M a i r a w a

Sweden to New Zeeland by bicycle.

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SUMMARY SWEDEN - THAILAND:

Red lines: cycled Orange lines: boat/bus Dotted lines: to come

Rounde one:

Dates: April 2015 to October 2015 Countries: 15, Sweden to Tajikistan Days on the road: 200 Kilometers: 8300

Rounde two:

Dates: March 2016 to March 2017 Countries: 9, Sweden to Thailand Days on the road: 359 Kilometers: 17 823

In total:

Last updated: 2017/03/01

Countries: 23 Days on the road: 559 Kilometers: 26 123

Average daily distance: 85 km Shortest day in the saddle: 17 km (Mongolia) Longest day in the saddle: 201 km (Qinghai, China) Max speed: 76.0 km/h (Tibetan Plateau, China)

Highest point by bicycle: 4797 asl (Tibetan Plateau, China) Highest point by foot: 5671 asl (Mount Damavand, Iran)

Coldest: -25°C (inside the tent, Tibetan Plateau, China) Warmest: +50°C (on the road, Iran)

Flat tires: 8

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Meeting kids on the way is one of the very best things with biketouring. This little girl climbed on me from the moment we stepped in to a restaurant in Tariat, Mongolia. Her mother prepared us a meal while we played with her kids. 

See our video with the kids HERE. 

Photo by Tomasz Gehrke

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Evening on the Mongolian steppe, August 2016. 

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ON YEAR ON THE ROAD

Today, exactly one year ago, I hugged goodbye my family in Ljusne (Sweden) and started pedaling north. For most people this may have been just an ordinary Tuesday in March. The sky was clouded up and winter still held its icy grip over northern Sweden. For me though, it was one of the best Tuesdays of my life. When I started to cycle that day I could literally feel how the anxiety, that had been so present for the last months, started to let go. I was back on the road again. Back to the place that I knew would give me my spirit back.

I could tell you a lot about what one year on the road have done to me, but instead, I wanna hand out this post to my mom, Ulla Forsberg. Thanks for being the best support a daughter could wish for while cycling the world. I´ll be back again soon, I promise!

See the "leaving home" live interview that was made with me, and my mom, HERE. 

All pictures taken by Markus Norin, Söderhamns Kuriren.

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SUMMARY CHINA:

Brown: borders Green: camping/sleeping outside Orange: hosted by people/room Yellow: guesthouse/hotel

Date: 2016/09/23 - 2016/12/27

Provinces: Xinjiang, Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan

Days: 89 (excl. 7 days in Hong Kong) Days in the saddle: 65 Kilometers: 5503 Time in the saddle: 368 hours, 47 minutes

Average speed: 15 km/h Average km/day: 84,7 Average time/day: 5 hours, 40 minutes

Lowest point: -150m Highest point: +4797m

Days above 3000 m: 41 Days above 4000 m: 19

Passes in total: 44 Passes above 3000 m: 31 Passes above 4000 m: 25

Longest day: 201 km (Qaidam to Golmud)

Flat tires: 0

SINCE THE START:

Days: 295 (incl. 23 days in Canada, 7 days in Hong Kong) Days in the saddle:190 Kilometers: 15118 Time in the saddle: 873 hours (NOT incl. Mongolia - broken bike computer)

Max speed: 76.00 km/h (Tibetan Plateau, China)

Flat tires: 3

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New video from Mongolia is now up on my Vimeo page, watch it HERE.

Those two kids completely made our day during a lunch-stop in Tariat, Mongolia back in August last year. Every single kid deserves the greatest of life, no matter if they live in Mongolia or Poland! So please, visit our fundraising page for little Leon and help us to help him to a better life!

Visit our “justGiving” site HERE to donate!

You can read more about Leon and our fundraising in THIS post.

Thank you, and Happy New Year!

