Bicycle Tour across Europe for World Peace
In 1980-81, I undertook a Bicycle Tour of Europe , with a friend. This tour demanded hectic, wide-ranging preparations for about a year and culminated in a 9-month-long journey across 13 countries. Dedicated to World Peace and Understanding, the tour took us close to thousands of people in the cities and small towns and villages of Europe, and enabled us to mutually share many things about India and their respective countries. We pulled it off on an incredible budget of $350 on each, lived 270 days each full of excitement, desperation, anxiety, discovery and fulfilment, and had a fantastic media coverage right through, with over 45 newspapers interviewing us. Although the original idea was to bicycle through at least three continents, which is why the tour was described as a World Tour by some newspapers, we could only journey through Europe eventually. This is primarily because the meagre funds that we had were just about enough for survival and bare existence, and we had hoped to get...