment. And when do you ever think about that? When do you ever think you're on a bus in, I dunno, Paris, and think everyone on this bus is family. It makes you change your thing the way you think, your thought process, and you start thinking of the people in a more friendly way, maybe the way that we should be thinking. You know what, it takes me back to Fergal. I, uh, a few months ago. I was returning actually, back from the uk. I'd done my live shows up there for the podcast and I'd visited some great friends up in Scotland, and I chose to take the train all the way back down to the Pyrenees, which, which is awesome that you can even do that. And the final leg of that journey was a sleeper train from Paris to the Pyrenees. And it was my first experience of being on a sleeper train on my own. And it's set up amazingly here in France. And as a woman, there's even women only carriages for sleepers and stuff like that takes any of the perceived fear away, makes it feel safer. But I still even remember on that journey and, uh, the sleeper carriage for me there six sort of bunks, like, well, there's two bunks of three, you know, bottom, middle, top. I was in the middle. I, I actually did wonder, this is a tangent. I wonder which one the best one is Anyway. I remember leading up to that thinking, oh gosh, I hope there's no weirdos in there with me. And oh, I hope that, you know, you know, I'm, I'm, I wasn't thinking, wow, I'm gonna have a great experience with a new family or anything like that. And you know, as it was listeners, I'm on the early side of 40 here. I think I was definitely the youngest person in that sleeper carriage. It was, you know, there were five other women, probably average age 65 and all having mega awesome travel trips. I think most of them were coming to the Pyrenees to solo hike. But just what you said there made me think, I've never considered transport to be, oh, you were traveling with family. It is such a different culture, isn't it? Completely, yeah. It's, it just makes your top process change that, oh, I want the window open. But if you think of everyone as family, you might go, oh, well what if someone wants a window shut? Like that's just one example, but it just makes you think of other people a lot more than yourself taking the individual part out of it. Yeah. Yeah. Something that we've touched on, Fergal, your journey initially was gonna be 11 months. Your, what did you say? You're 18 months or something into it now or whatever it is. Your plans have definitely changed. You've taken many a detour along the way. One of the detours and change in your, a significant change in your route was a chance meetup with previous podcast guest, another dead set legend, David McCourt. Hi David. You met David traveling the other way. He was going from Melbourne to Kdo, his little village there in Northern Ireland. You met him in Turkey. You both connected really well and you spent some time hearing David share stories and that changed a lot of your trip for you, didn't it? Oh, did David, what an amazing guy. And if there's anyone listening to this, he should definitely go back and listen to David McCourt's two episodes with you, Bella. But David, he was uh, a very significant moment for me on my travels. Meeting him. I would've just finished Europe, but I guess you could really break down. The first half of Europe was me learning how to do this type of travel. The second half was like meeting other cycle tourists and kind of building confidence. But then the next stage was Turkey. And I was back into, you know, the unknown first time in a Muslim populated country really. And you know, a lot of unknown. But I would've met David. So randomly, like he's on the inverse tour of, of my trip and I cycling. I was on the descent and he was, uh, on the ascent and. I almost didn't see him. I like almost stopped right after him. And I can remember him going, oh, we're stop. We're stopping now. And I turned around, I, I started talking to him and uh, there was a, this really nice kind of viewpoint with a restaurant right beside where we were now when I see a restaurant, it's a few planks that met a decking that you have a woman that has a hot plate in front of her that she cooks maybe egg and a bit of flour on top of. So we sat in this makeshift restaurant and David would've told me about his, uh, travels through all of India, Pakistani, China, Tajikistan. And then it comes to, I think it was Stan and Iran and then Iraq and I was here thinking, what, you can travel through these countries? Like I am so naive before I started this tour. So naive. I'm like, it's possible it's you. You can do this. And he's telling me all these stories like. Going through Iran, the capital of Iran, like seeing people protesting against the hijab, going through the city of Mead, that's really Holy city in Iran. I was like, but like how, how I've not been arrested or shot. It doesn't never question what I was told about these countries. And I was told a country like Iran was unsafe and cannot travel there. So after hearing all David's stories, we, we then actually cycled back down the road and we camped out on the beach together and I just sat there listening to him for hours. I think anyone could listen to David for hours. He's an amazing storyteller. Something I love about David was his motivation to take his journey was also because of another friend. And he remembers meeting his friend. I think it was in, uh, I'm gonna get it wrong. Maybe it was around Darwin. Sorry David. You're gonna let me know. And hearing his friend's stories and he had just had this big passion to, I wanna be able to tell these stories and share stories, but go on, he's he's sharing stories with you there. Yeah. So we're camp out at this beach together for night. We cook our own dinner, have a few cans, and then the next day we separate. But then I'm just thinking, okay, this is where I can, you know, change my route entirely. Am I gonna fight fears and go to Iran and whatever countries after that Turk, Stan or Afghanistan, or am I going to go with