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Respecting the planet
General ecological concerns
As living beings, we feel as part of the global system of the Earth. That is why, since the beginning of our trip, we are very concerned about our ecological impact on the places we are passing through. Our efforts to respect the environment are manifesting themselves in several aspects:
Diet: our diet is essentially based on veg/vegan, local and organic food. Indeed during our trip as much as during “normal life”, because of the pollution of the animal industry, of the importations and of the intensive agriculture, we avoid meat (and any animal product) as imported or chemical treated fruits and vegetables, so as to preserve soils and atmosphere. However, while traveling, it is very complicated to maintain this diet, especially in countries where meat is the base-product of the dishes. For example in China, there is meat, eggs or milk everywhere: therefore being vegetarian is difficult and being vegan... impossible! And it is even more challenging because we are moving and are hosted by local people – it is sometimes rude to refuse a traditional meal when you are invited (and we are interested in local and traditional food!).
Trash: we are also concerned about the waste management and the recycling. So many differences between countries! For instance, we could almost say that trash is a part of any Indian landscape, whereas the old center of Beijing is absolutely clean – because of bins and due to the people employed full day to clean the streets – which doesn't say anything about what people actually throw just after using it. Furthermore, the utilization of plastic in Malaysia, Thailand, Laos and China is very high: you can get a plastic bag everywhere for everything and the majority of products is sold in a lot of plastic wrape, which are producing a lot of unnecessary trash. As much as possible, we try to avoid any kind of trash and waste - but it is easier to say than to do!
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| bloc.com |
Problems, ethic and coherence: you will say: “such a moralization!” - indeed, it sounds as if we would dictate the good and ethic way of living. But that is not at all our purpose – and even less in and about countries we are not from. We are fully aware that there is not one only way to do it, even more, situations and priorities are not everywhere the same. We just want to express our personal relationship to the planet and the way we choose to live, trying to combine our believes and respect to other cultures and priorities. Moreover, even in our frame of reference, we know that we are very far from being perfect. For example, if we would be coherent, we shouldn't use Internet at all, regarding its big ecological impact.
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| Image of the french short movie, Internet, la pollution cachée |
Flying – an issue
India to Malaysia: we tried our best to go outside of India by land. But crossing any borders in this way was not possible (cf. article Finding a way). Therefore we chose the shortest flight we could find: Trichy – Kuala Lumpur, 4 hours, on the same meridian... our only air plane. Otherwise, we want to believe and we want to prove that it is possible to travel without taking the plane and that there are so many other possibilities to go from one place to another. At least, it should be possible.Carbon impact: in most of the cases, flying is the cheapest and the most practical way of traveling – even for quite short distances! For example, our plane ticket to KL was around 20€. Nevertheless, it is also the most polluting transport, way more than cars, for the same distance.
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| http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.ru |
The best way of traveling? Taking the train is a very good solution, ecologically speaking, because the footprint is very low. But the problem is that most of the time, in a lot of countries, tickets are also very expensive. Otherwise, the cyclotourism is increasing – we can see more and more travelers choosing the bicycle to explore new parts of the world, even sometimes very far away! It seems to be the new ecological and maybe the less expensive way of traveling… Let's think about it!
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| logo from En Selle Simone! |
To do our best
Moving and traveling: we are more passing through places than truly visiting them. Our itinerary is depending a lot on the transport and on the schedules. According to the visa applications, the time left, we are constantly looking for the right bus or the right train to take. However, thanks to Couchsurfing, we have the possibility to understand more the places we see, even if we always have to leave quite quickly.Dealing with imperatives: our challenge is that we have imperatives in terms of distance and time. Indeed, we are coming from India and we have to be back in Germany and France at the beginning of September – University is starting again… We could have made other choices, we could have taken more time (to find the best ways and the best solutions for food and transports), but we also have to deal with what is possible and therefore to find a balance and compromises.
