Day 1000-1009: To Tottori, Japan

Arriving at Izumo in the wee hours

Old Izumo Taisha station opened in 1912 till 1990. It is one of it kind as its completely traditional built without any influence of weatern architecture style

Throw back 2016!

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(Ps: March photos credit goes to friends from AllHandsVolunteers)

30 months on the road... 2016 is again another meaningful year. It may not be all rainbows and unicorns but at least this year I was injury free and Thorn is still doing great apart from 2 punctures and 1 tyre+rim replacement (hey Schwalbe you've failed again). We've also crossed the 20,000km mark in China and happily celebrated it over a cup of coffee at the petrol station in Chaka. Even till now I still find it amazing that I have come this far on a bicycle crossing 24 countries and counting. I'm still being showered with lots of love and spoilt by all the kind souls out there who has reached out to me. Then of course I'm not bionic, I do feel weary at times. There were moments of anger (like when a Kyrgyz boy rubbing himself hard to get erected as he wants a fuck), frustrations (like when people wipe off all my efforts by saying your parents must be super rich to support this trip - its bloody self funded!!! or saying I'm so pathetic to be living a life like this), disappointments (like when I couldn't complete biking Kyrgyz on my return from winter break or people saying Thorn must be an electric bike) and silly dialogues wondering what on earth am I doing (like when I was in the middle of sand storm or fighting the desert heat). I will be lying if I say I'm feeling positive every single minute of this journey. I don't, I'm human too. But even if I can turn back time, I will not change any of these and without doubt, I will still choose to ride solo. I'm really blessed to be out here and grateful for all the good/bad experiences and to be able to reach out fearlessly to newer experiences. There wasn't a moment I wanna quit, just forward and onwards! Thank you all for your continuous support, I am still a very bad story teller in writing but will try my best to let my photos tell the stories with some of your added imaginations. Looking forward to 2017, I'm sure it'll be awesome and who knows it may be homecoming? Happy holidays and have a wonderful year ahead as I'm sure it gonna be full of great things that have never been. Lets get rolling and tailwind to all those who are on the road.

''Dreams don't work unless you do'' 

Merry Christmas 2016!

💖 Wishing all a very Merī-Kurisumasu 💖

Day 889-999: To Izumo, Japan

Collecting my knives that were confiscated before boarding... I have finally arrived in Fukuoka Japan. 

Rolling out of the terminal and realised I'm on the wrong side of the road. I'm so not used to riding on the left side after being on the right side all this while... its weird... really weird.

Day 806-888: South Korea Route

 Mainland

Jeju Island

Day 877-888: Jeju to Busan, S.Korea

Probably the work of nasty storm

 Jeju's horses, big head, thick neck and the ability to run on the rocky island without horseshoes

Day 862-876: Off to Jeju Island, S.Korea

Mysterious road? Well these are roads which gives you optical illusion that you are rolling uphill but in actual fact you are rolling downhill because of the high surroundings

Yongduam rock

Day 853-861: To Mokpo, S.Korea

The road looks flat in the photo but only my legs know..

Day 839-852: To Danyang, S.Korea

Day 820-838: To Chuncheon BUT back to Seoul again, S.Korea

Interviewed by Heike from Pushbikegirl

Read the full interview HERE.

I was very surprised to receive a message from Heike (www.pushbikegirl.com/) few months back for an interview. She is a seasoned tourer from Germany and known by many... a very experienced solo female cyclist who is still on tour and now in the US. I wasn't the most expressive person but she was really good at digging into my stories and some are things I've never mentioned in my blog before. Hope you like it!

Day 806-819: Incheon to Seoul, S.Korea

 

 We have been floating on the sea for 18hrs with this view... 

I really don't mind watching ''television'' like this

 After the hassle of stairs, escalators, up and down the bus, custom officers almost wanted to strip down my bike and put it through the scanner (My pissed off expression works so I was allowed to roll it over instead).... I am finally in S.Korea!

An-nyeong-haseyo Han-gug (Hello Korea)

Day 691-805: China Route

Day 775-805: Luoyang to Qingdao, China

Luoyang

An ancient capital of several dynasties

The gate into old town

Day 759-774: Xi'an, Huashan to Luoyang, China

Day 745-758: Xiahe to Xian, China

Labrang Monastery

Day 730-744: To Xiahe, China

Arriving Xining - Dislike predalling into city

Day 723-729: Crossing the 20,000km mark in Qinghai - China

A night under the bridge... not very nice when you have trucks passing through above throughout the night

Day 700-722: To Golmud, China

456km to HeTian

Day 691-699: Kashgar, Xinjiang - China

Its forbidden to ride from the Chinese border to Ulugqat so I had to take a shared taxi to the official checkpoint where my passport will get stamped.. I waited for awhile and luckily 2 couples from Netherland arrived to share a van with me... 150yuan each

By the time we reached the checkpoint, it was lunch time and we had to wait 2hrs before they reopen again.

Finally back on the saddle after custom clearance and it was around 6pm when I'm back on the main road to Kashgar... Decided to mad dash into th city, I arrived closed to midnight

Day 657-690: Kyrgyzstan Route Part 2 of 2

Day 672-690: To Erkeshtam, Kyrgyz and into China

Still rolling along the south Issyk-kul lake

Day 657-671: To Fairy Canyon via Karakol, Kyrgyz

Thorn o Thorn... after leaving you in the cold and dark for months... I'm really happy to reunite with you again. Time to prep you up but these 2 pups are in the way, happily chewing on me

Thanks to Aigul at Apple Hostel for letting me store my bike for such a long time.

Day 580-656: Earthquake disaster relief, Nepal

Off to my volunteering project site


New friends (Denisse, Josefina, Erwan, Loise) I met who were heading to the same project


4hrs bumpy bus ride. By the way, the goat just got off the roof top

Day 563-579: Pokhara + ABC trek

Taking a boat across the lake for the hike up to Peace Pagoda

Day 527-562: "Winter break", Nepal [Part 2]

Day 527-562: "Winter break", Nepal [Part 1]

Spending a couple of weeks at a farm that was also affected by the earthquake

Their house that is now unsafe to live in