Butter oil lamps

Questions & Answers

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We had an open and public Questions and Answers session some weeks ago and we would like to publish it in this entry post.

Why do we want to publish it? Because we think some of you who are kindly following our adventure-project-trip might find some of the questions and some answers useful or interesting. If you have been following us, you might know some answers already, but we think there were some interesting questions worth publishing. So here we go, this was the open Q&A. We hope you like it !

There might be some grammatical mistakes or typing errors due to the time constrain and speed needed to answer all the questions we received online.

The order of the questions we present here are from the last one received to the first one:

Note: AMA stands for Ask Me Anything

 

Q, nothisispatrick8659
Hey, this is a really cool AMA and I think it’s absolutely amazing what you guys are doing! Most questions that sprang to mind have been asked, so I’ll ask a pretty boring question; how long do you tend to walk before you take a break? I imagine you are both very fit in order to be doing something like this in the first place, so what’s the longest you’d go without stopping in a day?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
First of all, you do not ask a boring question. If you ask, it is because you have curiosity and interest in our project, and just for that, we are grateful.
How long before a break? Let’s distinguish between 2 kind of breaks. 1. Daily. 2. Weekly or monthly. All of them always depend on so, so many factors like: how did we sleep the previous night?, can we eat now? later?, are we hungry?, are we thirsty?, how is the weather (very important)?, how many kilos are we carrying?, any blisters?, any sharp pains or injuries?, before dawn?, before or after sunset?, water and food accessibility?, do we have a place to sleep?, can we find one?, is it possible to camp?, is it possible to find accommodation in the next village? etc etc etc So, taking many of these factors in consideration at the same time, we would say:
1. Daily breaks: We stop for 5 minutes every 90 to 120 minutes, we take longer breaks for breakfast and lunch and if everything goes smoothly, normal and well, final stop after 25 to 30 kilometers. 2. Weekly or monthly breaks: We try to enjoy one physical day of rest every 6 to 8 days. That day is fabulous for the body (feet, ankles, knees, legs, backs and shoulders) and very tiring for our brains and eyes, as it is normally time to review and catch up with our journals, social media, families’ emails and a lot, a lot of work to feed our website and have it in good shape.

How long non stop? Again we would like to distinguish between 2 kind of walking conditions. 1. Normal, meaning we have all our gear, backpacks, cart… with us, on us. 2. Light or super light, when for whatever reason we can walk only with our small backpacks or minimum gear with us, on us 1. Normal walk: If we remember correctly, the longest distance covered in 1 day has been between 35 and 40 kilometers. 2. Light walk: The longest distance covered in 1 day has been 80 kilometers.

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Q, Evaporatte
Amazing journey, incredibly envious of you fellas. Keep on walking!
What’s on your list of things to do when you get back home?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Wow! That’s far away in the future for us! Because we still have a very long way to go and we live intensively on a daily basis. Things change so much and so fast for us that we have to quickly adapt to the new daily reality. But you are right and we also think about our future. What are we going to do when we reach home? We really don’t know yet. We have some very vague ideas for the big things or life projects like jobs, accommodation, family commitments, trips, any specific outcome from this amazing and life-marking trip-adventure-walk like a book? any other surprise? … but we are pretty certain in few things like enjoying a lot of time with our families and friends, having big celebrations upon arrival and later on, enjoy our fantastic daily life back in Catalonia, relax and recover, gain weight, go to the beach, exercise and jog again, for Lluís, participate more actively in my human towers building group ( www.castellersdevilafranca.cat ) because we do amazing things like this ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDxADjvXknM ) etc etc etc. Summarizing… what are we going to do back home? To fully enjoy our home life, every day !

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Q, Aristetul
I’m from Bangladesh and it’s so cool when I see people travelling through there online. What’s your route through Bangladesh and how long might it take ? Thanks for doing this! You guys are an inspiration.

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Comunasen? Balo atsi? Nice to read someone from Bangladesh. Yes, we are in Bangladesh now, but we have already finished our walking route here. We walked Cox’s Bazar, Chittagong, Comilla, Dhaka, Jessore and Benapole. That took us about 5 weeks when we were not walking every single day. We stopped in Chittagong, for example, to volunteer and help an organization that helps kids rescued from the street, or in Jessore, also with another organization that works to defend women’s rights in Bangladesh. Now we are waiting for our Bangladesh extension visa and the India visa which we expect to finally get next week, after a horrendous process. So we don’t have many days left in your country. As soon as we get our passports back, we’ll cross to India to start our long walk there. Thank you very much for your nice words.

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Q, antydaantiest
What is the coolest urban area you have been by?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
We would say, for both of us probably Bangkok. It’s chaotic, overpopulated, way too big… it’s a very South-East Asia city with many pros and cons, but we like it. That’s why we decided to choose it as a starting point for this walk. Jenn also likes Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, a total surprise, completely out of our route and that we had to visit in order to get the nightmare visas for Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

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Q, WAR_TROPHIES
How do you pronounce Lluis. Is it like loo-ees or You-ees?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Ah! Catalan double L is always annoying and a bit difficult to pronounce. We would say in English the sound would be closer to You-ees, more than Loo-ees.

Q, WAR_TROPHIES
Un hombrecillo que es pastorcillo come con un palillo muchos pepinillos.
Este hombrecillo hace bolsillos mientras come un panecillo con su amigo el pastorcillo.

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Wow, here you go! You have there so many LL ! If you pronounce them as Castilian spanish is pronounced, then you can say Lluís correctly. Si puedes pronunciar estas frases en castellano de Castilla, entonces pronunciarás correctamente Lluís.