From one city to the next one: because we don't have so much time and because the distances between us and home are so huge, we have to spend a lot of time in cities. That is why, unfortunately, we don't have so much the opportunity to go into “the nature”, into the countryside. But at least, at the end, we will have an overview of a lot of places and we will have a better idea of where we want to come back, so as to visit more, spend more time with locals, go trekking, etc.
Characteristics of the places
General overview
Moving moving. Keeping going. Cap to the North, cap to the West. We are becoming experts in transportation! Moreover, it is very interesting to see how vehicles and traffic are changing, as we are going further. They are part of the atmosphere and of the landscape of each places we visit.Did you know that …
- in South-East Asia, hitchhiking is not common at all and there are very few cycles
- in Malaysia and Thailand, like in India, you drive on the left side of the road, but in Laos, China and Mongolia, on the right side. Some traces of the colonization!
- in Malaysia, the prices of the petrol are controlled by the government
- bargaining is a difficult exercise, especially for tourists and travelers. However, in China, prices are fixed
- in Mongolia, you can find a lot of “unofficial taxi drivers” - it looks like a hitchhiking, but you give some money to the driver at the end!
Kinds of transport– particularities and differences
We used already a range of different transportation. We walked a lot, but not only! Here is a small overview:Cycle – bicycling in Beijing: checked! Indeed, we used shared bikes you can find everywhere, in every single street. You can unlock them with an application on your smart-phone. Very practical! And… we were so happy to cycle after such a long time – like children!
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| Shared bicycles in Beijing |
Tuktuks – the tuktuks were belonging to India for us. We still have in our heart the yellow rickshaws, these noisy ugly wrecks we loved so much (at least afterward!). But we found some different ones in Thailand and Laos – bigger, more open, with a different shape (and also more expensive). They were very nice to get an overview of the landscape during the ride!
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| Indian Tuktuk, picture of Martin Belan |
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| Fancy tuktuks in Thailand |
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| View from the Tuktuk in Luang Prabang (Laos) |
Motorbikes – in Tamil Nadu, it was the local main transport (and the one we were personally used to!). We could double (be two persons on one bike)… or triple… without helmet…! Is safety something relative? Maybe. In Malaysia, Thailand and Laos, we found a lot of motorbikes and scooters as well – but there people wear helmets inside the big cities. In Phuket (Thailand), it was very easy to ask for a motorbike taxi driver (with a red jacket!). We also thought about renting a bike in Vientiane (Laos), but it was finally not needed. However, there, we tried Nany's personal bike, which is a very funny one: very green, very short, very noisy!
Cars – Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Phuket are big cities where it is very practical to have your own particular car, so as to go around by yourself. Indeed, the distances are quite big and the public transports are not so efficient. Otherwise, Uber was working in India, but not anymore in most of the places we went afterwards. However, everywhere, it is possible to take a taxi, which is sometimes quite expensive but easy to find. We also hitchhiked in China, to come back from the Great Wall to Beijing. Interesting experience!
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| Azry with his car - Kuala Lumpur |
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| Poncek, our driver in the desert of Mongolia |
Subway – in Bengalore and Chennai (India), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) and Bangkok (Thailand), the subway is practical, and most of the time very new and very spacy. Sometimes it is crowed. Beijing's subway is very impressive: there are a lot of lines (the network is huge), a bunch of people at any time of the day (only staring at their cellphones) and the prices are expensive. We spent so much time and so much money in the metro of Beijing! Moreover, we were quite shocked by the amount of advertisements and most of all by the quantity of moralizing advices given everywhere, in every single station.
Public buses – till now, we used quite a lot public buses (Penang, Bangkok, Vientiane, Beijing, Ulaanbataar), to go from one point to another within the cities, especially when we want to visit a bit. Buses are very different from one city to another (quality, prices, way of payment are not the same), and the use is more or less easy (it is depending on the indications written and on our ability to communicate with local people around us!).
