A rather long prologue_ Back on the road

Part 1: The Slowpoke Who Arrived Like a Comet in the Cycling World: Wouldn't Walking Be Better? (China)

·The start of the trip was easy until the afternoon.
·The navigator tells me to cross the river.
·The secret to greatness
·Climb Hwangsan Mountain to drink Hwangju
·The biggest climb of my cycling life
There is no exit in this sauna.
·16-year-old garbage collector's cart
A person with a mysteriously large heart
·I went to the world's largest garbage dump in the past.
·A different world in one restaurant
It's incredibly difficult to enjoy a luxurious stay in Guangzhou.
Two sentences from a bicycle traveler
·Accept it like that

Why am I not happy after my second trip? (Vietnam, Laos, Thailand)

·Walked from China to Vietnam across a bridge
·A motorcycle came and crashed into the clear sky.
·What did I do to deserve this?
·Over the mountains and across the river to Laos
I hate riding a bike so much
·Riding a bike was the easiest
·Back again, on a trip

Part 3: People Save Me (Thailand, Myanmar)

·The community saved me.
·Dreams come true, working at a recycling plant
·Meet a companion
·There are two mountains on the way to Myanmar (they repeat that they are dead)
·Mingalaba Myanmar, beautiful in many ways!
·Even on the unpaved hell road, people are beautiful
·Where are you going to sleep tonight?
Bagan then, Bagan now
·The Bicycle Rebellion and the Outstretched Hands of Salvation

Part 4.
Dynamic Western Regions put me to the test (India, Pakistan)

·A scrap jeep stopped by, offering to give me a ride.
Three Nights of Manipur
·India's plastic-free revolution
·India, the mecca of leveling up
A day in Bihar, a state known for its thieves
New Delhi Blues
·There was no need to come all the way to this remote village in Ladakh.
A letter from a place close to heaven
·Hitchhiking on a garbage truck
Where is Hotel Stein?
· Had a meal at a Sikh temple with a Sikh companion
·There are too many people who put me to the test.
·Picked cucumbers at the sacred Golden Temple in Amritsar
·He jumped into Pakistan during Ramadan.
·Take a Chinese visa and travel 30,000 miles
·Why are there Greek ruins in Pakistan?

Part 5: I told you not to go to high places (Xinjiang, China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan)

·The story of riding in a police car for two days in a row
·Please put it in a tumbler
·Fold my hands
·I'm all grown up, I'm going to Pamir alone
The greatest headwind of my life in the Pamirs
·Imagination in the Pamir Plateau, a world traveler's dream

Part 6: I Can't Come to My senses About Islam's Hospitality
(Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran)

·Camping with nature people on the first full moon of Chuseok
·A bicycle craftsman I met in Turkmenistan
Iran, a land of twists and turns
·The Light of Humanity
·I couldn't get the sandwich in a cloth bag.

Part 7: My Eldorado is Someone's Boring Daily Life (Turkey)

Heaven and Hell on a Truck
·Leonardo DiCaprio of Turkey
·The boredom of going up and down and the sun setting all day long
·I came to Istanbul

Epilogue: A Forest of Barley Trees

What I learned from cycling 12,500km across Eurasia alone for a year and a half.

At thirty-three, a workaholic woman living a fast-paced life decides to get off the moving train.
She was working as a senior at a climate crisis response NGO.
The work was familiar and the coworkers were nice.
But at some point, I started to feel skeptical about the things I loved and cared about so much.
"Is this the right path?" he asked, still sitting in his familiar seat.
Then one day, the death of a close friend prompted me to stop and ask myself what it means to live well and how I should live.


Her next move is to cycle across Eurasia along the Silk Road.
A poorly-built office worker who hasn't ridden a bike since elementary school plans a bike trip for the simple reason that a bike is faster than walking.


Additionally, I decided to go on a zero-waste trip without using disposable products.
While solo cycling for women is challenging, the challenges faced by zero-waste travelers, unable to afford bottled drinks and plastic-wrapped snacks in the heat and hunger, are equally challenging.
But I was also able to enjoy just as much joy and emotion.