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Q, xtn_m
This sounds utterly amazing! I’m planning a small trip walking from Greece to London in April next year, and people tell me I’m mad ha ha!
What advice would you impart on someone about to undertake an adventure like this?
Is there anything that people wouldn’t ordinarily think to take walking that has come in handy?
Keep walking! And stay safe!
Christian

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Hello Christian, What do you mean with you are planning a small trip walking from Greece to London in April next year?? That’s also utterly amazing! Congratulations!! Welcome to the club! Do people tell you, you are mad? Welcome to the club again!!

Advice? We don’t think we are in any position to give advices, but we are happy to share our modest point of view and opinions. We would tell you, GO!!!! Go ahead, trust yourself and fulfill your dream!! We could write or talk for hours, but we unfortunately can’t in this kind of forum. On a more practical note, since you will cross and enjoy Europe, we would suggest that you study deeply lots of maps and try to take advantage of bike routes or even better, GR walking trails. We must enjoy them in Europe. Try to avoid traffic as much as possible. Research, study and be prepared. Then, enjoy your amazing project.

Q, xtn_m
Thanks for the advice.
I haven’t looked at any of the bike routes, but have already planned to walk some of the long distance walking paths.

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Good job! Walking routes are better. As a matter of fact, before this adventure, we tested ourselves and trained walking Catalonia’s almost 600 km following the GR92. http://bangkokbarcelonaonfoot.com/training-gr92/

You will walk Europe and that means you will have everything you might need relatively available. Jenn wrote a couple of posts that might be helpful:
. http://bangkokbarcelonaonfoot.com/whats-in-our-packs/
. http://bangkokbarcelonaonfoot.com/a-gear-update-letting-go-and-starting-over/
Although her content is always in a constant change.

A, bkkbcnonfoot
This is Jenn chiming in…we started with the idea that we would use what we had and tweak along the way. I feel like I’m in constant tweaking mode, and still don’t have it quite right. What we need in one place, we may not need again somewhere for weeks. Like Lluís said, Europe will have its own challenges but replenishing supplies or finding places to sleep should be easier. But, there are a few things in my gear bag I couldn’t live without: a buff or something for my neck which I use as sun protection, a cloth to wash my face during the afternoons, and a scarf when it’s chilly; a whistle around my neck, which gives me an extra sense of safety if I need help or need to scare an animal or a human away, and baby powder, it does wonders for your drying out sweaty, stinky feet and making our skin feel like it’s burning less at the end of hot and humid day.

And our suggestion, learn a few techniques to deal with barking or approaching packs of dogs. We came across them walking in Europe and Thai street dogs were the most awful creatures we encountered so far… pretty aggressive packs protecting wide areas around temples. They would circle us every few hundred meters during our most precious early morning hours and slow us down. We sang to them, stretched like a dog, scratched our ears hoping they would see us as disinterested and as a last resort had to pick up rocks to pretend to throw at them. We found tips online but every morning brought new dog personalities, so having a few tricks up your sleeve would be useful.

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Q, kungfukitE
How did you guys meet? id love to have a friend to explore with

A, bkkbcnonfoot
We met during a human towers exhibition at La Mercè Barcelona festival. Human towers is a very unique and spectacular Catalan cultural tradition where we do amazing things like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDxADjvXknM We hope you enjoy the video. Lluís belongs to one of those human towers group http://www.castellersdevilafranca.cat and while performing during Barcelona festival is how we met.

Q, kungfukitE
Wow, very neat! And such an inspiring journey to be on! Best of luck

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Thank you very much for your words!

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Q, sparkchaser
What is your average rest day like?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Hi again! They are wonderful! We do very little physical work. We are horizontal, stretched out on our backs and feet up. Then, the intellectual work gets tougher. Rest days are usually days when we are catching up on our journals and blogs, updating our website, letting our families know we’re okay, browsing social media feeds and doing and updating research for the next week or two ahead. oh, and we spend a lot of time sewing our socks, clothes and repairing the wear and tear on our gear.

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Q, Suspiciouscow2
How have you considered the safety of this trip? You will be traveling (on foot) through many countries and chances are somewhere along the way you could be in places which can be a but shady

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Safety is always top of mind, but we never let fear paralyze us from moving ahead. Our mandate comes from Jenn’s father: “You have this big mission, but your goal every day is to find a safe place to sleep.” We take that very seriously, but it has prove to be a very difficult task. But, when you break it down to that level, the rest of the trip looks less overwhelming. It’s hard to plan beyond a few days or a week ahead, so we go step by step, and deal with what life gives us each moment. We definietly believe in living in the present moment.

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Q, Ricosuaveyatusabe
What is the most shocking thing that happened during the journey? // ¿Qué es lo más impactante que os ha pasado durante lo que lleváis de viaje?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Hi there. There are already many shocking experiences, and it’s hard to choose one. The constant bombardment of our senses every day – from what we see, smell, hear, feel, and taste – is always surprising, and many days overwheleming. For both, the most shockingly good event was the breath-taking landscape of the Pamir mountains and the hospitality of its people. It’s a region of the world we knew so little about, and now has become one of the cornerstones of our trip.

