Journey to the Centre of the Earth

This is the straightforward telling of an outrageous expedition. Two British cousins in their early 30s ride their bicycles from Bangladesh to Urumqi in 50 days, from the ocean to the place on earth furthest from any ocean. They go through Kathmandu, Lhasa, and Golmud to get to Urumqi.

The really outrageous thing, they carry no food, no tents, very limited water, just one set of clothes... at least they had sleeping bags! They just rely on the people they encounter along the way for food and water and places to sleep. They brought enough money to pay folks for the accommodations at least. Traveling with such a small amount of gear, they could use lightweight racing bikes. These were superlative athletes too. They were constantly at show more their limits... not just physical limits, but psychological. They spoke essentially no Chinese and had very limited information about their route. The road would switch from tarmac to gravel and back, according to no discernable pattern. They had maps, but whether a town on the map actually existed anymore was uncertain.

I followed their route on Google maps quite successfully. I didn't find every town mentioned but almost all of them. That map search I think helped keep me engaged. The book does have rough maps too.

I keep mulling over this approach of just counting on people to help. Much of the time they were eating and sleeping at commercial establishments, so that is straightforward. But in remote country they'd stop at any hut or tent to ask for food and shelter, or flag down trucks to get water. Probably Wyoming Utah Nevada is not quite as large an empty expanse as western China, but it's plenty of empty space all the same. I can't really imagine knocking on people's doors at random, outside of an emergency. Is that just my own limitation, or are people in the remote Western USA less generous... or certainly a foreign visitor can expect a different sort of hospitality. Would a Chinese cyclist be treated kindly on some remote road in Wyoming? The expectation of a British tourist to be treated hospitably in remote China... is that some kind of colonialist attitude?

Anyway, if you like tales of rotten roads, headwinds, rain squalls, etc. - this is certainly an expedition of an extreme sort! show less