my original route, which was through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan. And, uh, in the weeks of follow up, I was, you know, contemplating which one to take. And the one that was more frightening stood out to me, which was, uh, the one to Iran. I heard so many great things about the country and me being Irish, I would've met so many English and American Cycle tourists that can travel to Iraq. But I knew my passport, I can enter the country. So this is where I just, when I got to Tbilisi in Georgia, I went to the embassy, I applied for the visa and I got approved and yeah, that was it. I was telling my family I was going to Iran and I honestly don't know what they were thinking because my family didn't even know what to say to me when I was leaving on the trip. I remember seeing, I came across one of your story posts and it's like the reactions from your mom and dad with like a different emoji. And I think your dad replied with a, and you've got this photo of like, guess who's going to Iran and I think it's you with a photo of your passport or something, or your visa and your dad responds with a thumb up and your mom responds with a smiley face. But then you said mum's response followed promptly by like a, a significant message about all her concerns. I think she put the thumbs up. There's, uh, to, I dunno, reassure my siblings. But uh, then in a private message, she was very much, uh, letting me know how fearful she was about it. But, uh. Actually things worked out. But uh, yeah, I dunno. Even just thinking back, I'm so proud of myself for taking that, the route that I would've been fearful of, because that's really been a theme of my travel, is fighting fear. Because you feel that, like everything you do in life, you feel fear, but it's to feel it and to do it anyways. Like it fear is always gonna be there, but it's the false evidence appearing real. It's not the, uh, the acronym FEAR, false evidence appearing real. And that's what it is. I had these false evidence evidences about Iran and then they made me, uh, fearful. And then I get there and it's just not true. The people are so generous. They're not trying to, you know, attack me and the saying goes for so many of the countries I go through. So, yeah, I think one thing is, uh, we shouldn't be as fearful of fear, which is, I dunno, a counterintuitive statement, but it's. Yeah. Yeah. There's always so much to learn on the opposite side of doing something difficult and your fears. Yeah. And I think there's also another side, especially with people who are taking this type of travel, of other people, pushing their fears onto you as well sometimes. And it magnifies the fear. So then you have fear and then you have their fear, and then you're like, oh my gosh, maybe I really shouldn't be doing this. And again, it, it, it sort of puts you in that fear state, like you said, with the people putting their own fears on you. It was when, uh, before I left, I, you know, was obviously telling everyone about my trip and the amount of people that said, this is impossible. You know, you're going to the, I had people walk away from me, like literally just walk away when I told them what I was doing. And, uh, it's so difficult to continue with this idea despite people not thinking it's possible. You know, you have to have so much confidence in yourself, but. How can you, when you don't know what's possible yourself, but to me, I said I'd rather try and fail than to not try at all. And isn't that what it's all about? Like at the end of the day, I'm not gonna be around forever, so I, am I gonna try and do the things I want to do or am I just not gonna try and I'm not gonna achieve them if I don't try. So yeah, it takes me back. Also, Fergal, to what you did when you had made the decision that you were gonna go and, you know, your knee reconstruction surgery gave you that bit of time to prep as well, where you actually, you've got people that are maybe pronouncing their fears onto you, but then what you did was seek out people who'd actually done the thing and to learn their lessons from them as well and sort of give yourself their own little evidence bank of being able to make it possible. Yeah, that and that's honestly it. It was same with for David. David went to Iran. I think he went to Iran. I knew it was possible. For me, before I left, I got contacted people that have done this cycle, tour trip before and they told me it was possible. So then even though I don't know if it is possible myself, I know other people have done it, so surely it has to be. Yeah, it's like seek out people that have done this before, because no matter what you do, you're gonna have people that don't want to believe something's possible, so you don't change their perception of reality beforehand, I would've had people saying, this is impossible. But now that I have pretty much almost got to Australia now by bicycle, I'll just to try and find a boat to Australia, the narrative change that it's not, um, that it's not possible, but it's only o only he can do it. Well, where did, where did that switch? Where did it switch from? Only I can do it from, oh, it's not possible. So like people just don't want their perceptions of the world changed and it's up to you to do your own research and create your own perceptions. Don't listen to people that haven't done something themselves. That's really interesting how it's changed it. Oh yeah, no, it's okay for Fergal, but I, you know, only he can do it now. Oh, that's really interesting that you've sort of seen that. Yes, you are lucky you're able to do it, but I couldn't do it. There's a really good saying. I got taught when I was growing up of like convince a man against his will. He will hold the same opinion still. So like even if you provide evidence to someone that what they're saying isn't right, they will still believe what they're saying is right. So maybe that, maybe that goes into that case a little bit too. Oh, that's a brilliant call. You can use it from now on too. I don't mind if you steal it. We know when we talk about