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Q, sparkchaser
What is in your backpacks?
Has your route changed from the route you originally planned?
How many bouts of food poisoning have you had?
What is your planned route through India? Where do you plan to exit India?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
What’s in our backpacks? We have tried to keep our stuff to the most minimum amount, but it’s tough. We have to factor in hot and cold weather, carry some food and water, and have a sleep and shelter system that works in many kinds of environments. Our packs weigh between 16 and 22 kilos, depending on our food and water weight.
Because of time, we can’t list every single thing in our packs, but we did write about this on our blog a couple times, and Jenn is posting something next week about a decision to get a walking trolley and change her system of carrying her gear. Here are the past blog links: http://bangkokbarcelonaonfoot.com/whats-in-our-packs/ and http://bangkokbarcelonaonfoot.com/a-gear-update-letting-go-and-starting-over/

Route changes? We answered some of this before. Generally, we try to stick as close as we can to our planned route, but there are any number of circumstances that influence our daily and weekly walking plan. Weather, political changes, security, border crossing, visa limitations, etc., impact our decisions. We changed the order of countries due to monsoon and weather conditions and we have to do lots of visa runs in and out of countries, but the route is our principle guideline. We are still “attached” to it.

Food poisoning: We have had a few small bouts since we started, with the worst lasting a few days in Tajikistan. We had diarrhea and little bit of vomiting, but, thankfully, nothing that has stopped us for an extended amount of time. It’s tough – every day we are dealing with new water and food. As cautious as we try to be, we also need our stomach to acclimate to whatever we throw its way.

India route: We will enter near Kolkatta and will try to follow a straight line to… either Amritsar, if we can enter Pakistan, or the Leh area and Kashmir, if it’s safe and Pakistan is not possible. This is one of our biggest route question marks to date.

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Q, Birdwatchingyou
What is your favorite species of bird?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
ah…we wish we knew the names of some of the beautiful birds, trees and plants we have seen, but we’re clueless on that stuff! Thailand and Burma had wonderful song birds that we loved listening to at dawn and dusk, and we heard one recently in Bangladesh that sounded like water dripping; it had a longish, forked tail, dark in color.

Q, Birdwatchingyou
I wouldn’t know, I can only name iconic birds that are outside of my country.

A, bkkbcnonfoot
You’re better than we are at that. We keep thinking to get an app that identifies birds, but by the time we turn on the phone, the birds are long gone.

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Q, bobfootm
You mention “We walked … so far through Thailand, Burma, the Pamir, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan. We will soon be starting our 6 to 8-month leg in India.”
Why would you go back to India after making it to Uzbekistan?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Hi, Thanks for your question. It looks confusing on paper, but it makes sense on the ground.

As much as we would love to walk in a straight line our entire planned route from Bangkok to Barcelona, we knew going into this trip that walking consecutive steps the whole way would unlikley, impossible even. The weather, visa limitations and border issues make our route look more like a jigsaw puzzle than a straight line.

The bridge between Southeast Asia, South Asia and Central Asia prove that. First, as far as we knew and as far as we still know, there is no open border for foreigners between Burma and Bangladesh, and the border areas in the west and north of the country have serious ethnic fighting. Second, it was getting into the hottest months of the year when we finished Burma and were ready to cross into Bangladesh, a country we wanted to include on our route. It was more than 40-45 degrees Celsius in April, and the monsoon rains were to start in a month or so. We had to make a choice: will we be wet and deal with unbearable het in Bangladesh and India most of the summer, or should we jump to Central Asia, where we would have good weather in the mountainous areas of the Pamirs; July in Uzbekistan will be brutal, but dry and we would have longer daylight hours so we can stop for day rest during the afternoon and walk in the cooler hours of morning and evening.

Visas are also a challenge. Some countries only give a 30-day visa, with no option to renew in country. It’s difficult to cover the kilometers we need to in less than 30 days (assuming we need a rest day every week and may need to do other admin things that will keep us off the road for at least a couple days, like restock supplies), so we typically have to leave and come back again.

The straight line on our route is a guideline, but in reality we have to find workarounds all the time for many small and big things. There are hundres of logistics decisions to make almost every day.

Q, bobfootm
I didn’t know all that – it’s fascinating – but I’m still curious about some – sort of macrologistics. The distance from Nukus, Uzbekistan (randomly chosen, far from the western border) to the Indian border ESE, as the bird flies, is 1000 miles, who knows how far as the wolf runs, and three or four countries away. The same distance West, more or less would get you North or South of the Caspian Sea, through one or two countries. Do you maybe have a route map or a website?

(I might make this sound like I’m doubtful or something – I’m not at all – I’m just really curious. I’d love to do this sort of thing, but am unable.)

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Hi again! We’re equally fascinated with the logistics (macro and micro, if you will), and happy to answer what we can. And, we hope, you will be able to this sort of thing on any scale, even something like day trip around your neighborhood discovering new things you didn’t see before counts. 😉

First, here is our planned route, drawn by Lluís: http://bangkokbarcelonaonfoot.com/mapsmapes/

We both love maps and figuring how to get from Point A to Point B, although Lluis likes to take a more direct path, while I prefer more of the scenic route. To help sketch out our preliminary plan, we looked at paper maps, atlases, digital maps, guidebooks, aerial photos, and consulted tons of embassy sites for visa information. Since we are not walking as hard-core wilderness survivalists, we knew we would have to follow arteries that connect villages and cities so we can have easier access to food and water, assistance (when needed), and people (one of the main reasons we’re walking is to meet and be with people). Those arteries may follow a main or secondary road, a river path, train tracks or combinations of those things. Once we had that high-level information in hand for as many countries from Thailand to Catalonia as we could find, along with the likely amount of time we would receive for tourist visas and what chances we had to renew visas, we could start factoring in geopolitical conditions, which are always in flux. We made a list of hot spots to watch, places we know we may not be able to go and other areas where we may have large enough windows of time to pass through without harm. This was particularly helpful when we crossed from Thailand into Burma; we thought we would have to circumnavigate the border area around Myawaddy because of ethnic fighting, but we got lucky in that a truce was reached a short while before we crossed over and things were pretty calm when we went through the Karen state.