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Chuluut, Arhangai Province, Mongolia, August 2016

He has carried me for 18000 km, through 19 countries; in snow and extreme heat, over mountains, through deserts and endless steppes. No matter the circumstances he never as much as complained. Hopefully my will and his strength will continue to take us wherever we wanna go #meandmybike.

Photo by Tomasz Gehrke

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AN INVITE

Jargalant, Bayankhongor Province, Mongolia, August 2016

We had stopped in the small town of Jargalant to stock up on food when we got invited by Handa to her home. Handa live with her family in a small apartment on the second floor of an old, rough apartment house. While Handa put jak milk, white bread and hard cheese on the table for us the Olympic Games played on a miniature tv set in one of the corners. It was sooo good to have something else than noodles, porridge or chocolate that had been our basic food since arriving in the country.

After saying thank you and goodbye we went down to the store again and bought ice-cream for the family and all of the kids playing in the close-by courtyard. And later that day, sitting outside our tent on yet another amazing camp spot, we enjoyed both local cheese and beer while watching the day turn into night. Such a luxury. 

Photo 1 by Tomasz Gehrke (me in the top left window)

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HELPING LEON!

(swedish below / scrolla för svenska)

While cycling Mongolia me and Tomasz talked a lot about starting a charity fundraising together. Not the kind of fundraising when you collect money to an already existing charity organisation (where you don´t know exactly how the money is used), but to help ONE person in need. So when Tomasz flew back to Europe in the end of September we decided to take action. 

While I continued solo through China, Tomasz met this incredible little kid Leon and his family in Skarszewo, Poland. Leon is just like any other 18 months kid; he loves to play and explore the big world around him. He's just like any other kid except for the fact that he is affected by the rare and nasty condition called spinal muscle atrophy 2 (SMA 2). It means that his muscles are not strong enough to support him standing up and running. For that he needs assistance. In fact he needs a lot of attention and assistance with a lot of things. Luckily Leon has two wonderful parents and relatives that are taking really good care of him and while Tomasz visited them four weeks ago Leon was constantly looked after by someone. 

One of the biggest challenges for Leon’s family is finding money to purchase the equipment that Leon needs in his everyday life. Currently they are striving to obtain funds for the costly equipment known as "cough assist machine", which is required for a periodic lung rehabilitation and also as a potential life-saver in case of ordinary sickness. Because the healthcare system in Poland does not cover this, we decided to start a crowdfunding activity in order to help them. 

Every little penny counts, so please consider donating to our “Just Giving” site  HERE to help us raise funds for the good cause.

You can also visit Leon´s Facebook Page HERE (in Polish) and read more about his condition SMA HERE (in English). 

LOVE from Ann and Tomasz

(Photos are taken by Leons mother Żanetta Hoepfner)

HJÄLP LEON!

Under våra två månader genom Mongoliet pratade jag och Tomasz ganska mycket om möjligheten till att starta en välgörande insamling tillsammans. Vi ville dock inte samla in pengar till någon större hjälporganisation (där du inte vet exakt vart slantarna går), utan vi ville hjälpa någon i vår potentiella närhet, någon med särskilda behov. Så när Tomasz flög tillbaka till Europa i slutet av september (och jag fortsatte solo genom Kina) så bestämde vi oss för att göra slag i saken. 

För fyra veckor sedan, i det lilla samhället Skarszewo i norra Polen, träffade Tomasz lilla Leon och hans familj för första gången. Leon är som vilken annan 1,5 åring som helst; han älskar att leka och upptäcka världen omkring sig. Men Leon är inte som alla andra, han lider nämligen av den ovanliga och mycket svåra sjukdomen spinal muskelatrofi (SMA). 

SMA är en neuromuskulär sjukdom där motoriska nervceller i hjärnan och ryggmärgen bryts ner vilket leder till muskelförtvining och muskelsvaghet (Leon kan varken gå eller springa utan tar sig fram i sin lilla rullstol). Då det inte finns något direkt botemedel mot SMA inriktas behandlingen istället på att lindra symptom och kompensera funktionsnedsättningar. 