fears, there's also another different aspect that's not necessarily fear, but discomfort. We've spoken about you world camping. You said how you hadn't camped at all before this journey and how, my goodness, how many day, how many hundreds of days have you spent in a tent? Some of them in a, in a really crappy broken tent you took forever to, to replace. But anyway, something that I came across was, you've had some uncomfortable wild camp locations, but you've also had the discomfort of wild camping as well. And something that you've said about wild camping is you realize that you just have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable with it. Is that something that still is the case for you? Like do you still have moments inside your tent where you're like, oh gosh, you know, I heard a noise out there, I'm not sure what it is. Or can I be here? Is someone gonna flash lights on me at two 30 in the morning and tell me to leave? Because I think that did happen to you. I'm just trying to think. I think in Turkey you literally had to. Walk with your tent still pitched in one hand and move to a different spot. How has world camping and your relationship with it changed and evolved along this route? That's a brilliant question. So going to France, I would've cycled through France before. So I, at the beginning, I knew it was relatively safe. I wasn't that worried. But then, like I said, when I get to Turkey, it's straight into unknown. I'm hearing the call for prayer. I am seeing people wearing huge ads. It's very different to me. And I remember camping in a dressing room of a football pitch, and there's a, a split in the door. It's a literally a crack. So I could see the moonlight shining in from the, the door. And I could not sleep that whole night because every 30 seconds my brain would convince me that someone just walked by. Someone just walked by the door and blocked the sunlight for a second, and that whole night I got no sleep. And I would've had another night similar to that. And. It just got to the stage where it's like, what am I gonna do? Am I just not going to sleep anymore? Like with all these fears? And I had to say to myself that until I see a gun or a knife or actual threat in front of me, I'm sleeping. So it doesn't matter if I hear a noise, it doesn't matter if you know the wind is blocking over my tent or something. It's until I see a threat I, I'm sleeping. And that really stood to me once I met that mental shift once I cognitively, like said right now until I see that I was able to sleep from then on. And even one time when I was camping in Armenia, I was in the middle of this, this field, I, next thing I light starts shining on my tent. It's a common theme this happened. And, uh, I'm like, still fine. I wake up, but I'm, I'm like not worried. And next thing I knock on my tent, still not worried. Me at the beginning of this trip would've been absolutely, you know. Petrified Fugal. I would've been peaking. I would've been peaking, I would've been bricking it, but I opened the tent and there's literally this farmer holding a pitchfork, but thankfully he's talking very friendly as, as, as you say. And it's pitch sharkk outside as well. And he's shining a, a torch in my, in my face. But he, it is gesturing for me to follow him. So I, I follow him and he's just saying, oh, oh, no, no English, but don't I see that there's a, a trade of water coming from a burst pipe down towards my tent and I'm in the middle of this back ass field for the chances of me to put up my tent here Where Amelia to one, I said, and, uh, yeah, he helped me move my tent just up the field a little bit out of the, the line of the water that was beacon. And I mean, that could have been a extremely fearful and petrifying moment, but only for the fact that I like reconditioned my brain to think, okay, until I see fear, I'm not gonna worry. I'm gonna try and take that on board.'cause I, uh, you know, when you were talking about wild camp, right? Am I just not gonna sleep anymore? I could nearly say nearly every time I've wild camp, I've just not slept because of fear. And look, I'm also one of those people that sadly just can't sleep even in my own bed sometimes a sleepless night's not a new thing to me, but I, I almost accept that if I'm wild camping, I'm just, I'm just gonna be really exhausted. But yeah, I'm gonna try and take that on board. Do you have to give yourself a pep talk to do that still or that's now inherent? No, it now inherent like anymore I set up my tent and it's, I don't think about it and it's, uh, it is a trade thing because I'm c so long, but it's been night and day. Once I did train myself that, yeah, it was uncomfortable at first, but I mean, I learned through it and now I can pretty much sleep anywhere. Like you would, I guess that I, I don't know who it was, but was talking about how they could hear footsteps. And it could, could hear getting louder and louder and they're getting more fearful and more fearful. And then they realized the sound of the footsteps was actually their heart beating. Yeah. That was fellow Irish, Irish resident. So, so potty. Ah, yes. Yes. This would, I guess, prevent them to sort of situations from happening because that's your brain playing tricks on you. And no matter what, your brain's gonna play tricks on you. It's gonna make you not want to do something, uh, because of fear or because of whatever. So you have to have these kind of, uh, yeah. Mental things on your two belt to keep you going. I remember being camped wild, camped on top of the cliffs of mower. Absolutely convinced murderers were coming for me. In the morning, realizing the sounds of the murderers was like just some long wispy grass that was brushing against the side of my tent. I remember someone else sort of talking about, you know, you're always scared of some wild animal and then you wake up and it's like a baby deer or something in the forest. Yeah, exactly. Because we always go to the worst possible scenario. You are not thinking that you're gonna get woken up in Vietnam by an old grandfather