The macro logistics is the overriding compass, but on a day to day or week to week basis, we have to rely on micro logistics decisions. For instance, here we are on the map today, where are we going to end up 25-30 kilometers from here? Does our digital map show a hotel? Will we be able to camp? When does the sun go down to today, so we know how much ground we can realistically cover in daylight and because about 30-45 minutes before sunset we should making sure we have a safe place to bunk down for the night.

Visas and health also play a big role in our micro planning. We’re going through this balacing act right now. We finished walking Bangladesh about 10 days ago but are in hold pattern waiting for both a Bangladesh extension visa we applied for last month and will get 5 days before it expires and are waiting for the okay to pick up our Indian visa. Coincidently, during this short break, I had a minor red flag pop up healthwise. Since all we have is our health, that becomes an immediate priority. We had to take a few days to find a doctor, get blood work, wait for the results and get the green light that everything is ok, which it is. If it wasn’t, we would have to factor another micrologistics decisions – do we stay here, get a second opinion somewhere, would we have to fly home for care, what other good alternatives are there nearby, could we follow-up in a few weeks somewhere along the route in India, etc? And don’t get us started on the actual task of crossing borders and that process… some borders are randomly closed and opened without warning, others are open all the time, others only a few hours a day, some days we cross over in 15-30 minutes and can keep walking, other times we have to wait in long queues for hours.What happens at a border crossing could change our whole day’s plan in about 5 minutes, depending on the mood of the person holding the stamp… there’s no way to plan for that, so we have to go with whatver comes.

So with this stack of macro and micro logistically inputs, we opted to give ourselves 3-5 years to cover an estimated 14,000 kilometers. Sure, if we wanted to floor it, we could probably rush through and finish in two years. But, we decided this was a trip worth savoring, at a point in our lives when we could physically take on the challenge and had enough financial security to at least start the trip on a manageable, low budget (we’ll see how we finish). Walking as much as possible is the objective, but we want to also stop along the way and volunteer, or visit significant places that may be off our walking route…we want to, in a small way, give back to the communities we pass through while also appreciating their cultures and noticing things we would never see if we took a bus or train.

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Q, sparkchaser
EXCELLENT QUESTION!
Maybe they want to say that they walked through all the ‘stans?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
We would love to walk through all the `stans… but sigh we already know that won’t be possible. A visa to Turkmenistan, for example, is not a visa suitable for walkers… they give, if you’re extremely lucky, only a five day tourist visa and we can’t walk through that desert country in only five days. Oh well… C’est la vie….

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Q, PDMAEMA
great journey, i have dream that too. my question is how do you get the access to internet?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Awesome! We hope you have the chance to follow your dream. If we can help you with information, feel free to follow our social media feeds and website and reach out to us when you have questions.

Internet is becoming easier to find in most parts of the world. We tend to rely on pay-as-you-go SIM cards and change cards as we change countries. Hotels and cafes usually have wifi, and in Thailand, 3G and 4G cell phone network speed was common almost everywhere in the country… in fact it was better and faster than our service in Barcelona! Bangladesh, too, surprisingly has very good cell phone data plans that been fast and stable. In more remote places with smaller populations like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan cell service and wifi was spotty and we went for long stretches wthout connectivity. But, perhaps it was better… we got to walk in the shadow of gorgeous mountains uniterrupted by social media notications.

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Q, Slayer_Tip
Have you guys ever been in a difficult situation, for example, robbed, or attacked by locals?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Oh, and we just remembered, in Uzbekistan, we had a few days that we had the opposite effect on people. Instead of thinking we were targets worth robbing, they thought we were so poor that we could not afford a shared taxi ride out of the desert. They couldn’t understand why any sane person would walk those stretches. We wondered the same too! So, they would stop along the road, invite us to hitch a ride with them and when we said no we were walking, they gave us enough money to hail a taxi or a ride, if we changed our mind. Others would stop along the way and give us free watermelons and rock melons, as a way to keep us hyrdated in the long stretches of nothingness.

Good questions, and we have been asked versions of this as we walk. Knock wood, but so far we have avoided being robbed or attacked. We have been very lucky.

We had two weird instances in Bangladesh, but they small in caliber. One night, someone came into the five-shop mini commercial center where people gave us shelter from a tunderstorm and sliced our tent’s mosquito net with a knife. Ended up being an 8-inch gash. We don’t know if he intended to reach inside and rob anything, but he only managed to reach inside our mosquito net and touch Jenn, who woke up and screamed. The guy ran away before we could see him or let anyone know what happened.

The second incident, creepy as it was, was done with the intention of protecting us and keeping us out of harm’s way. One night a few weeks ago, we reached sundown exhausted and without a hotel nearby. A local family took us in and generously let us shower there, made us dinner, introduced us to their extended family and had moved around their family members so we could sleep in a bed. About 10 p.m., as we were going to sleep, the police knocked on the door. Word had gotten to them that tourists were in this very small village and that, because of the crazies out there “somewhere” not specifically in their village, we could have been targeted by terrorists and put the family at risk. For our safety and the family’s, the police asked us to leave the family’s house and drove us several kilometers up the road to a hotel usually designated only for locals. Apparently us being 15 minutes away in a hotel near a gas station was safer. Ironically, locals told us if we were ina bind, that people in small villages would be more inclined to help us than city dwellers. It was weird but nothing happened. We think Bangladesh police are under a lot of pressure to keep the very few tourists who we have seen here as safe as possible; an unfortunate incident this summer in Dhaka has many people on edge.