En av de största utmaningarna för Leons familj är att finna pengar till inköp av den utrustning som Leon behöver för att klara av vardagen (något som sjukvården i Polen inte står för). Det är här vi vill hjälpa till. Tillsammans med Leons familj har vi därför startat en insamling till inköpet av en så kallad “hostmaskin” (mekanisk in- och exsufflation). Syftet med hostmaskinen är dels att förebygga lungkomplikationer för Leon men också att underlätta andning i akuta situationer (tex. om han blir sjuk) då maskinen kan rädda hans liv. 

Varje krona räknas, så gå till vår “Just Giving” sida HÄR för att hjälpa oss att hjälpa Leon och hans familj!

Du kan även besöka Leons Facebook sida HÄR (på polska) samt läsa mer om sjukdomen HÄR. 

TACK på förhand, massa kärlek /Ann och Tomasz

(Fotografierna är tagna av Leons mamma Żanetta Hoepfner)

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A LONG RAIN

Bayankhongor Province, Mongolia, August 2016

We woke up to a soft rain; light droplets from a grey sky. Usually we would pack our bags and go, regardless of the weather. We would zip our rain jackets all the way up and just pedal. But not this day. This day we stayed in our sleeping bags and spent the following hours listening to music, writing journal and playing Trivial Pursuit on Tomasz phone. Not until late afternoon did we pack our stuff to spend the last hours of light actually cycling. But when the next morning came and the rain had turned from soft to hard, then we decided to ”stay in” all day. A whole day just doing...nothing. What a luxury. Some days just breathing is enough.

The landscape had started to change too. The green soft hills were now dotted with piles of rocks in front of jagged lines of mountains and the rivers were wilder and wider. Meeting locals and seeing how they live a simple life in their traditional yurts gave us an impression of jumping back in time. Far back. Not much has changed here over the last century. Still, everything is on nature´s condition. This nature that I´m so stunned about, this nature that´s above everything else.  It´s that or nothing. So beautiful. 

In the very small village of Mandal we got invited by a monk into the old monastery. Along the walls stood numerous Buddha statues, shining in all their colors in the soft light from the windows. And later on we came across a Russian-made van that was stuck in the mud. The driver still sat in the driver´s seat while camels were walking around it in peace, eating grass and looking at us with big eyes. But a van caught in the mud is nothing to cry about in Mongolia. The stuck passengers looked happy anyway and when the foreigners on loaded bicycles wanted to take some photos they happily paused their dragging-van-out-of-mud project with a smile. 

Nature decides. Take it or leave it.

Photo 6, 8 and 9 by Tomasz Gehrke

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When the modern meets the ancient. Nomads' meeting. 

Guilchoc came to say Hello near the tiny village of Mandal. He was all smile and even let us sit on his horse. After taken his picture he wrote his adress down, and a few weeks later we printed the photo and mailed it to him. I really hope he got it. 

Every day we meet numerous horsemen coming to "check" on us and I think we are equally curious about each other. 

Photo by Tomasz Gehrke 

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“FREAKING STOP THE BUS”

Bayankhongor Province, Mongolia, August 2016

Planning the route through Mongolia was a bit of a dilemma for us. It's a big country with a lot of places to explore, and even with a 60 days visa we were still short on time for the route we wanted to take. Therefore we decided to divide Mongolia in two parts; the central and the western.

First up was the central part which meant 700 km through an ever-changing landscape between Bayankhongor and Mörön. But to get to Bayankhongor we first had to endure a bus ride we´ll never forget. Or as some people said, ”a bus ride in Mongolia”. For 38 hours straight we sat like elephants squeezed into a spinning washing machine. How come? Well, crossing Gobi Desert by bus means hundreds of kilometers on bumpy, curvy and corrugated dirt roads. This never seemed to bother our bus driver though who was pushing the gas pedal to the floor from the very beginning. Usage of breaks seemed to be optional, and our driver clearly didn't like that option. Repeatedly he went way too fast over the bigger bumps which caused everybody in the back of the bus (us included) to leave the seats for a half a meter bounce and bang our heads against the roof. If that wasn’t enough our seats were so small we couldn’t even sit properly, and even if we kept on shifting body position, our legs were perpetually cramped. On top of that the driver played loud music non-stop, even when a man behind our seats, drunk on vodka, started a loud argument with the other passengers (one of them a mum with a 7 weeks old baby in her arms!).

