Explanation of how our Great Journey will continue
The great journey
Longest documented expedition in the history of mankind
For 30 years, we want to travel around our Mother Earth by land and sea, using local means of transportation. In the last 27 years, we have covered around 430,000 kilometers on camels, horses, elephants, on foot, motorcycles, bicycles, e-bikes or by conventional means of transport, without flights. (over 10 times around the earth / once to the moon) Every two years or so, we visit our home country of Germany to stay in touch with our sponsors, the media and, above all, our family. Once we have refreshed our social relationships, clarified the financing and many other organizational matters, we return to the exact place where we last interrupted our life project and continue our expedition from there. Over the decades, this will result in the longest documented expedition in history.
CHARGED
STAGE 2 of the “Longest e-bike expedition in the world”
Living with elephants in Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia
After our first stage of the e-bike expedition (17,000 kilometers and 74,000 meters of altitude through Siberia, Mongolia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand), we will continue our e-bike journey where we left off. To get our bikes and equipment to the starting point, we use the Trans-Siberian Railway for the last time. The journey alone was an unforgettable adventure and got the tour off to an exciting start. We reported in TV and radio interviews, wrote articles for magazines and newspapers and published our book “SO WEIT DER AKKU REICHT”.
The next stage will also get off to an extraordinary start. The plan is to load our e-bikes and equipment into a four-wheel drive vehicle and travel through Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Russia, Siberia, Mongolia, China and Vietnam to Cambodia. (distance approx. 30,000 kilometers one way) There we will park the vehicle, unpack the e-bikes and cycle a 20,000-kilometer circle through Southeast Asia on a three-year journey to various elephant resorts in Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. The plan is to spend a few months with the pachyderms to study and document their way of life. A book will be created from the experiences, the mixture of culture, past and present. The background to the project is to help save the largest land mammal on earth from extinction through the ivory trade and abuse in the tourist trade. After our e-bike tour through Southeast Asia, we will load the bikes back into the off-roader to return to Germany.
PREPARATIONS
But before we embark on such an extensive undertaking, we need to familiarize ourselves with the completely new terrain of off-road driving. That means we need the right expedition vehicle, an expedition vehicle builder who can produce such a vehicle for us in good time. It requires training on how to drive a six-tonner in difficult terrain and, above all, we need cooperation partners who, like us, are also enthusiastic about this travel concept in order to be able to finance the entire project. We need special training for emergency medicine in remote regions, have to take care of the appropriate travel route and find out how we can get our dog Ajaci across the respective country borders. We have to find out which visas we need, whether and where a Carnet de Passages (border document for the temporary, duty-free import of a vehicle) is required. We should know how long you are allowed to park your mobile abroad. We have to be familiar with loading and the problem of overloading and countless other things. Above all, however, we have to test the vehicle extensively before setting off for Asia.
The first major test drive took us to the island of Sicily and the volcano Etna, which was spitting at the time.
The second extensive test drive will take us to the North Cape in Norway and then we will join an international off-road group on a maiden voyage through the Russian Arctic Circle.
Denis Katzer and his dog Ajaci sitting in the trailer meet elephants. Central highlands of Da Lak province. South Vietnam.
On the drive around Lake Lak, an elephant eats at the side of the road. Central highlands in southern Vietnam. In the picture Tanja Katzer.
During the one-year e-bike tour through South Vietnam, we keep coming across elephants.
Mahut Jalim and his elephant during the elephant expedition in Nepal in 1996
Tanja & Denis Katzer and dog Ajaci during a lunch break. Central highlands in southern Vietnam.