Having the police called on us for our safety is a now-and-again thing. In some parts of the world, regular tourists are still a novelty, so walking tourists are a complete oddity. In Burma, for instance, we dreaded the moment when a local would see us pitch our tent in the dark somewhere out of view and pick up the phone to make sure the police knew we were there. In those cases, we would spend hours talking to the police, who sometimes would drive by after our call, and decide if we could stay where we were or if we had to pack up and escorted to some tourist-sanctioned hotel somewhere up the road. Cyclists we met along the way had the same problems, so we were not special; it was just the way to deal with independent travelers who didn’t end up in the “normal” places. In the end, we know they are doing their job and, so far, we have nothing else bad to report. Hope the good vibe continues.

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Q, CptQ
Thanks for all the interesting answers you two :). I dont know if you are interested but here is a post of a guy who is traveling the world on foot. Thought you might be interested :P.
/r/IAmA/comments/4sheeq/i_am_tom_turcich_466_days_10_countries_and_6300?st=ivkwcedd&sh=26cc9a6c

A, bkkbcnonfoot
There are a few others out there walking.. Not many, but some. Sarah Marquis is one of them and so is Paul Salopek, two more people we admire, follow and talk to now and again.

Thanks for the link. We know him, and are in frequent contact with him. He is one of our brothers in boots, and we follow his journey very closely. We hope to meet him one day. He is, in fact, the inspiration behind this Reddit AMA and he encouraged us to do one.

Q, CptQ
Haha awesome! I kinda thought you knew him already, because like you said in your other comment: there are not many people like you out there :).
Good luck on your journey!

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Yes, there are not many people walking the world, but… do you want to join us? Do you want to enlarge our little group? You’ll be more than welcome! Thank you for your good wishes.

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Q, Slayer_Tip
oh wow, that sounds quite eventful. I sincerely hope you guys stay safe out there, its a crazy and unexpected world out there, im also super jealous that you’re doing this 😛 Take care guys!

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Thanks for the good wishes. We collect good wishes and keep them in our karma pocket :-). The world can be a scary place, but we don’t dwell in the fear. We think about and plan for some worst-case scenarios and then adapt as we can. We strive to make the best decisions we can with the resources we have and the information we know at the time.

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Q, VLKBlackDove
I was in thailand this year too! Granted I didn’t walk back but still, great place to start your adventure.
My questions is about food. On stretches you don’t have places to go eat, what do you make? And what is the longest you have gone without getting something to eat? Have you ever been worried or cut it close with the food aspect?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Rereading a few questions, and we missed one of these – have you cut it close with food? We had some long and stressful stretches walking in Uzbekistan during the fasting season of Ramadan. We would drag ourselves into a small town, and our hearts would sink when the only restaurant in town was closed, possibly reopening hours later after sunset and serve soup and salad. If we were lucky, a little convenience store would be open, somewhere we could buy a half kilo of cookies and maybe a small bottle of local cola (sometimes it would even be cold if the electricity was on and the fridge worked). With hope dashed of having a good lunch and resting for a few hours during the worst heat of the day, we readjusted our eating schedule and ate small portions wherever we could along the day. Amazingly, during our worst stretches, someone would pop out of nowhere (literally van drivers would crest a hill with nothing but dry yellow land stretching everywhere in the horizon), see us and do a u-turn. They would pull a fresh-picked watermelon out of their van and start slicing it up for us. We would sit on the side of the food licking our fingers, catching every drop of its sweetness.

More than food, having enough water, though, was our biggest challenge. Jenn wrote about it here: http://bangkokbarcelonaonfoot.com/the-weight-of-water/

Isn’t Thailand awesome! Hope you had a nice trip! What part did you like the most? We started in Thailand because of all the many good memories we had from previous trips. As for the food thing, I’m more obsessed with this than Lluís; he can go for longer stretches without hunger issues, but I get cranky after 7-10 hours without much-needed calories. We usually carry easy to eat things and things that don’t require much cooking because we often don’t want to make a campfire to draw unnecessary attention in our direction. Bread, fruit, cereal bars, nuts, raisins and maybe some canned goods typically have a place in our packs. Luckily we pass enough roadside kiosks where we can grab and go, and we try to have one or two big, calorie-heavy, hot meals every day. We often rely on egg omelettes and whatever the local starch is.Chicken and cooked vegetables are also frequently on our menu.

Oh yeah, how could I have forgotten these: pineapple cream sandwich cookies and Snickers! I do a little happy dance every time they show up behind the dusty glass of the store counter!

Just dawned on me, we also have an electric heating coil we use when we sleep in pensions or hotels. They’re great for boiling water and making travel comfort food, like ramen noodles, ginger tea, oatmeal or instant soup.

Q, VLKBlackDove
That’s awesome! Thanks for the reply! My favorite part was Chiang Mai for sure. Everyone there was great for questions and just walking around!

Q, bkkbcnonfoot
Oh yes!! Did you visit the night market? And I remember a cute ceramics/pottery workshop on the edge of town. I promised myself one day I would go back to Thailand with an empty suitcase just so I could fill it with cute Thai things and cooking utensils! Thanks for the wanderlust daydream 😃

Q, VLKBlackDove
I did indeed! I wish I could have gotten more there! They have so much cool stuff at those markets!

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Q, kans7
Hi! so since you guys will probably be walking for months, what do you do about your clothes? do you sleep in a tent, hotel, or some citizens home?
Good luck on your amazing journey 😀

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Hi! Sleeping? Wherever we can. As a matter of fact, finding a safe or decent enough place to sleep is one of our main problems, concerns and goals every single day. It’s been kind of easy, for example, in Thailand and Pamir and a nightmare, for example, in Burma, Uzbekistan and Bangladesh. Sometimes we can use our tent, sometimes hotels (very low-end budget places) and sometimes we also stay in people’s homes.

