GoingEast: our way of living the long way to the rising sun

Here I am, under the palm trees of Goa, India, with a flat bottom after the last 15,500km in two and a half months riding my trusted Suzuki V-Strom 650 K5, to write a bit about what I've been doing around Asia in the last 888 days.

THE DEPARTURE

I still remember very well that far Friday, May 8th, 2015, when I sayed goodbye to my family and I left alone, with the nautical compass mounted on the dashboard pointing east. In a few hours I arrived in Croatia, I opened the tent with the tears that soaked my helmet for the emotion for having realized the dream I was building for eight years and it was there that I realized I did not get any camping accessory, but the gas cooker. A few curses, a good laugh and I ate canned beans using a curved lid like a spoon... Not bad as a start!

I crossed the Balkans in two weeks, visiting those that are some of the cities that have marked the history of the 1990s and still carry a load of incredible humanity. I was thrilled to Sarajevo in front of the houses robbed by the bullets and felt alive when, after spending some nice nights with couch-surfing friends, I got around Skopje alone in the middle of the night without ever feeling in danger, even though in those days strong turns happened in Macedonia. The whole world was on my side.

After about four thousand kilometers in the midst of a multitude of cultures very close to each other I reached Turkey and there my life changed definitively.

TURKEY: I SHOULD HAVE STAYED TWO WEEKS BUT...

I stayed for fifteen months. I would never have imagined it but from the first day I met magnificent people on my journey, I traveled all over the country long and wide, traveling about nine thousand kilometers in fifty days, I visited every remote corner in Kurdistan passing a few kilometers from the Syrian borders and in the regions run by the PKK without ever having a problem, but even being hosted by local families.

Visited all over the east to the Armenian border I would have to get to Trabzon, take the spare tires, the service parts and the Iranian visa and go to Georgia, but it went differently: I had something pending to solve, I knew it I did not want to admit it, and so, somewhat unconsciously, I found the excuse and returned to Istanbul. Thanks to the friendships I had built I started a paragliding course at Tekirdag, on the Bosphorus; Another dream that I was in for years has become reality. Immediately I felt there was a great feeling and I started to live with the members of the club, learning the art of flying and helping them in the everyday life, living on the rhythms of the nature in a village in the peaks of the mountains, isolated from civilization. A magnificent lifestyle that changed my mind and body.

In those months, not without difficulty, I finally realized what I had left pending: the epoch-making journey and the choice of radical life were incomplete without the person I had dreamed of all this but from which I had gone away in the months before my departure. But she, like me, was still dreaming about a future together, and so, when I finally decided, she left a safe job and came to Turkey to live with me the madness of the journey without a destination I had undertaken.

THE DECISION

In August 2016 my residence permit in Turkey expired and we were forced to choose: finance is scarce, what do we do? It seemed to be the end of the journey towards the rising sun. It was after a painful farewell to my Turkish adoptive family while we were on the way back to Italy, heading to the Greek border, that I stopped because I could no longer drive: we were both silently crying in our helmets, none of us had any intention to return to the past aimless European life; so we launched a Turkish lira. Head, reason, we go back; cross, heart, let's go east, who knows where. Three shots. First: Cross. Second: Cross. We looked at each other crying and she just told me "Okay, let's go." I turned back and unleashed all that the magnificent Suzuki's twin-cylinder could bring us back to Istanbul, and then further to the east.

We arrived in Georgia without the proper equipment, without Carnet de Passage, no visas, no money and no rain clothes, but we were happy. We spent about a month meeting fabulous people and making strong friends, traveling to the Caucasus and testing the loaded bike and the new Heidenau K60 in very challenging off-roads on the Ushguli region. It really turned out to be the perfect bike, far better than every expectation! Winter was, however, at the gates and to go further south was already late, as in Armenia the snow is already coming in fall and the mountain passes for Iran close, so we decided to leave the bike and return to Italy to work a few months and reorganize the trip to Asia.

