Epilogue, summary, further plans!
Germany/Nuremberg – 24.12.2006
For me, the writing, i.e. the documentation of our journey, is just as important as the journey itself. It is important for us to be the eyes and ears for many people who for whatever reason cannot, are not allowed or do not want to travel. I’m often on the verge of despair, I don’t think I can muster the strength to record our experiences during the expedition. The conditions are often catastrophic. But every time a new chapter is finished, when I have recorded the days I have experienced and saved them in my laptop’s memory, I feel relieved. It’s as if a heavy weight has fallen from your shoulders and at the same time it’s a feeling of freedom. It feels as if body, mind and soul are now ready to absorb further adventures and experiences, to inhale them and then bundle them up again so that they can later be turned into a book. This documentation is one of our most important tasks. But what does it mean to bundle experiences and turn them into letters if nobody is interested? It would be bad for the person who has taken on this work.
We are happy about the numerous readers of our experiences and at the same time very grateful. This gives us energy to explore new shores for ourselves, energy to continue working on our life project. Once again, we would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest and hope that you will remain loyal to us in the future. We are definitely looking forward to seeing you again, even if it is only an imaginary reunion whose knowledge often gives us the strength to overcome one challenge or another. THANK YOU!!!
Summary
It was a fantastic trip with highs and lows. We could never have imagined that cycling could be so strenuous. Since 1991, we have covered many thousands of kilometers by camel, horse, elephant and on foot. Each time we thought that such an expedition trip would be unbeatable for us personally in terms of performance, especially in terms of impressions, unique experiences and knowledge. And again we are surprised, surprised by another interesting part of our Mother Earth, which we explore by bike this time. Once again, we have learned that you should never evaluate, judge or, even worse, condemn anything you don’t know. We actually thought cycling was much easier than paddling, running, riding elephants or camels, or navigating a caravan through the most dangerous deserts. On the contrary, we would like to pay tribute to every cyclist at this point. Although this sport is practiced by a relatively large number of people, it is in no way less challenging, exhausting to the mental and physical limits and sometimes demands everything a human body has to offer on an hourly basis.
So far, we have had to contend with the odd injury or two. Thank God everything went well. Tanja was able to heal the injuries from her fall without any consequences. Our sore bottoms and the tendon insertion in my knee were laughable compared to my slipped disc. Despite everything, we have thankfully not lost our courage and our desire to travel.
Our experience proves that you can plan as much as you want, things usually turn out differently than you think and that’s part of the attraction, part of the adventure. We are definitely looking forward to experiencing more adventures and getting to know other peoples, their religions and countries. But we are also looking forward to learning more about ourselves, to the interesting journey into our inner selves, but above all to being allowed to touch the ground, to be a part of all that is and hopefully to many enlightening conversations with Mother Earth.
More plans!
The first part of our TRANS-EASTEXPEDITION is now behind us. Although this time we “only” followed the Danube on our bicycles, i.e. not a spectacular destination such as 7000 kilometers with camels through the Australian outback or the crossing of the Taklamakan, the desert of death, or with horses through Mongolia, it was an exciting, eventful, instructive and profound journey for us and the start of an extraordinary bicycle – horse – elephant expedition that will last about five years. The TRANS-EAST EXPEDITION will therefore take up a considerable amount of time in our life project of the “Great Journey” of the 30-year expedition.
We never thought we would have to cancel the second part of the TRANS-EASTEXPEDITION. We never thought we would face such challenges on the way to the Black Sea and yet we plan to be on the road again in a few months. Once again, we will travel by train to Romania to continue our TRANS-EASTEXPEDITION. We plan to cycle from Romania to Moldova, into the Ukraine and on through Russia and Siberia. In Siberia, we are thinking of crossing the length of Lake Baikal, which is frozen over in winter, on our bikes. Then we want to go on a horse expedition to the Tsataan, the reindeer people on the Russian-Mongolian border. Our dream would be to spend a winter in a yurt with the nomads. Afterwards we will ride our bikes through Mongolia, the land of Dingis Khan. We continue through the Middle Kingdom, i.e. China, and if our fate allows, we will end the TRANS-EAST EXPEDITION on the back of an elephant through Myanmar (Burma).