who's simply just wants to invite you to his own home. Right? Yeah. Your mind always played tricks on you and yeah, it's a skill. At the end of the day, it's practice. Like if I stop camping for a year when I go back camping, yeah, I'm gonna be fearful if I hear a sound, but then I need to remind myself how I overcome that. It's a tool on my tool belt and uh, you need to keep practicing it to keep it on your tool belt, but once it's there, you're unstoppable. You can sleep anywhere. Something that's occurred to me is like, you've done such, and this journey's not over. It's fair to say you, you've still got a continent to ride across. Australia's a massive adventure in and on of itself. Getting there will be as well, but you've experienced so much that even talking to you about, you know, building mental resilience and changing your perspective and changing your mindset and learning through your own lived in experience as opposed to perceptions you've changed along the way. We were talking about the dead set legend, David McCort. I knew I was gonna interview you and I reached out to David and asked him, Hey legend, do you have a question for the other legend Fergal? And of course he does. So I'm gonna play it for you now. Hear him speak and ask his question and I'd like you to give me your answer. Well, Fargo, great to see that you've almost finally made it to the continent of Australia. Looks like you've got a bit more of Southeast Asia in far East Indonesia and then onto East Timor after that. All the best. What's finding some sort of boat travel across the water too. My question for you is thinking back to, I think it's a year and a bit year, three months since we bumped into each other all those months ago on the road in Turkey. I'm wondering how have you changed that time because you were very much at the beginning of your adventure, I think you just left Europe and crossed into Turkey and things were just starting to get interesting and now you've gone through some epic places, uh, gone through some epic aspects of your adventures. So how would you say, looking back to that time we met, how have you changed as a person? What have you learned about yourself and what's different? Cheers and all the best looking forward to seeing you when you get to Australia? Wow. Yeah, great question, David. I think a question that only a fellow long distance bike traveler could probably ask in that manner. So what's your answer to that? Yeah, well, well, a great question and of course David was always gonna ask a great one. It's so nice to getting a question like that from him. Yeah, I guess when I met him first and I even before I, I left Ireland, I, everyone would say how, I guess naive I was before leaving or how little I knew about the world. And sitting here now when I'm on the opposite side of the world here in Dly, very close to Australia, I am almost like a completely different person from firstly talking to my phone for, I dunno how many months the ability to public speak has completely changed. But then just my whole perception of the world after meeting David, building up the confidence to go through a country like Iran, Afghanistan, like just seeing how you need so little to be happy and how so many ways there is to live your life. Like, I really feel like all these different experiences along the way have molded me into a, a, different person, a more, uh. I'm at a loss to this question. It's such a great question. Sorry Bella Gimme a second. Good old David? Um, I think my ability to fight fear as really, I don't know, there's so many ways to answer it. Let me think. Well, before I was on, before I started talking to you about, I was on the phone to my sister and we were talking about how, you know, naive I was before leaving, and I guess to me, I knew so little about the world and here I am on the opposite side. I'm here almost in Australia, and all the amazing experiences. I've had it on the way, and it's changed me in the sense that I, I'm so comfortable with letting myself be vulnerable. Now, whether it's me talking on the phone to whoever's following my journey or. Me off, like letting myself be vulnerable to follow someone into their home or to, I dunno, sit down and express insights into how I see the world. Like I have so much more confidence in myself, but also I'm so, I'm very happy in letting myself be vulnerable. And I think that's a, a trait I would not have had. Uh, I had it before, but I would not have, I guess, be as comfortable unless I did do this sort of travel. To me, travel is all about sharing experiences and meeting people. And whether I was in Afghanistan, talking to someone in, a random village, or I'm in the Taklamakan desert in China, people are people everywhere. And me on this trip, I, one thing I want people to see is how this is so evident, how it doesn't matter where you are in the world. A person is a person and they have the same needs and the same interests, and the same. Wants as you. And I think there's so much of the opposite. Uh, we're trying to split people so much and, uh, I think it's changed me in the sense that I had a perception about the world more or less, and that perception has come true. I believe everyone is inherently good being a nurse. I would've, I guess that's how my thought of the world would've been. And from traveling along this, that has only come true everywhere. People are just inherently good, friendly people, and I am, yeah, very happy to that. I did go on this cycle trip because I so easily, as I said, could have, I guess, backed out. I think what you're saying makes sense to me. You've had to launch yourself into the unknown each and every day. And I think that's something that comes across when I interview people is. We talked about how plans change so quickly on a long distance journey, right? Like what you planned out and what you're doing now are very different. But to some degree, there's also a massive element of unknown with every time you pack up all your belongings, put them in your pans and turn the pedals each day, you don't know