MIDDLE EAST: CULTURAL VARIETY AND BREATHTAKING PANORAMAS

The winter months in milan tired us and if I had a good alternative I would have avoided them, but at least we could organize the re-start. After riding the bike parked for months in Kutaisi, we left Georgia in July heading south and crossed Armenia and its endless valleys and mountains, enjoying the freedom and tranquility that that country can give, sleeping in tent almost every day never feeling unsafe. We also visited Nagorno-Karabakh and then went to Iran, Persia, the cradle of civilization. A truly unique place I would recommend anyone to include among the destinations of the next travels for the immense hospitality of the Iranians, for the great architectures, for the "weight" of the story that there is clearly perceived and for the good food. A country where we have promised to return, because one month is not enough to visit it all and why we have left too many friends that we need meet again.

Distances in the Middle East are much wider than in Europe and the environment much more extreme. The summer was at its hottest period when we approached the desert Dasht-e-Lut, where I lived one of the most amazing experiences of my life by flying paragliding at sunset on its dunes, and in which we left most of the our energies to cross it to the Pakistani border. Many nights in tent under the infinite stars of the desert and even more nights in couch-surfing with extraordinary people made for us Iran an absolutely unforgettable destination.

IS FOR YOUR SAFETY!

"It's for your safety" is the phrase that has marked the most tiring part of the trip, the one in Pakistan. When we arrived at Mirjaveh, the last Iranian outpost, we got ready to cross the border and ran away in time from the town's imam, which showed a little over-attentive attitudes towards us. The passage of the Pakistani border was quite simple, but it was only in the morning, we were forced by the police to stop at Taftan for the night to wait for the escort. This was the beginning of two thousand miles of travel that took place in ten days under armed escort 24/7. Pakistan itself is not a really dangerous country because it is extremely controlled and because tourists are denied to access to all sensitive areas; nevertheless the safety for them is never enough and we were forced to follow motorcycles or old polluting Toyota Hilux guided by policemen with Kalashnikov for almost the entire voyage.

Only in Lahore we were finally free to continue and we decided to visit Karakoram, not to leave thinking it was the worst country in the world. This choice worked out, because in the north things change and the nature is wonderful with its over 7000m mountains and uncontaminated valleys, but the Grand Trunk road (GT road) is a real disaster and this high altitude trip was a real challenge. We created here also some very good friendships and I'm missing them, but after all, coming out of Pakistan, I can not say that we are looking forward to go back!

THE SOUL OF ASIA

At the beginning of September, a month ago, we arrived in India, fifteenth country of the trip, via Wagah, the only border opened with Pakistan; a border almost desert since neither Pakistanis nor Indians are normally allowed to cross it and, judging by the registers, overlanders pass just a couple of times a week. At Amritsar, the first city after the border, we immediately felt in a different world, full of contrasts and spirituality, dirt, smells, gray concrete and beautiful glittering colors, a world that makes you uncomfortable and relaxes you at the same time.

In all sincerity we were intimidated by India before we got there, but once inside we were overwhelmed by its energy and tried to grasp its best. A few weeks ago we were in Ladakh, a Tibetan pearl in Indian territory, a magical place that gives great emotions to all the travelers who step into it and in which we have established a great friendship with some of its inhabitants. Forced by the swift winter to move south, we reached the chaotic Delhi, before spending a week in Rajasthan and eventually arriving after 36500km of travel to the tropical sea of ​​Goa, where we decided to spend the next few months relaxing, working where possible and organizing the stages for 2018.

Now the bike deserves a good general clean-up, a full service, probably a new clutch (I feel something wrong down there and we are close to 90000km registered), new tires and a deserved rest ...

This journey, this choice of life, it's revealing itself as a cure to the insanity that the classical Western life naturally led us to. I do not know where we will end up and I do not care to know it, we'll find out in due time. Now we enjoy the tropics, we look eastward, smile printed on the face and imagination beyond the horizon.

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