My road trip is over now, but I had such a great time. And one of the best parts of it was meeting other “road trippers”, but of a different kind: touring cyclists! I now realize that most people doing Alaska to Tierra del Fuego (or Alaska to anywhere else) are leaving Prudhoe Bay early June, and depending on their speed and route, they seem to all end up around Tok or the Canadian border at this time of the year. So as I was driving back, I met a few of them, and of course, I got really excited and stopped almost each time to see where they were doing, if they needed anything or just to chat with “real touring cyclists”! I was amazed by how light most of them are traveling, and also ... read more

Last time I wrote a blog entry, I was in Laos, not knowing that again, my plans would change dramatically. The month I spent in Laos was memorable for good and bad reasons: too make a long story short, we lived a great big adventure in very, very remote areas, discovered fascinating cultures, hiked in the jungle, visited villages that never see any foreigners, spent the night in traditional houses, rafted down a river on a bamboo raft, to list a few of the things we did. But things changed dramatically a few days after a tick bit my colleague. The tick infected her with Scrub typhus, and because of the delay in treatment, additional complications worsened the situation to a point where without her initial fitness and strong will, she would not have survived. Almost ... read more

This is now about day 4 of cycling. It feels like I have been on the road much longer: I am getting into a nice routine and I could keep on going like this for quite a while. After a pretty good night, even if I shared my room with numerous critters (cockroach, tiny ants, some kind of wasp and some weird white bugs-thank God I had my mosquito net with me), I left at dawn. It was very foggy and super quiet. The road I was traveling on was almost deserted, and the scenery fantastic. Too bad the pictures didn't turn out because of the fog and clouds, but this kept the morning cool. It gets incredibly hot around 11. People in the most remote villages seem so surprised to see a foreigner, but most ... read more

Day 3 (or is it 4?) in Thailand. Well, Chiang Mai is a pleasant place, the traffic is dense but relaxed, the food is awesome and there is a good mix of local culture and a backpacker scene that can be a bit heavy but makes it a good place to acclimatize. On my first full day, I was pretty pleased with how easily I could put the bike together and get it out. My first mission was to find a place where an American teaches taichi courses that I am interested in. It wasn't easy to find (even with a GPS that I don't really understand-how am I going to find my way over the next few months?!) and as I was about 50 m away (but didn't know that), I got caught by a ... read more

So now it is the last days of this trip. I am sitting on the balcony of our small but cute little apartment in Athens, enjoying a cup of tea. Our week in the Greek Islands was fun and relaxing. Each island seems to have its own character and pace. However, the ferry trip back to Athens was not as pleasant as I expected: too many people smoke and there is no non-smoking section. I suppose it was a good preparation for our days in Athens: the air here is quite polluted. Over the last two days we visited the main sites of the city, like the Acropolis, the agora, etc. I am glad I have seen it, however, I did not fall in love with Athens. I don't know why I always enjoyed a place ... read more