On the 14^th of April 2007 I set off solo from Thessaloniki, Greece by my small motorcycle , on a journey to four countries, for ten months’ time: Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and India. During my trip, however, there were many changes in my schedule, and, finally, I ended up returning to Greece after two years and two and a half months, having covered 73,000 km. (45,361 miles), after travelling to fourteen Asian countries: Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh! This was my journey known as “greece2india”.

   One of the special characteristics of my trips is my direct contact to the natives of every region I visit. I hope that I’m not travelling as a tourist. I don’t miss to visit all the great monuments, but I never focus on that. As long as it concerns me, the most majestic sightseeing are people themselves. I want to meet them, get to know them, become a part of their life for a little while, see how they think, understand them. In this way I feel I get a more complete point of view of the world I live in. Taking every piece I like from each image, I create the puzzle of my own soul, right in my size.

Patching the tube of the motorcycle, which these Pakistanis had broken down in the middle of the rocky desert.

   Of course, the aim of such a trip is not only to explore the world around me, but first of all to explore myself. Especially when traveling solo, cut off from the influence of friends and family, one comes face-to-face with his inner self. People I got to meet every day were mirroring my soul, and, through them, I could have a clearer picture of myself.

   Another particularity of my traveling is the way I live while on the road. Everything begins from my great love for nature. That is the most important part of my trip. I don’t focus in big cities, though I always visit them when I consider them to be interesting and worthwhile. However, I prefer with all my heart living my life in nature, alone or amongst a few people who have never made contact with a foreigner before, pure and untouched by the impact of the tourism. Therefore, in the majority of the countries I traveled in, wherever the conditions were favorable, I preferred to spend my night camping in a beautiful landscape. No luxurious hotel in the world can give me such pleasure… one night on 4,200 m. (13,780 feet) altitude, on the Himalayas, surrounded by high peaks, eternally covered with snow, in my tent by a crystal-clear, calm stream crossing a green valley, me sinking my glass in the water and drinking, listening to the gurgle sound of the stream’s flow, while a full moon rises behind the dark figures of the mountains.

Wild camping on Indian Himalayas, on 4,200 m. (13,780 feet). It was one of the most beautiful places where I have ever slept!

   Another thing about my trip that raises most peoples’ curiosity is the distance I covered up and the time it lasted. 73,000 km. (45,361 miles) in 14 Asian countries is definitely a long distance to travel. Think about the equatorial perimeter of the earth, which is 40,075 km. (24,902 miles). Think about that most travelers ride around the world covering 30,000 – 60,000 km. (18,641 – 37,283 miles). Moreover, for many an around the world ride lasts from a few months to one year. So, it’s quite fair to wonder why it took me 2 years and 2.5 months to travel just in 14 countries. The reason is I don’t just ride through a country. I was making detours of thousands of km, as you can notice on the map of my route, in order to visit interesting but isolated places. I have always dedicated time, not only to enjoy the scenery, but to get to know the people living there as well.

The black line indicates my route to Asia, while the grey one shows the way back.

Here you can watch some introductory videos about this journey of mine (with English subtitles):