what you're going to face. You might have some perception of what's ahead of you, and maybe you even have a, I'm heading to here today, thought of a destination for the end of the day. But what happens in between to getting there is outta your control. And so the idea that you've had to force yourself to be comfortable with being vulnerable and comfortable with dealing with the unknown, I think that's a huge, huge learning to be able to self-reflect on Something that I came across from you, Fergal, and this was talking about problem solving, was that the solution is always a lot clearer in the moment I bring it up because I remember when I was researching for you, you had said that. Before setting off, you had all of these scenarios in your mind of what could possibly go wrong and they were all possibly issues and, and reasons to not let yourself set off. But you still let yourself do that and you've had a lot of these scenarios probably occur. You know, when you were talking FRG earlier about, oh here's the breaks and you know, you're pointing to a gear lever, you don't even know what to call the items on your bike. And Nimrod has broken in every single way. I think his crank even fully came off. Your pedals come off in different ways. Yeah. You didn't know how to change a puncture, but somehow you found a solution and you fixed stuff. You've changed gear cables, like the solution is always clearer in the moment, right? Yeah, completely. It's uh, before I left I had a bit of a going away do where, you know, it was a charity night to raise funds for the two charities. I'm raising funds for it. I had a bit of a q and a at the end and you know, one of the questions was. All these possibilities. You know, everyone was asking me, what if your chain breaks? What if you go 10 kilometers in the what? Wrong direction? And right now it's sitting here. These are actually pretty easy things in the moment to fix. Like if your chain breaks, you have a spare link, you connect the link, you continue cycling until you can get a new chain. Uh, if you go 10 kilometers in the wrong direction, well you just go 10 kilometers back the way. For some reason, when people, there's so many of these scenarios that can't happen. And the answer is always so easy in the moment, like, like you said, yeah, the solution's always there. And what I would always say is that the road always provides, so like whenever, let's say I had a problem or whenever I needed something, the road always provided. I remember cycling through the tactile mac and desert, it was minus 15 degrees. It was six weeks cycling, the length of it. And there was one stretch that either side of me was the length of Ireland. I had 300 kilometres behind me, 300 kilometers in front of me, or sorry, 200 kilometres in front of me. And I had to carry loads of water, loads of food. But we were getting very near the end of our, of our water and food. So were like, what are we gonna do? We need to somehow do a 200 kilopmetre day in one day, despite all the elements and like the terrain that we were in. So we take off cycling and we're like, how are we gonna make, make it to the end of this? And, uh, to have lunch. We like kind of go underneath one of the, on the, there's like a drainage tunnel and we we're sitting there to hide from the wind. And as soon as we sit down, next thing a guy on a mountain bike comes by and I mean this is, you're talking, we're in the middle of a desert on this road where there's not a house or nothing either side of us for I know how many kilometers like the length of Ireland And we're like, where did this person come out of? You could not make it up. And we then come up from the storage drain and we're talking to him and we're trying to communicate, but he's kind of gesturing for us to follow him. So we follow him then and he leads us down this back road to a abandoned factory. Then, you know, the fears are there where it's kind of like, oh, you know, are we trusting this random Chinese guy leading us to this factory? But we end up, you know, trusting our gus and following him and in the factory, he opened the door and his friend was there and uh, it turns out the two of them mined this factory. Uh, they're like browns men, but they lived there too. And they ended up cooking us up a full on meal, like scrambled egg with these like really nice bread baps and bread is something you rarely get in China. They ended up making us like hot chocolate and the whole thing boosts our spirits more than even the food that we needed, and it gave us enough energy for us to cycle the next, I dunno, I think it was 180 kilomet. How many hours that was to get to the next town. And we just had enough food because right before we were getting to the town, like we could see the lights, but we kept thinking we were nearer to it than we were. So we're just losing motivation. And I remember I had a little bit of water left and I had coffee gradually, and I just would've like put the coffee granules into the water and instantly like it's minus five degrees outside the water that freezes up. So I'm having like this flushy coffee to keep me going to get me to this town. And once we get there, I think two 3:00 AM there's one noodle shop still open, and we just get inside the wa the wa uh, windows. Were all steamed up and it's like you're after completing an ultra marathon or like you're after completing. The hardest thing you've ever done in your life. You're just sitting there with such a sense of accomplishment after cycling so far. And, uh, what's funny is the road provided, like how could you ever have predicted someone to invite us into an abandoned factory and be given all this food to manage, to bring us the rest of the way? And I've count this other examples of this, but that's, uh, one that really stands out in a story I haven't told that often. You couldn't even fabricate that as a story. Do you know what I mean? If someone asked you to write a, like a, a book and you know, like a fictional event, you'd never fabricate that before, right? In fact, did you even know where