The author ran 15,000 km for one year and six months, repeatedly asking himself and answering questions about a worthwhile life.
The Earth is getting hotter, and the oceans and atmosphere are being polluted with trash and fine dust. What can I do?
The Earth is so vast and big, but is there anything I, a being smaller than a speck of dust, can do?
This question kept coming back to me throughout the trip, “like a magpie that returns without dying.”
The author answers this question by visiting dumps and working in recycling workshops around the world.
There were things I had only known through books and the internet that I could truly appreciate after seeing them with my own eyes.


People I met along the way offered unconditional hospitality to the weary cyclist.
On the uphill slopes of Myanmar, during Ramadan in Pakistan, in the Pamir Plateau, people willingly reached out.
In particular, people in Islamic countries, who “do not turn away guests who come today even if it means starving tomorrow,” invite travelers they meet by chance into their homes without hesitation and provide them with a place to sleep and plenty of food.
Although they had different nationalities, religions, and skin colors, they were all people.
The story of people who gave unconditional generosity to a stranger on a bicycle is more interesting and touching than any drama.

This book tells the story of the author's realization of the meaning and precious values ​​of life and work during his long journey.
The author vividly describes the countless people he met and their stories, allowing readers to enjoy the thrill of traveling with him on a bicycle.


An elegant, poignant, funny, and poignant zero-waste travel story.
A powerful environmental education book that teaches you while laughing!

The author has challenged himself several times to not use disposable plastic for a week while working.
It failed every time.
I need to prepare in advance to avoid using plastic, but I don't have the concentration to do that while working.
Now that I'm a traveler who can focus on my daily life rather than work, I decide to try again.

“Plastic is light, cheap, and convenient.
The problem is using it too much.
The Earth's surface is covered in plastic because it is difficult to recycle and does not decompose easily.
There are even predictions that by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean.
Over time, plastic breaks down into microplastics that float around.
“Fish will eat those microplastics, seabirds will eat them, and people will eat them.”

So, I've been traveling without disposable plastic for a year and a half.
Even while traveling, I was able to use cotton sanitary pads.
If you wash it and hang it on the back of your bike, it will be completely dry in half a day.


“A daily life without disposable plastics is easier than you think.
A tumbler, a shopping basket, a lunch box, and a spoon are the basic set of LessWaste.
It's important to be 'prepared' because you never know when you'll need something.
When I unpack at my accommodation and go out, I pack a basic set in my bag.
If you didn't bring the basic set, you won't buy anything that looks good, so you'll end up carrying the basic set like it's your body.


Prepare water and snacks for each day the day before.
It's a good idea to prepare snacks the day before, as it can be difficult to find unpackaged food while running.
Ask for unpackaged food from a bakery, fruit shop, or street vendor near your accommodation.
I have free time in my daily life, so this kind of thing doesn't bother me.
“Rather, there is fun in taking care of life.”

Often times, crises came.
There were times when I skipped a meal because I couldn't find a restaurant while running on a mountain road.
No matter how hungry I was, I couldn't buy plastic-wrapped bread and cookies, let alone steamed corn wrapped in plastic or fruit wrapped in plastic wrap in a Styrofoam container.
Even in the sweltering heat of 43 degrees, I had to sigh as I looked at the cool drink in the plastic bottle.
It is full of truly funny and sad stories.
Hearing stories of people enduring hunger and thirst to avoid using even a single piece of plastic wrap during a grueling bicycle trip makes us reflect on our convenient daily lives with a heavy heart.
In that sense, this book can be the most effective motivation for those who want to practice reducing waste.


“During my last trip, when I committed to not using single-use plastic, I became more adept at asking and refusing, and a little more shameless.
I gestured for someone to put the cola in a tumbler.
I asked for the shake, which was supposed to be consumed with a straw, to be put in a lunch box so I could eat it with a spoon.
Even highly developed sensors that shout "I don't need it" before a merchant takes out a plastic bag or straw are available.