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| In the bus of Penang (Malaysia), testing the new camera lens |
Inter-city and international buses – governmental buses in India were really nice and really efficient (even if the style was also very… Indian): in the Tamil Nadu for example, the design of the semi-sleeper make the seats comfortable enough; it is easy to catch a bus at any bus station (there are a lot of buses!); most of the time, you pay inside the bus without booking and it is never very expensive; and you can travel easily hundreds and hundreds of kilometers, sometime really far away!
But after India, it was quite different: we had to book our tickets in advance (online or not) to travel in fancy buses. In Thailand for example, the bus from Phuket to Bangkok was very luxurious: we had A/C, food, blanket provided, same as in a plane! Sometimes, you can even have wifi! And the bus terminal of Bangkok is incredibly huge: it is like an airport, you have to find your terminal, to go the right office to pick up your ticket before going to the right platform.
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| Bus from Ulaanbaatar to the Gobi desert in which the present article is written |
Otherwise, what you can find in Thailand and Laos to link cities, are a lot of white mini-van: they leave frequently as soon as they are full (around 12 sits inside) and they are cheaper and faster than the big buses.
Last but not least, we also experienced a sleeping bus to cross the border between Laos and China. It was 24 hours between Luang Prabang and Kunming, super expensive but quite comfortable!
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| In the sleeping bus between Luang Prabang (Laos) and Kunming (China) |
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| Inside the bus |
Trains – in India, we were quite used to take the train in sleeper class. It was not very easy to book (we booked online with the help of our Indian friends because an Indian credit card is needed; or it is possible to book with travel agencies; and we had to deal with the system of waiting lists), but they are very practical and comfortable! From Kunming to Beijing, we took the first train of our trip and it was a super long and super fast train: we spent 10 hours inside and passed through China at 300km/h in average!
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| Hannah in front of the "Very fast train" between Kunming and Beijing |
And finally, we took the Transmongolian from Beijing to Ulaanbataar: we left at 11am and reached the day after at 4pm. The train was super cold (it was somehow impossible to put the A/C down!) but the journey was amazing: we could admire the beautiful landscape changing in front of our eyes during more than one day. Looking through the windows was never boring! We will take this kind of train again in few days to go to Novosibirsk in Russia (for a transit to reach Kazakhstan).
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| In the Transmongolian |
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| At the border |
Linked to the land(scape)
Inside the countries
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| camerable image |
In this way, we are traveling with and, kind of, as local people. Therefore we had very nice occasions to talk and to exchange with inhabitants. Thence, we are learning a lot!
Transport make us develop a knowledge of the places while figuring out our itineraries. Indeed we are dealing with maps a lot and that's why we know a bit more about the geography of the countries by now.
It is very interesting to see how much importance we give to the “where” of our situation. Indeed, we identify ourselves a lot with our position and our progression. Where we are becomes what we are.
Looking through the window
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| Through the window of our car in the Gobi desert - Mongolia |
Traveling by land is long but also and most of all a lot of fun! Our relation to our environment is changing little by little.
First of all, we enjoy the traveling life: we read, we listen to music, we sleep but also we observe a lot. What we see through the window is changing all the time, as our lifes are: it is always a very entertaining and enriching spectacle – which tells us simultaneously a lot about ourselves.
While traveling by land, we are able to get a good idea of the distances we leave behind us. Time and space are one: that's why taking time to travel makes us fully experience the space. Therefore we feel stronger in our relationship to the geography of the land.
Furthermore, we have the opportunity to see wonderful landscapes. We will always remember the green and hilly area we saw in the bus in the North of Laos, the diverse overviews of the West of China when we were in the Transmongolian, or what we presently admire in this bus to the Gobi desert. This is a big part of our travel and it makes us feel intensively the reality and the beauty of the world.
And it is not finished yet!
A lot of places to see, a lot of distances to travel.
It is how we are right now experiencing our link to the planet through movement.
Little by little, with gratitude.
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| Okilélé, Claude Ponti |
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