Looking for the way

By land

When we are telling our friends about our travel plan, one of the first questions which comes up is:

How did you come up with this idea?

Hannah already thought about it when she was in Germany. She traveled from Turkey back home to Germany after she finished her studies there. But this time she thought it would not be possible because she needed to be back in Germany in the beginning of April to continue her studies. But things changed…

It came to Julie's mind when she arrived in India - wasn't this year off the perfect opportunity to try this kind of adventure? Moreover, she really had the feeling to need this pilgrimage to come back, so as to find her home again, somewhere in Europe.

As two of our friends kept on joking about biking the way back to Germany, we started to talk and think about it again and finally made the decision to do it together!

Why? Ecological reasons (we don't want to fly and increase our Co2 footprint), as we experienced a lot here in Auroville we have the feeling we need more time to go back to “reality” than 12 hours, we want to see the different countries, customs, etc.., we want to spend more time together and visit some of our friends on the way back.

Changes of plan

The way was one of the most transiently things lately.

Plan 1:

We thought we will just head north, pass through Pakistan and Iran and take the original, old silk road… well then Hannah decided she really wants to visit her friend in Kyrgyzstan. Another problem was the Pakistani visa which can only be issued in your home country...

Plan 2:

So we thought we will head north and exit India through Kashmir to Tajikistan but due to the political situation which erupted a couple of months back this was not possible anymore.

Plan 3:

So a new route was needed and a couple who came by cycle from France to India told us they went through Nepal and China so we wanted to do this. Unfortunately the earthquake in 2015 destroyed the only road which connects Tibet and Nepal and has an open border for foreigners. Also to obtain a visa for Tibet would have been very difficult and expensive as you are only allowed to travel there accompanied by a tour guide.

Plan 4:

Next idea was to skip Nepal and go all the way to the north-east of India and pass there the border to China. But we figured out that these three borders are only open to Chinese and Indian people who are living in this area due to some political tension between India and China. After this we got quite devastated.

Plan 5:

The last shot we thought we would have is going to the north-east of India (Assam/Nagaland) and pass the border to Myanmar there but what surprise! This is not possible for foreigners either due to political tension between India and Myanmar…

Plan 6:

As there was no possibility to get out of India by land we decided to take a boat. We heard that there a ships going from Chennai to Andaman Island and from there Thailand and Malaysia would be really close. We were looking forward to this road a lot as the Andaman Island are supposed to be really nice, relaxed and great for scuba-diving. When we tried out to book tickets we saw that Port Blair in the Andamans is not an international port and therefore no ships will leave from there to Thailand or Malaysia.

Plan 7:

So our last hope was to find a ship from Chennai, Vishakapatnam or Kolkata to take us to Malaysia or Thailand. We searched for affordable ships for a month, called and wrote the different ports, asked friends, ask people who are sailing, used all the different resources we are having here in Auroville but we couldn't find a ship. Most of the ships from the west to Malaysia and Thailand only pass through Sri Lanka and to there is no existing ship connection from India due to the political tension (the war which lasted till 2009).

Plan 8:

We tried our best but it just seems that there is no way out of India by land or sea for us. That is why we finally decided to book flight tickets to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and from there our travel back to France/Germany will start.

The way

Therefore the drawing of our journey seems now quite adventurous and at least eccentric. We will travel eastward, then go up in a straight line northwards to Beijing. We will finally follow the famous railways of Asia and moving through the old Soviet Union to reach Europe.