Our clothes? Jenn has changed a bit her walking wardrobe according to weather, comfort and wear and tear. Lluís is wearing the same clothes, every day, since we started back in January (!!!!). We wash as often as possible, but as you can imagine, we mostly stink. We carry very few clothes with us.

By the way, we will be walking for an estimated 3 to 5 years, more than for several months. And thank you very much for your good wishes!

Q, kans7
wow.. that is actually insane… I thought me doing few footwork drills in varsity team was tough, but comparing that to walking for ~5years :O
Be safe and I hope you keep updating your vlog site :)

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Congratulations to you for your footwork drills! They are also important and we think you should be proud of. We try hard to keep our website and Instagram updated. We invest A LOT of work and hours doing it, so we’ll be very happy if you want to follow us. Welcome to our growing community! And thanks again for your good wishes.

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Q, HS007
How many hours do you walk a day? Or does that differ depending on the conditions?
Also, any funny/good incidents that you had along the way that you would care to share?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
We walk between 25-30 kilometers most days, depending on the weather, the heat, our stamina, and where we will be able to sleep every night. We usually start before dawn and walk until sundown. If the heat is too much, we take a longer lunch break in the shade. Some days we cover a lot of ground in 7-8 hours, other days every minute feels like an eternity.

Funny incidents: Every hour is the Jenn & Lluís comedy hour, if you ask the locals we walk by. To them, we look like aliens walking covered from head to toe in hats, long pants and long sleeve shirts, hauling 18 kilos on our backs and now a walking trolley. They stare at us in total surprise and when we smile and wave back, it’s fun to watch their confusion turn in a friendly hello. Our most fun moments are usually when we have to buy something and use all sorts of sign language to get what we need.

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Q, ourhomelessstory2016
Are there communication barriers at all and how do you get around them?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Many! We are in a constant state of ‘lost in translation’. Sometimes this is a problem, but it often takes us to ‘funny’ situations. We always learn a few basic local words for our basic needs (hello, thanks, water, food, accommodation, how much, numbers…). By doing so, locals normally appreciate our efforts to respect their culture and language, while also covering our very basic necessities. The rest of the useful communication relies on lots of body language and universal pictures.

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Q, bingomzan
Hi Jenn and Luis, My only question is are you playing Pokemon Go? You would get so much XP…

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Hello. Neither Jenn nor LLuís have any idea about that, so we don’t play it. Maybe we are missing something very funny… ?

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Q, QuirkyLittleFox
What advice would you give to youngsters who would also like to satisfy their desire to travel? Also, if you don’t mind me asking, what did/do you do for work?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
To give advice is probably too much for us, but we are happy to give you our modest point of view. Regardless of your age, physical condition, economic situation, you name it, if your desire tells (or shouts) you to travel, GO for it! You can go to many places in the world and in many different ways. We suggest 3 phases: 1. To study, read, learn and prepare your trip ahead of time (you will already be traveling from home). 2. Do your trip. 3. Digest, clean and double check pictures… (you will still be traveling when you’re back home). Do not hesitate and GO! //// Our jobs, Jenn, marketing. Lluís, travel advisor.

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Q, hebetrollin
How long do you think you’ll last before being beaten, raped and dumped in a ditch?
http://www.yesimright.com/young-girl-hitchhiked-through-the-middle-east-to-prove-muslims-are-peaceful-what-they-did-next/

A, bkkbcnonfoot
We hope to get back home as healthy and happy as we left. There are obviously dangers everywhere and also very few really bad people, but the vast majority of humans are good. We see it almost every day. We hope not to meet that terrible bad minority you mention and regardless passports, nationalities, religions (if any), colors, believes or values, we hope to continue meeting nice people. It’s full of them everywhere and everyday!

Q, hebetrollin
We shall see. Hopefully it works out better than the aforementioned, or that vegan chic who tried to climb mount everest and died.
RemindMe! 6 months.

A, bkkbcnonfoot
We hope so too. You can follow our Instagram and check how we are doing.

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Q, mac745
Need a lift?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Funny question. We have been very tempted in some occasions when we were struggling outdoors because of pain or bad weather, but until today we keep walking and thankfully refuse vehicles lifts. Thanks for the offer!

Q, mac745 • 2d
Im glad to see you still have a great sense of humour during your trek! Best of luck.

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Thanks for your good wishes. Yes, humour is important and despite some difficulties, why not keep good sense of humor? We are having a terrific experience! We are living something to be really happy!!

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Q, PumaBearLionMAn
what the fuck is with your point-of-view changes in your writing? fucking tripe, i hope you can walk better than you can write

A, bkkbcnonfoot
There are two of us, and we introduced ourselves. We are sitting side by side writing and reading, but sometimes a question resonates more with one of us so that person takes the lead.

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Q, newereggs
How will you deal with visas? For example, I see you plan to spend 6-8 months in India, but India only allows tourist visas for 30 day periods. What are you doing to get around this?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Visas are one of our worst nightmares. We have been struggling a lot, spending insane amounts of time, energy, money… to get normal or extended visas for Thailand, Burma, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh and now we are waiting and dealing with India, where we have applied for 12 months (let’s see how many they grant us).

