They have been three months on the road now, Eindhoven-based Thijs van Litsenburg and Joëlle Jochems. Their journey on the tandem to China is going according to plan – or well, according to their plan, because improvising along the way proves indispensable. Meanwhile, they have arrived in Antalya, Turkey, after some 4,700 kilometres on the pedals and a lot of adventures richer.
Sin an unexpected way, their journey became even more exciting when stray dogs showed more than usual interest in the pair. One stray dog even sank its teeth in the trailer behind the tandem bike.
Or that one time early one morning, when a stray dog suddenly appeared in front of their tent. ‘Then we asked ChatGPT how best to deal with stray dogs,’ explains Thijs. ‘We now know to yell at them,’ Joëlle adds.
All inclusive resort
But the adventure is not all wild. The couple treated themselves to a short stopover at an all-inclusive resort in Bodrum. ‘There we completely stuffed ourselves with food,’ said Joelle.
The tandem couple attracted a lot of attention when they arrived at the resort. ‘It is not a place where you expect people on a tandem bike,’ says Thijs. After two days, Thijs and Joëlle had already had enough of the resort.
Toothbrush
Of course, Studio040 would also like to know how many punctures they had along the way. ‘That’s not too bad,’ Thijs replies. “I think there were only three. Other parts of the tandem have suffered more.” He estimates that repairs and maintenance have now cost around 600 euros, roughly the price of the tandem.
Another setback was that Thijs lost his toothbrush early on his trip. Instead of buying a new one, Joelle decided to just share her toothbrush. ‘Normally I always lose things and he gets mad at me,’ says Joëlle. ‘But now we just have one electric toothbrush and then we change the brushes every time.’
Iran
The destination is still Beijing, but the next major stop is Georgia. After that, the tandem couple will have to see how they proceed. Iran is no longer an option, now that it is being bombed by Israel. ‘We are in an app group with bicycle travellers, some of whom are also in Iran now,’ Thijs says. ‘From them you hear intense stories about being interrogated for up to ten hours sometimes at the border, but also seeing the rocket damage’
Joelle and Thijs plan to catch a boat to Kazakhstan in the Azerbaijani capital Baku and continue their journey to China from there. “We are still enjoying ourselves so much that we are definitely going to continue. I am also far from tired of looking at Thijs’s back, you know,” Joëlle laughs.
Source: Studio040, Merijn van Merrienboer
Translated by: Vanya