that akr, Mac and Desert was before you even were in China or had set off on your trip? Maybe you did. No, I definitely better. I didn't know it existed before I was interviewing you, Fergal actually, do you know what I wanna say about the road providing, you know, and sadly we touched on how you had to put a pause on your journey to head back to Ireland and Judy, the death in your family there. That was where you knew you were going to China at that point, but you had the premieres to cross and your bike did cross the premieres. Yeah. But in a really, really very unique way. Yeah. And this is a case of the road providing as well. I want you to tell the listeners how you experienced the Premiere Highway. So, to the listeners, uh, I have to say that I didn't experience mere highway, but, uh, and I don't say that I cycled the whole way from Ireland to Australia because I haven't. But my bicycle has Nimron, has Nimrod has, when I was in, uh, de Shabe, Tajikistan, I had to fly home for a funeral. And while I was there for whenever the, the week or so were covering after Afghanistan, I became friends with two other travelers, Shara and Eva. Hi Kiara and Eva. Yeah. Two amazing solo female travelers. Eva is from France and she would've hitchhiked from France to Tajikistan by herself, independence, and think of all the fears she had to face doing that. An incredible woman. And same for Cara. She would've flown to different parts, but she also did a lot of hitchhiking. And even after that she's tooken up, uh, cycle tour. So she might be a future guest. But, uh, the, the two of them when I had to fly home, they knew I was in a bit of bother because my Chinese visa had an expiry date for when I had to enter the country. So let's say I had to enter the country by whatever the 15th of October. Uh, it was currently the 10th of October, so I only had five days, but I was home in Ireland for four of them days. So there was no way I could have flown back to Tajikistan to cycle the premieres. So Eva and Kara teamed up'cause they never traveled together before this. They met also at the same time. I met them to hitchhike my bike over the premier highway. So what is crazy, and I had all of my social media is you can see pictures of my bicycle on the back of the mentor truck, like cement. Cement trucks. Don't have room for a bicycle, but it's just wedge. No, it's crazy. The leverage of the wheel is kind of stuck underneath the bit that twirls on us Mentor Truck that it's just holding on, just about going down the worst possible roads on the Premier highway and up to like 4,000 meters elevation. Like this was a story in itself from my bicycle, and Kara and Eva like were amazing. To manage to hitchhike, whip my bicycle and bring it all the way to Kashkar in China, where I eventually met them, uh, a few weeks later. But what incredible two women, it was hilarious. Like when I scrolled through your stories of that, I, I was in stitches because they also, I think they got a photo of you and printed it out. So every now and then there's like a story of you with your bike and there's like your smiling head and your pearly white smile at the handlebars. Yay. He, he, you know, fle crossed here or there's a photo of you curled up in bed with the sheets up across you or something like that. And I was also wondering like just the act of hitchhiking across comes with its own challenges, but just agreeing to hitchhike with a fully laden touring bike just, just levels up. Yeah, like, like it's one thing for a car to stop, but then all of a sudden that sort of really randomly reduces the cars that can stop to help you out as well. And Kiara and ever, if you're listening to this fully welcome interviewing you both for the pod, I think you'd both be amazing. I have much respect for you and I love your sense of humor and I think it was one of the most brilliant crossings of the premieres that I've, that I've looked at. Definitely unique. Unique and it this shows like I would've been very on the endurance side, that I wanna cycle as much as possible. But after this happened, I was very okay with not having the cycle every bit of my journey because when I had to then come back to meet them in Kashgar in China, all the stories I collected, I had to, I couldn't fly to the Chiyan and get a bus from there to China.'cause that would take two days. I had less than 24 hours to get across the border. Before my visa expired, so I had to fly to Kazakhstan, to Amazi. I had to get a bus, 18 hour bus across to, in the, uh, Jing Yang province of China. Then I had to get a 16 hour train through the Hamm and Desert back to my bicycle in Kashkar to then cycle. Cycle, bye the way I came on the train. It's such a wild story, Fergal, and like you said, just how all the cards stacked up for you to even be able to make it in China in time on the final day. I remember looking through that on your stories there. Will I make it? It was almost like you had an hour of countdown to show you arrive in time, but also just the serendipity of a meeting ever and Kiara in the first place, and then also meeting up with them again in China when they had no intentions of being there necessarily either, right? Yeah. Like it's the beauty of travel, isn't it? You don't know how each day is gonna go. You don't know who you're gonna meet, but you come across these amazing, generous people. You create stories and memories you'll have for life like Kiara and Eva. Now I can't wait to meet them again when I do finish this, uh, cycle challenge and share the memories that we had talk about it. And that's why travel is so amazing and that's why bicycle touring is so amazing.'cause Kiara would've seen me cycle touring and now she actually is currently a cycle tourist herself. She ended up, uh, taking up cycle touring in Vietnam and then she did Hong Kong, China. And she's just, after finishing the premieres, she's gone full circle with it that she brought my bike over to Premieres hitchhiking. But now she's, after coming all the way back and took them on herself on her own bicycle. Kiara, I hope