A few hours into the second night the music suddenly stopped and to our surprise people in the bus started to sing instead. A quiet song that grew higher and higher and made everything seem like in a dream. It continued for about 2-3 minutes before a loud BANG came from below us. The driver kept on driving so the passengers had to yell at him to ”freaking stop the bus”. It turned out that the bus sustained some kind of chassis damage, so while the drivers tried to fix it we all had to sit out in a pitch dark desert and wait. After two hours we could continue again and at 5am the second morning we finally reached Bayankhongor. Those 1000 kilometers in 38 hours left us totally, completely exhausted for days to come.

On Friday morning the 5th of August we left the town of Bayankhongor and headed for the mountains. The first two days took us 95 km through sun, rain, storms and an endless green steppe. We did our first river crossings, cycled through herds of sheep, yaks and wild horses and talked to the curious Mongolians approaching us on mopeds and on horsebacks. In the afternoon of the second day we reached the village of Galuut where we stocked up with some more food before we pitched our tent with a view over a silent valley.

Now we were exactly where we wanted to be. 

Photo 7 and 9 by Tomasz Gehrke

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SUMMARY MONGOLIA:

Brown: start/end Green: camping/sleeping outside Yellow: yurt-camp/hotel

Date: 2016/07/27 - 2016/09/23

First month: central Mongolia (going south to north) Second month: western Mongolia (going north to south) Bus taken in-between

Days: 59  Days in the saddle: 33 Kilometers: 1306 Time in the saddle: ? (bike-computer died at the border, literally)

Average speed: slow Average km/day: 39,5 Average time/day: ?

Flat tires: 0

SINCE THE START:

Days: 200 (including 23 days in Canada) Days in the saddle: 125 Kilometers: 9614 Time in the saddle: ? (stop counting)

Max speed: 62.00 km/h (Altai Mountains, Russia) Flat tires: 3

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We felt totally euphoric that first day in Mongolia. Wide steppe enveloped in the green, smooth, almost feminine shapes of the surrounding mountains. Dusty, dirt roads winding endlessly through the valleys, smiling kids on galloping horses, hordes of camels on the line of the horizon and the small communities of traditional yurts dotting the valley with their typical, white canvas, circular shapes. It was exactly as we have imagined it. Except for the fact that half of the road to the town of Olgii, much to our surprise - was paved.

Cycling in the early hours of our second day in Mongolia, we found a little sparrow, sitting disorientated and visibly stunned in the middle of the road. Poor little fellow must have been hit by a passing vehicle. We left the bird in a shaded place with a bit of water, hoping it would survive and recover quickly.

In Olgii we got our 30 days visa extension for a total of 60 days. Now, our Mongolian adventure could begin. 

Photo 1, 6, 7 and 10 by Tomasz Gehrke.

Text by Ann Johansson and Tomasz Gehrke.

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BIKE TOURING WITH ANN (PART 3) - MONGOLIA. Tomasz made a film about our first month cycling Mongolia together! Watch it on his vimeo HERE. If you missed the first one he made from Kazakhstan/Siberia you can watch it HERE. 

Much more updates from Mongolia is on its way!

You can also follow Tomasz on his Instagram or through his website. 

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M O N G O L I A !

After 319 days on the road* and a total of 16 600 km did I the 27th of July 2016 reach country number 19 on my bicycle. This country was different though. This country made me more excited than I´ve been before any other country. Finally I would get to cycle Mongolia.  

* Winter break in Sweden (November-February) not included.