Wonder Land: The world by bike

The world by bike

Pablo Garcia pedals through Thailand after 75,000km, 64 countries and five continents on two wheels

Published: 21/02/2010 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: Brunch

It's not at all hard to spot Pablo Garcia at the Santi Chaiprakarn Park, even when you've never met him before. Dressed in a white polo shirt, dark toreador trousers and sports sandals, Garcia could blend in with the dozens of tourists. What does make him stand out from the foreign crowd is his almost worn-out mountain bicycle, loaded with the basic necessities.

TWO WHEELS MEETS THREE: After riding around the world over the past eight years, Pablo Garcia recently pedalled to Sanam Luang in Bangkok, where he encountered his first tuk-tuk. PHOTOS: YINGYONG UN-ANONGRAK

This is the guy who claims to have travelled 75,632 kilometres through 64 countries in five continents over the past eight years on a bicycle.

Sometimes he flies between countries, and at one point he found a cycling companion from Italy to the Middle East. However, the plan to tour the world by bike was started on his own, and it was a trip that changed his perception of life, and his view of the world.

"Before, I often felt so empty at the end of the day," he said. "I didn't want to end up working just for money in the next 15 years."

Travelling with him over the thousands of kilometres are the 80kg of necessities that include a few cycling jerseys, T-shirts, shorts and trousers, a jacket, sleeping bag, mattress, tent, portable kitchen, tools and spare parts, and some photographic equipment - enough to survive even without a shelter. He recently arrived in Bangkok on his third bicycle - the first two had been worn out - the 65th country in which he will record the people, landscapes, sites and cities.

PHOTO: PABLO GARCIA

He is heading to the North to meet more people and for vipassana courses. For him, the whole of Asia is still waiting to be explored.

The 36-year-old university dropout left his home in Buenos Aires to explore the world from Brazil, where he spent four years working as a tour guide and ended up as a business partner for a tour agent in Maceio, Alagoas.

After dreaming of seeing the world with his own eyes for a year, Garcia decided to give up his sea-view apartment, his career and business in the beach town nine years ago. "I couldn't wait any more."

Garcia told himself that if he wanted to make it around the world, he should be able to make it home on two wheels. He bought himself a used bicycle that wasn't his size and spent the next six months on a 10,000km route back home. He spent almost all his savings and another year in Buenos Aires studying the route, preparing a website and finding sponsors before packing his bags for "The World by Bike" project.

It's never easy to travel on your own. And preparation is never enough before you hit the road. He became lost on his first landing in Djibouti and Danakil in Northeast Africa - a tough area of the world and one the solo cyclist believed would make him strong enough to travel the rest of the world.

PREPARED: Packed on his 10kg bicycle is everything he needs, all 80kg of it.

"A villager told me I'd arrive at the next village only if I went straight," Garcia recalled of the several morning hours alone in the desert in a world totally different from the one he wanted to experience. But how straight can a cyclist ride in a vast desert without a compass or a GPS device?

He was cycling in the middle of nowhere until he ran into a French army group that spared him some water in the late morning before he met a man who guided him to the next village, which welcomed him even though the villagers didn't have much to eat.

In the desert he survived on maize and water provided by villagers. In the city, he survived on donations from entrepreneurs who thought it strange for a white man to ask for money on the continent.

Before the trip became a routine of travelling by day and resting at night, Garcia chose to meet people and befriend them. Some were kind enough to provide him with hotel rooms. He was sometimes invited to stay overnight at strangers' houses.

"I only looked into their eyes to find the sincerity," he says. Although it's hard to tell by looking into people's eyes, Garcia has never made a wrong judgement all these eight years. However, a robbery cost him a video camera one night when he stayed in the tent by himself and caused him several sleepless nights afterwards.

RECORD: the kilometres Garcia has travelled in eight years.

Life became easier when he arrived in Europe.

He survived the first two years on the postcards and photos of the places he photographed. He regularly shares interesting stories and people he meets on his website, http://www.theworldbybike.com.

On two wheels he has a chance to test his physical and mental strength. He has experienced extreme weather, the kindness of strangers and the cruelty of robbers.

Through the kilometres he's travelled, Garcia has gradually developed empathy and tolerance towards a different society and culture.

"It's not your country, not your culture. It's another country, another mentality. How could you decide what's good for them?" Seeing things with his own eyes in different places around the world has also taught him that things are not always the way they seem to be.

During his trip around Thailand, the baptised Catholic took a few vipassana courses that he'd always been interested in. But his belief in God remains firm. "I believe that there's only one God for all. And everyone is a child of God."

Garcia also believes it's the one God for all that has guided him along the route these eight years. And he will be guided throughout Asia before touring North America in the next two years.

His plan to return home in the near future isn't to finish university or run a business. He feels he has a lot more to offer people at home. He wants to become a motivational speaker to inspire people in their lives and careers.

He can't say when that will happen, though. It may be in one or two years. "But who knows? It could be longer than two years," says Garcia, laughing about his two years in Europe instead of the previous one-year plan.

But no matter when that day comes, he is certain that his eight years on two wheels will help inspire people to think of a life beyond their 9-to-5 jobs.