you're listening to these. If you are, can you get in touch with me? I, I just wanna, well, A, I'd love to give myself the gift of just being able to speak with you.'cause you, you know, you're acts of kindness. You're just a dead set legend, but oh my gosh. I'd love to share your story. Yeah, no, lovely. The Italian lady, you know, a lot of these type of journeys, Fergal, are really defined by the people that you meet along the way and the friendships that are born out of stuff like that. On along the way, you've done a lot of this journey solo, but you have also done sections with people as well, haven't you? And like if we look at China now, that was an area that you weren't undertaking solo through that journey, were you? No. So, uh, China, I was joined by, uh, my friend Finn. So when I had to fly home for the funeral, when I was flying back to Kazakhstan, to cross into China, if people can follow along with all the steps, are we going back and forth? We will continue to do so. Uh, Finn joined me, so, uh, Finn I didn't really know that well from home, but he was friends with, uh, some of my friends from university. So, uh, I knew he was big into cycle touring as well. And yeah, he came out to join me for the Lent of China and it was a great time to have someone. Join up for it because obviously the ham mac in desert was a very death lit and would've been a very lonely place. But then crossing up to, uh, I had an option I could take the, like I was so slow at my travels that I ended up being in China at the worst season, whereas, you know, minus 22 degrees. So I could have went to route that was, you know, a bit more lower elevation and a bit better conditions, or I could take the mountainous route that is actually beautiful and the route, the most cycl tour take. And because I was with someone, I had the confidence to take on the more mountainous, colder route. And that led to me going up onto the Tibetan plateau, seeing how the Buddhist Tibetan Herdsmen live created its whole new journey in itself. And like, I'm trying to fit like four months into one sentence here. Like, you couldn't do it justice. No. China deserves its own session. I think that distinctly of every country you've traveled through, feral, and I do this with a lot of people who've traveled so, so vastly like you have, how do I, how do I have a hope in hell of condensing this into an episode when we bring up a question that should be its own episode. But the experiences in China we're immense, and like you said, from polar opposites too, you know, like the desolate nature of being in the Tibetan plateau at that point in the year too, where I think the cold and the ice and the snow and the wind really bring starkly just how hard and precious life is in terms of just survival, right? Then the communities that you're meeting there, two weeks later, you're in a mega city. You know, like that's crazy. Your perception of how people live all across the world is completely changes, and China has been the biggest example of that, where you have people living in a little hut on the side of a mountain like moving herds of yak. And then maybe a hundred kilometers down a massive mountain. You have a mega city of 20 million people and it's, there shows how there's so many ways to live your life. And China was such a foreign place, like no one had, uh, English. Like I would've gone to Iran, Afghanistan to Stan. And people, if they had English, they'd run up to you and speak it. Or if you're trying to talk to someone, they had the basics. But China was impossible. Like you need a Google translate. And even at that, the dialect changed throughout. So I would've went to seven or eight different provinces in China. And when I was in the last province of UN A, this was was near Vietnam, the people there thought I was from Xin Yang, which was the first province I was in. That's how far removed they are from that part of China. Like me, this western looking person they thought was from a different part of China because they knew people from their look different. Yeah, it's always the vast of China. Yeah. And everything's different there. The other thing is different, and I mean you had this in other places obviously, where, you know the alphabet's different and, and it's different in parts of the world that you went there. It's not the alphabet that we see, but there's just no hope of you even reading a sign, right? Like it's just like, what does this say? I'm gonna bring it to food because I have to talk about food at some stage. I this my goodness, me, my goodness. Me. Fergal. Oh, we could do a whole episode just about the food you've experienced on this journey. Right. But I'm all about the food. But it was hilarious when you landed in China. I, I think chopsticks was not something you were good at, right? Like, I'm a, a country man from the county of Alman. Uh, I don't think chopsticks have ever entered the county, uh, or the country of Ireland. You're a black belt now, right? I am. I am. Thankfully, I, I've, uh, mastered the skill, but I can remember the start of China was straight into ti, which is the capital of the province of Xing Gang, which is one sixth the size of China. It's mostly comprised of the tac in desert, which is very harsh desert landscape. And the food there was. Like the food in China was incredible throughout, but the food in this xin yang province was next level. Like the noodles, they were, each town were like competing the best noodles. So we'd go through and they'd be like, oh, our noodles are the best. We'll get to the next town. And they'd be comparing parts of noodles that like, how can you compare noodles? They're all the same. You, you can change the diameter of them or whatever. There's, it's an art and it was such, so amazing food noodle soup, beef noodle soup I've had all throughout China. It was like the staple dish, and it's one of the nicest dishes I had throughout my entire travels. And I'm interested to know if you've ever been to China. I haven't, but my goodness, I've visited it through people's interviews and actually, if