Q, newereggs
Hey, hats off to you guys for trying. Getting the right visa can be a function of how the embassy working you’re talking to is feeling on that day, it’s really ridiculous, you can be denied for absolutely nothing or you can end up with a visa that you really shouldn’t have gotten. There’s a guy who hangs around on /r/hitchhiking who managed to get a transit visa to Saudi Arabia even after telling the guy that he was going to hitchhike and that he didn’t have transport arranged, something very clearly stated as required. So you never know.

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Thank you for your comment. Yes, we agree that visas are way too often, very random. We have experienced it ourselves and met other travelers with awful stories. In our case, we want to visit their countries, learn and admire their cultures and definitely leave money in their pockets. We still have some visas ahead. We’ll see what happens.

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Q, angus_the_red
Do you talk much while you are walking? Or is it mostly silence until you stop?
Side by side? Or does one lead and the other follow as on a trail?
Do you think you’ll be very much different when you get home?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
TALK: We don’t talk much while walking. We do comment what we see or ask questions, but most of the talking happens when we stop.
SIDE by SIDE: Most of the more than 4,000 km walked so far have been one behind the other. Why? Mostly for 2 reasons. 1. We have different paces. 2. Because of the road. We walk a lot on road shoulders and we cannot take extra room to avoid the traffic. We also enjoyed walking side by side in remote traffic-free trails in the Pamir for example.
DIFFERENT? We don’t know, but we don’t think this amazing adventure will change us dramatically. We are pretty sure it will influence and it will shape us a bit, but up to today, after that distance and about 10 months, we are still pretty much the same.

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Q, Cabecrandall
What’s the most beautiful place you’ve seen?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
This is a very difficult question. We have been and seen amazing places but, if ‘you force us to choose one’, we both agree that it would be the Pamir and more specifically, the Wakhan valley. It’s an amazing stretch of land runing between the South East corner of Pamir (Tajikistan) in front of Afghanistan.

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Q, Orchestra_Oculta
These types of adventures always boggle my mind.
Did you have to put aside a considerable amount of funds for this journey or are you just very well off and could afford this on whim?
Do you ever fear being mugged/kidnapped etc? It seems like 2 foreigners back packing through remote areas would be a risky situation.

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Money: We started saving the very first moment we decided to dive into this adventure, last 2013. We could save a bit, enough to start, but we do not have much. Therefore, Jenn does some freelance work along the way, we both rented our apartment and above all, we are in a low budget trip, controlling the costs. We are still within the daily budget.
Security: Yes, of course this has crossed our minds. Often. But until today we have not felt any threats or dangers so far. We are completely vulnerable, but we trust people and their goodness. We always go with a big smile and until today we only get smiles back. We hope to continue with this good luck.

Q, Orchestra_Oculta
I wish you luck as well! As a follow up, if you guys don’t mind, what brought on your desire to do something like this? Also when did you decide, “yup, we’re going to do this”?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Thank you for your good wishes.
WHY do we do it? Because we love to travel, to do it independently backpacking (many years doing so), we are walkers and we also love to explore the world and face new challenges. So looking at the map, this adventure has all the ingredients!
WHEN did we decide to do it? One afternoon a few years ago, Jenn sent Lluís an email. It read, “One day in life, let’s take a long, long walk… like from Bangkok to Barcelona.” That evening, the two of us—walkers, backpackers and travel junkies—stood in front of the big world map hanging in our office mulling over the possibility. Lluís said, “That’s a long way. It will be a big challenge, but look at all the amazing cultures we will have along the way!” We both nodded. IT WAS A YES from the beginning. It wasn’t a question of if we would do it; it quickly became a question of when and how we would do it.

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Q, AndrePintor
How do you battle the pain of walking?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
The short answer is we keep going one step at a time, and deal with whatever comes in the minute, hour and day.
The longer answer is we adapt in different ways. For physical pain, like back and muscle aches, we pull out our tiger balm and rub it on the weak spot of the day. For blisters, which have been less problematic than we expected, we try to deal with them right away before they turn worse…we have a needle and iodine to lance it, compeed blister pads if they are bad, and Vaseline if the weather is dry and powder if our feet are sweating too much. Mostly, and luckily, the physical pain passes with rest and stretching and tweaks in how we carry stuff.
The mental pain is harder. While we always have to pay attention to the road and what’s happening around us, some walking hours are totally boring or just really tough to endure, like when it 35 degrees Celsius but the humidity makes it feel like 44. In those hours, I (Jenn) will pull out my little junkie MP3 and get some songs in my head; that tends to stop the story my body and head collaborate on and try to get me to quit. If that doesn’t work, I ponder life’s wonders and do high math, like solving equations and multiplying things like 342 by 789, or some absurd combination to get my mind off the task of plowing forward.

Q, AndrePintor
That’s so interesting! Do you confirm that it’s 90% mental and 10% physical?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Yes, definitely. Our brains control so, so much the rest of the body. There are some ‘broken parts’ that really hurt like some injuries and we can’t do anything mentally, but the rest… mental control and strength.

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Q, Velzevul666
Holly crap! And I though I was the only one using tiger balm on anything! (white or red?) Also, do you have an itenerary posted? Maybe we can meet if you pass by my country?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
White and red. Whatever works. We do have this route published in our website: http://bangkokbarcelonaonfoot.com/mapsmapes/ That’s our idea. We’ll see on the ground if we can follow it or, as usual, we have to change and adapt. But with more or less changes, bigger or smaller, we will follow that idea.
It would be great to meet you!

Q, Velzevul666
Damn, it looks like you will be passing from Turkey straight to Bulgaria. If you change your mind and want to visit Greece, I live on the north east, close to the Bulgarian border so, who knows!