People either understood my actions or didn't.
Especially in China, where plastic waste was not a national issue, my employees looked at me with a puzzled expression.
To the staff who didn't know English, I just seemed like a guy who really liked his cup, and that didn't matter.
“Whether I am understood or misunderstood, I just have to go my own way.”

The author visits landfills whenever he can to find out how the waste we throw away is actually processed.
We visit a dump in China, where 70 percent of the world's e-waste is collected, and witness mountains of plastic piled high in a village near Hanoi, Vietnam, where every household makes a living by recycling plastic.
In a community village in Thailand, you get to experience the task of sorting and collecting waste yourself and realize that 'recycling' is different from what you vaguely think of.
Just because we separate our waste well, it doesn't mean it's being reused.
More than 80 percent is simply discarded, buried in the ground, incinerated, or flows into the sea.


“Actually, there is no need for this much garbage to be produced.
If you put something in the trash can, it becomes trash.
If there is more than necessary, it becomes trash.
“Rather than a culture that uses and throws away easily, wouldn’t a culture that respects and cherishes even the smallest things be a more dignified and elegant culture?”

“It is discovering that all things that seemed different and unrelated are connected.
“It was an absolute pleasure.”

In Korea, a divided island in the far east of the Eurasian continent, crossing the border requires taking a plane or a boat.
The author says that cycling across borders from China to Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, India, and Pakistan gave him a new perspective on borders.


“The border is less than 100 years old and is not perfect.
If you look at a world map, the lines dividing the continents are solid lines (borders), but sometimes you can also see dotted lines (temporary borders).
In the disputed Kashmir region between India and Pakistan, there are areas where there are no solid or dotted lines.
There are more Lao people in Thailand than in present-day Laos.
There are 3-4 million Lao people in Laos, but 20 million live in Thailand.
There are 6 million Tajiks in Tajikistan, while 8 million live in Afghanistan.
I was actually living in this world.
“Everything is open, flowing, and sometimes divided, but in fact, everything is intertwined and connected.”

China, Japan, Vietnam, and Korea share many cultures.
I gave a bookmark with a traditional pattern that I had brought as a gift to a man who washed my bicycle in China, and he pointed to the Chinese characters written on it and explained them to me one by one.
In this way, the author witnesses several scenes that make him question whether there is something uniquely Korean.


In Pakistan, I saw coins with Aphrodite statues and Greek figures on them.
So, this region was part of the Indus civilization, then under Persian rule, and then under the rule of Alexander the Great of Greece, so the statue of Aphrodite and Greek coins are traces of this place's diverse identities.


“In the place where I stand now, in the past, Gandharas, Persians, Greeks, Bactrians, Kushans, Guptas, Huns, and even Monk Hyecho would have come and gone.
People have lived their lives going back and forth, and the world today is similar.
For most people, foreign countries were not 'overseas' but the neighborhood next door.


If we perceive time and space broadly, Pakistan is not just Pakistan, China is not just China, and Korea is not just Korea.
“I realized this when I saw a Buddha statue that looked like a Greek god at one point along the Silk Road: we are connected and have come to this point through giving and receiving, inseparable from the boundaries of nations, ethnicities, and religions.”

Not only countries, but also religions are like that.
The religious conflict between Islam and Christianity, which can lead to war, has its roots in Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.
Both were born in the Middle East and serve 'God'.
Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and Hinduism developed while influencing each other.
The author says that the joy of discovering that things that were thought to be completely different were actually connected was indescribable.

“The journey of discovering that every nook and cranny of the world is connected has been ecstatic.
I learned that people are shaped by their environment and society, that people who appear different because they speak different languages ​​and look different are actually not that different, that even in a world ruled by survival of the fittest and the law of the jungle, there are people who protect their own well and even water others' throats, and that one person can become another person's world.”