I think of, I'll think of two guests now that I'll call out. The first one is Muriel Zuri. Hi Muriel. He, oh my gosh. Maria would do anything to be back in China in a heartbeat. I think he absolutely loved his time there. And the other one is em, we've mentioned you a couple of times already. Indeed. Em Holbert, I mean em speaks Chinese and teaches English to beautiful Chinese students there as well. And yeah, her, my God, her tales of the time in China as well. Anyone who I speak to about China just tells me there's this beauty about it and the food there is next level. You know, when you were talking about the beef noodle soup, I wonder, Fergal, if that's gonna be something that you somehow try and seek out to take you back to places Because the food and memories from food we do that we seek out flavors or smells or aromas and they take, they transport us back. And I mean you'll have this of many countries in the world. Yeah. But actually I do remember as I was scrolling through all of your hundreds of thousands of stories. You had one where you were like, I've had beef noodle soup every day here in China and I wanted to try something different. And you did and you ordered something that Google Translate told you was pizza and it definitely didn't look like pizza when it turned up. It was like, I think you said, I think it looks like a duck pancake or something. I'm not sure. And then you, you sort of looking at, oh no, alright man, here you go. You take a bite and with it there's a second of nothing and then it's like, oh, it's good. Well, that, that's what it's on about, you know, trying different foods and really, and bursting yourself in the environments. But it's funny what you said there, how we all want to go back to places like China or different places along our travels, but we often forget as enjoyable as it was. I remember, uh, coming down through, I think it was Emily, I was talking to us about, like, I came down through the mountain, down towards Chendu in winter at. I remember talking to Finn who was with me, how much would I pay you to cycle back up that mountain? And I said, there's not a price. Not in a million years am I gonna turn around and cycle back up that mountain. It was so cold, so hard. But right now I would go back in a heartbeat. But you forget about how difficult it is in the moment. The rose tinted lenses are firmly on, aren't they? Yes. What do you wanna seek out there? Like, you know, it was so grim in the moment, but you'd go back in a heartbeat. What is the experience that you're seeking out to go back to the people, like on top of that Tibetan plateau I was communicating with Tibetan herdsmen, these 17, 18, 19-year-old guys full wearing scarfs robes. Uh, the way the, how they are. So like, they weren't cold, they know how to survive in that temperature. But they were looking at us going like with these big like modern jackets. Synthetic, like cotton down and they're going, you don't need that. And uh, what I'd love to do is go back and be able to maybe be invited into the houses, because that's one thing I want in every country is you're not really experienced it unless you're get invited into a house and you see how they live. Like if someone comes to Ireland, you know, you could stay in a hotel all you want, but unless you get invited into a home and have a cup of tea and you know, taste some, uh, potato bread, that, that's where you have the local food, that's where you have the conversations, uh, experience what it's like. Even the smells, the touch, everything. Like even right now I'm thinking back to that time you just said there about the pancake. Uh, and I'm like, it's definitely not a pan or a, a pizza in China. Like I can smell that dish. I can feel. The table, like it really brings you back and that's it. You want to be back in that scenario and that's why I would a hundred percent now go and take on that mountain again in China. I wonder if you asked Finn that question, would the heat go back now? I dunno. I dunno. I guess, uh, it's the same for every traveler. Like I think you, you are so happy with your accomplishments of getting through the hard days that you forget how actually hard they were. But then again, like you can't have the tip on your shoulder unless you would do it again. Yeah. I like for me, when I finish this trip, how can I walk around with a chip on my shoulder if I'm not willing to do it again? You have to be able to, yeah, endure. Like, 'cause a lot of this cycle touring is pain, it's putting yourself through hardship to, I dunno, test yourself. And for me that's the endurance aspect of it. I think I couldn't turn around now and be like, oh, I wouldn't do it. And that's where we're going to leave part one of this two-parter with Fergal Guihen and listeners, I'm pretty sure you'll agree with me. Fergal is an impressive storyteller and he has so many stories to share. This particular recording session went for over three hours, and even then I felt I was just skimming the surface of the incredible experiences Fergal had. We ended here with him talking about his experiences there in China, and in the next episode we will go further into detail about China Tibetan Plateau. We're also gonna rewind Fergal back a little bit in his trip and find out exactly what it was like there, traveling through places like Iran and also Afghanistan before continuing his journey on through Southeast Asia. So keep your eyes peeled next week for part two of this special episode with Fergal Gwen. And a reminder, I have included links in the show notes to ALS fundraisers for his current ride, as well as his social handle too, so that you can check out his adventures in full. Now, if you are enjoying Seek Travel Ride and you want to contribute a bit to the running costs of the show, simply head to buy me a coffee.com/seek travel ride. Buy me a few virtual coffees, but more importantly, let me know what is it that you love about the podcast, and where is your next bike adventure gonna take you and until the next episode, I'm Bella Malloy. Thanks for listening.