Round the world in 3650 Days

When fear enters a person’s mind, it brings to mind the most improbable thing: ghosts. And Pushkar Shah, who set on his journey to spread a message encountered just that when he was in China. Shah had asked for directions from a man who couldn’t be of much help due to the language barrier. Consequently, this man on a mission walked through a forest all day but to no avail. Shah ended up sleeping in the forest, surviving on water and orange peels, which he wished were more abundant. “As the night progressed, my hunger eased away and was replaced by fear. I thought what if bears or tigers attack me? So I drew my khukuri and said to myself, ‘I’ll fight.’ Just then I realized, ‘What if ghosts come?’” Shah’s laughter resounds in the meeting room.


“I wanted to spread the message of peace from a small country called Nepal,” Shah, who was gun shot during the movement of 1990 says. Dissatisfied with the insignificant stride towards establishing peace, as was his father who served in the Indian Army, Shah set out on his journey. “It was my courage and determination that pushed me,” Shah says. A graduate of education and fine arts from Kathmandu University, Shah pondered on traveling the world and explored possibilities. “Since majority of Nepalis are economically backward, even if we want to, we cannot afford to do so,” Shah says. “While exploring my options, I suddenly thought of cycling, and that’s how it all started with the zeal of my youth,” Shah, who set on his journey on 29 November 1998, adds.


But to his mother for whom the world was as much as her eyes could see, the thought was absurd, and when he shared it with people, they thought he was bluffing. “Obviously no one believed me then,” Shah reminisces. But the young man set on his journey and he did travel, a tiring journey of 10 years to others’ amusement. Did he have money? One’s sure to ask; he did have a 100 rupee note that his mother, Naram Kumari, gave him. Off went the young man with his mother’s blessing and a bicycle (that cost 14,000 rupees) that actor Sharmila Malla had given him. The young man in his twenties returned home at the age of “IC 26,” as he puts it (IC for Indian Currency with the conversion rate of 1.6).


A decade of cycling endlessly must have been tiring but he says that was the only problem he faced on his journey back home. “Apart from the physical exertion, there was no other problem. Throughout the journey, I was never sick,” Shah, 41, says as he recalls his yesteryears.


Ten years of cycling across countries undoubtedly is an astounding feat. But did Shah’s courage and determination always push him beyond borders? Did he ever think of abandoning the journey and heading back to his village home in Makaibari VDC in Dolakha? Did he ever seem to have lost his purpose, like most of us generally tend to? Shah says yes. “When I traveled hungry, surviving on water and sleeping in jungles and deserts, I thought, ‘Why am I doing this?’” Shah says. However, those doubts dissolved with the dawn of another day and he traveled across frontiers for 3650 days to make it through. “I cycled around nine to ten hours every day. The longest I paddled was in Canada when I crossed a length of 220 km in 15 hours,” Shah says. Where would he rest then? “I rested and slept at parks, stations, streets, wherever it was free,” Shah says without a qualm.


When Shah had set on his journey, Internet was new to the country and only a few had access to computers. As he cycled across countries, Internet was slowly growing back home. On his return, the country had changed with the advent of computer and technology. Shah shares, “When I told people I was cycling around the world, they’d ask for my email address, something I hadn’t heard of or known before. Nishant KC, son of a military attaché at the Nepalese embassy in Beijing created one for me.”


As he paddled to the West, Nepalis residing there proposed that he quit his journey and settle with them. He could have and no one would know. “There had been proposals from Nepalis living abroad but I couldn’t do that,” Shah, who carried the Nepali national flag with him, says. “Regardless of the luring economic prospects, I couldn’t dishonor my flag,” Shah, also an Everest summiteer explains.