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Good, good! We might make it! The map of our website is quite accurate reflecting our intentions and route, but for your beautiful part of the world is very possible that we can do Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia… OR Turkey, Greece… so if you wish, let’s keep in touch and if we decide or can pass through your area, it would definitely be a great pleasure to meet you in person! If you want, follow us on Instagram and you also can contact us through the email published on our website. OK?

Q, Velzevul666
Sure thing! The best of luck to you!

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Thank you! Let’s see if we can meet each other! It would be great!!

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Q, AndrePintor
Do you plan on doing it again?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
We are still doing it and we still have a very, very long way to go. So let’s go slowly, as we go, step by step, and let us enjoy (and sometimes suffer) this project, trip, experience, adventure. Can you ask us much later on, when we reach, for example, Europe? By then, we will probably have a better idea on how to answer your question. Ok?

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Q, Iknowdemfeelz
What’s your route and what’s the size of the power banks that you use? How much and when do you stock up on food and water especially in the rural areas where there might not be anything for several days of walking?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Power banks: we each started out with a Poweradd Apollo 10000 mAh which have solar panels, but mine (Jenn’s) got burnt out in the desert of Uzbekistan in July and only worked when it was plugged in the wall. I now have just a small one you pick up in any accessory shop, just enough juice to give me an extra charge or two, and bought a nifty solar panel that I haven’t yet needed to try… luckily this last month or two we have had power sources most of the way.

Food and water: how much we carry depends on where we are. As much as we would love to walk wilderness trails away from traffic and out of cities, we are not survivalists going hard core. We walk on roads that connect villages, towns and cities because we need water all the time and food a few times a day. In Southeast Asia and South Asia that has been relatively easy because they are huge population centers and it’s super easy to buy anything we need almost whenever we need it. In the Pamirs, Tajikistan nd Uzbekistan that was a bit harder because we were in remote areas. In those cases we carry two or three days of food with us, but we have been incredibly luckily… many people in those parts invited us in for tea, bread and often served us a meal for free! Water, I can never get enough of it… I usually have at least 3-4 liters on me and replenish whenever I can; Lluís usually carries about 2-3 liters. In July in Uzbekistan, I easily put away 10-15 liters of water most days and tons of watermelons and melons, and would have had more if they would have been more available.

Our route goes through Southeast Asia, South Asia, Central Asia and then we’ll be around the Caspian Sea, Turkey, Eastern Europe and then finally Western Europe. We can’t always go in a straight line because of visas, weather, geopolitical security issues, so sometimes our route is more like a jigsaw puzzle than a straight line on a map.

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Q, Tiggels
What has been the most surprising thing about your journey so far? What do you miss most about home?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
The most surprising, … many things! People probably wins. People’s goodness, generosity, kindness. We have been helped many times in many different ways. And we have met almost always, nice or very nice people.
Miss about home? Jenn: pizza, peanut butter, doing my laundry or taking a shower when I want. Lluís: Parents, speaking or hearing Catalan (language from Catalonia), doing human towers, walking without money belt and heavy backpack all the time… But we both enjoy tons of new experiences.

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Q, Tsunami36
Have you planned out a route? How are you going to survive the desert or the Himalayas? Are you planning to avoid any political regions like Afghanistan?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
We do have a planned route that will lead us through +20 countries, if everything goes as planned. The Himalayas aren’t on our route, we did have high passes in the Pamirs, and we walked slowly up and down along the roads that cyclists would also use. Uzbekistan was brutal desert in the scorching month of July. That was the hardest country so far for me (Jenn)… the feeling of constant thirst and always wavering on the point of heat stroke still gives me nightmares. We hope to walk through as many countries as we safely can…but, yes, geopolitical situations and safety dictate the final route.

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Q, _yhcrana
When did you start walking? And what were you doing in Bangkok?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
We started last January 16, Jenn’s 44th birthday. We flew from Catalonia to Thailand and after sorting the Burma visa out, we started walking.

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Q, _yhcrana
Do your feet hurt?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
When it has been very, very humid, we got more blisters, but we are surprised how well our feet are responding. Our shoulders are backs are a different story. They hurt more because of the weight.

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Q, DarkPasta
What shoes are you wearing?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Hi, I, Jenn, have a soft spot for Salomon, and am on my second pair. I also used Columbia. Lluís uses Salomon and Haglofs shoes so far. We tend to use more sneaker style hiking shoes than bulky boots. They work better in the hot weather, for now at least.

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Q, sdfghs
How many shoes have you already used during this trip?

A, bkkbcnonfoot
Hi… we almost missed this question. Jenn is on her third pair, Lluis makes them last longer and is on his second pair.

 

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8 thoughts on “Questions & Answers”

  1. Thanks for posting this conversation. As always, thanks for taking this trip and sharing with all of us. So amazing. Love to you both.

    1. Dear Bonnie,
      Thanks for your comment and constant support. We enjoy this trip as much as we like your messages and constant proves of interest and love.
      Love to you both as well.

    1. Dear John,
      Thanks for your comment and support.
      We are happy to know the considerable effort of transcribing the long Q&A was worth it. We think it has interesting questions that gave us the chance of giving probably useful information for other travelers and fellow walkers.
      Be strong, be brave and be safe too!
      Cheers and hugs!

  2. Lluís, my dear friend. Wishing you a happy new year 2017. Sent you an email, read when you can. I’ve always admired you and your passions. Sending you lots of love. Peace be with you

    1. Dear Alys,
      Thanks for your nice comment and beautiful words. I also wish you a very good and healthy New Year 2017. Chase your dreams and let’s meet somewhere in this amazing planet, my dear friend.
      Lots of love and some kisses!

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