Starting May 2021, I will cycle from John O’Groats in Scotland to the southernmost point of continental Asia in Singapore with a mandolin for busking.

 

Check out the (very fluid) route here.

The mandolin (called Robert the Spruce), which I am still learning how to play, will help to slow down the travel—to rock up to a town, and spend hours in one spot observing life around me, giving back to it with music (if you can count being a hopeless beginner on the mandolin as “giving back”)—and to connect with the towns I cycle through.

 

Human culture is rich. Vast.

There are an overwhelming amount of different ways to cook, express, judge, be. There are many, many differences between humans of all cultures, in layers of morality, rituals, values.

I am interested in the differences; frankly, you cannot be an astronaut without first knowing that space exists. There are ideas, ways of being, that others know to which I have never been exposed. The differences inevitably bear personal growth. But—and this is the part that jazzes me beyond belief—not only are we different, we’re dazzlingly similar.

I am fascinated by that.

That level of connection, that supersedes “all the differences”, goes beyond misunderstanding and labeling of the Other. Authentic, human connection—you bring you, completely and fully, with your deep-rooted goals and needs and desires, and I will bring me, raw and open, all that I struggle with and yearn for and am overwhelmed by.

Then let’s see how different we actually are.

A Kazakh nomadic woman and I share humanity; we spend our days tonguing different languages, engaging with the land differently, fiddling with different technology and different family and different community. But we both have a desire for connection. A need to belong. To have purpose. To contribute. We both have imagination and a disposition for play. Perhaps both of us connect to that subconscious river of music, poetry, art, nature. The difference is in the expression, and I am fascinated by the undercurrent.

I’ve never played the mandolin, but I will use it (and learn it) as a tool for connecting to that very undercurrent of humanity. I will use it to stand in a marketplace corner and give something of my humanity to a place I’ve never seen before. To get to be there, strumming along, observing those who call the place home.

How do they move? With grace, fear, pride, self-connection? How do they speak with each other? Harshly, with physical touch, with facial expressions? How do they see me? With what eyes do they look upon me, plucking away badly on this mandolin?

Cycling is already a form of slow travel; to couple it with spending whole afternoons, days in a town, means that the trip from Scotland to Singapore will be even slower. As long as this doesn’t mean over-extending a visa, that’s perfect for me. I’ve got nowhere to be. I’m here for the long haul.

I want to be a writer. I long to be a writer. There’s something within me, within my own undercurrents, that keeps tapping me on the shoulder and whispering write, please, just keep writing, write about that world and that scent and that drum beat and just keep going.

And boy, do I believe in literature. When you read Robyn Davidson’s account of trekking the Australian outback, you slip into her bare feet. She puts you there with her words. Reading is a practice in empathy. Of cultivating empathy.

Not only that, it’s humanizing. It’s easy to dismiss The Arabs. To fear The Homeless. But what about Julia, the woman I met on the bus from Agadir to Taghazout, coastal Morocco? Who explained the bus system to me, who gave me her phone number in case I got lost, and instructions to “call me anytime; I go to nursing school right now, but I will have my phone”? I keep looking into her buttery eyes and see silver hoop earrings dangling from beneath her silky blue hijab, and remember: Julia’s training to be a nurse. She loves to read, as evidence by the copy of Robinson Crusoe tucked under one arm. She’s observant and kind, having seen my disjointed expression and come to my aid.

She’s no longer A Muslim Woman. She’s Julia. She’s a human, like me. I know her. I am her.

As I cycle through places, some more remote than others—the Pamir Highway through Tajikistan, the expansive Great Dala Steppe in Kazakhstan, regions of central Myanmar—I will take notes on the people I meet and interact with that celebrate their individual humanity, so as to relieve the burden of the group label we shove each other into, in our frantic efforts to understand.

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This cycle tour will include:

—following highland trails in the UK.
—crossing the Caspian Sea via ferry
—following Silk Road routes through Asia Minor and Central Asia.
—following the Hippie Trail through parts of India.
—cycling the Mao Song Loop in Northern Thailand.
—cycling the Ho Chi Minh highway from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam.

Check out the (very fluid) route.

Check out my previous adventures.

Please contact me with questions or comments.

Peace and Blessings,
Josie