This is it! This is where our life time Journey came to its final destination. It is hard to describe our feelings and experiences as we are still processing these. It has been amazing, hard, easy, boring, incredible. It has been the greatest lesson of life in all its aspects. With this post we want to share some statistics and of course our route map which we cannot stop staring at and think: “did we just cycle THAT!?!?”

We started out in Rotterdam on the 2nd of February 2014 from there we…

  • Cycled around 34.000km
  • Took us 2 years, 3 months, 15 days
  • Took 4 ferries to cross some waterways
  • Crossed 20 or more 4000m + passes
  • Cycled (parts of) the Pamir Mountains, the Tibetan Plateau and Himalaya’s
  • Topped out at 4723m somewhere in China
  • Cycled through Karakorum Desert and the 4th largest desert of the world, the Gobi Desert
  • Traveled with temperatures ranging from +46 to -35, incl. sleeping in the tent during the night
  • Have been invited in many homes by people from many different religions
  • Have been eating our main staple: oatmeal and pasta, interspersed with many local meals and variations
  • Hitchhiked 300km in total
  • 300km with a 4WD from Tawang to Bhalukpong
  • Slept 255 nights in our little house”tent” HubbaHubba
  • Was invited home to people more than 199 nights  
  • Worn out 10 chains and 12 tires
  • Ate more than 100kg of pasta and rice and more bananas then we can count
  • Lost a family member
  • Gained friends forever
  • Got sick and ill from Giardia in Tajikistan
  • Learned to say Спасибо! 謝謝! Teşekkür! баярлалаа! متشکرم! 고맙습니다!
  • Rode downhill at 80km/h and uphill at 3km/h
  • Longest day at 160km and shortest at 16km (guess which was the longest in time)
  • Climbed more than 170.000m (19 times Mount Everest)
  • Enjoyed street food and street snacks
  • And this list could go on and on!

And then we got to Kathmandu: a journey of a lifetime!

Arrival By Gayle and Maarten

Departure from Rotterdam

Arrival in Kathmandu

Arrival in Kathmandu

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we are contemplating on our return to Europe you can expect some more updates on that the coming days.

Here below is an interactive map with our route and places we have stayed.