Transcript
Speaker: Hi, I'm Ty, and you're listening to Stories Worth Telling Forever.
Speaker: This is the sound of Christophe Rehag disappearing into the fog while traveling through the Uzbekistan steppe.
Speaker: The rattle you hear isn't machinery, but it's the sound of the cart that he pulls through his travels.
Speaker: A companion known as the caboose that's been with him through the thousands of miles he's traveled on a journey called the longest way.
Speaker: Who is Christophe Rehag?
Speaker: Why is his story worth telling?
Speaker: And how did he end up on this adventure that seems like a dream, walking from China, Central Asia, Iran, the Caucasus, Turkey, and Europe, towards his hometown in Baden-Endorf, Northern Germany?
Speaker: Let's take a walk with Christoph on the longest way and clear up the fog surrounding this dreamlike journey.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: I want to say Christophe is a regular guy, someone we can relate to.
Speaker: And in some ways I think it's true.
Speaker: Like Christophe, many of us have had dreams of travels or journeys that we would like to take.
Speaker: And perhaps like Christophe, you've traveled across the world, looked out your window and wondered, how far away from home am I really?
Speaker: But unlike most of us, looking out that window,
Speaker: Christoph didn't stop wondering.
Speaker: He started planning.
Speaker: All right, so could you tell us a little bit about how you started walking and how this idea for the longest way started?
Speaker: So the first time that I walked was in 2003, in the summer.
Speaker: I was in France, in Paris.
Speaker: I had just finished high school and, you know, we have to do like a civil service kind of thing.
Speaker: I had to go to the military, but I didn't want to.
Speaker: So I did a civil service year.
Speaker: And then I went to Paris just because I didn't want to go to university.
Speaker: I wanted to work.
Speaker: I wanted to have like a romantic life where I'm in a job and I'm slaving in this job.
Speaker: And I went to actually McDonald's and worked there and then I worked in a museum.
Speaker: And it was awesome because I had like this little money.
Speaker: I basically made pocket money in these jobs.
Speaker: But I felt like I'm really earning my life and I'm there and it's super romantic.
Speaker: Like my existence is romantic.
Speaker: I felt like that, but I couldn't do that forever.
Speaker: So at some point I understood I had to go home.
Speaker: And then I just got the very random and very sudden idea to just walk home.
Speaker: So I bought a backpack.
Speaker: I didn't have much money, so I couldn't pay for a tent.
Speaker: I bought a backpack and I bought a sleeping bag and I bought like a not even inflatable, like a ground pad.
Speaker: It's just like the styrofoam kind of thing.
Speaker: And I started walking and it was horrible.
Speaker: I got blisters on my feet.
Speaker: I didn't know where to sleep.
Speaker: How do you sleep outside?
Speaker: Like, how does that even work?
Speaker: I had bugs in my sleeping bag the next morning.
Speaker: I got morning dew all over me.
Speaker: I couldn't even go to sleep because I was scared.
Speaker: I don't know about animals.
Speaker: I don't know about like weird drunk dudes.
Speaker: I don't know if somebody might not decide to do donuts on that field where I'm sleeping.
Speaker: You know, it's possible.
Speaker: Who knows?
Speaker: So everything about it just kind of sucked.
Speaker: But I stuck to it and I walked home in 23 days.
Speaker: And then I showered.
Speaker: I had like taken minimal showers with like water from a garden hose or whatever on the way.
Speaker: And one time I jumped into a river and then I had food and then I went to bed and the next morning I woke up in my bed and I was like, that was so awesome.
Speaker: That was an adventure.
Speaker: And everything felt like perfect.
Speaker: The sunsets felt perfect.
Speaker: The sunrises felt perfect.
Speaker: All the nights that I spent freezing or being too warm or being just scared, they felt super safe and a place that you want to go back to.
Speaker: Ah, I wish I was on that hill again.
Speaker: I wish I was huddled next to a car in somebody's carport because it was raining.
Speaker: And I was just kind of hoping for the guy not to come and check on his car because I'm next to his car, next to the wheel, sleeping there.
Speaker: But I wanted to go back to that place and be there next to that car.
Speaker: Yeah, and that's kind of how it happened.
Speaker: Yeah, I think for many of us, we first heard of Kristoff and the Longest Way project through the viral video.
Speaker: Now, if you haven't seen it, it's called The Longest Way, and it's sort of like a time-lapse documentary of Kris's first-year journey on The Longest Way.
Speaker: What's the story behind The Longest Way video?
Speaker: Well, I was in China and I figured I might as well try to walk home because my home is in Germany.
Speaker: And so the Eurasian continent, I figured, doesn't have any like water gaps or anything.
Speaker: There are some deserts, but then deserts are still land.
Speaker: So you can still theoretically walk through them.
Speaker: So I looked at the map and I figured, let's try.
Speaker: I had taken a daily photo of myself all the way.
Speaker: In the beginning, I was just going to take a daily photo of myself like that.
Speaker: But my best friend in China at the time, he told me to do the Forrest Gump thing and not shave.
Speaker: So I had all this footage of myself growing a beard from basically zero to whatever I looked like after a year, like Simba, basically.
Speaker: And then I spliced that together into a time-lapse picture.
Speaker: video kind of thing.
Speaker: And it was a lot of work because I don't know much about editing.
Speaker: And I was prepared for like 100,000 people to watch it because I thought the idea was good.
Speaker: The execution wasn't so good, but the idea was good.
Speaker: And then everything blew up.
Speaker: Like it was a million, two million, 10 million.
Speaker: And I had a bunch of Facebook friends and I had a bunch of emails and my website crashed because too many people checked the website.
Speaker: And suddenly I was a person that was talking to other people
Speaker: in interviews and saying stuff as if I knew anything.
Speaker: So I did that.
Speaker: Like how important is bravery when you're doing this kind of a journey?
Speaker: I'm not a very brave person.
Speaker: I would even say I'm easily scared.
Speaker: Before I went to China, I don't know about you.
Speaker: So you went to China and you're obviously not Chinese.
Speaker: So there must have been an initial point where you went to China for the first time.
Speaker: Mine was in 2005 after studying Chinese intensively in a Synology University course.
Speaker: And also, we studied Guwen and all that stuff for two years.
Speaker: So I was pretty well prepared, I would say, relatively to somebody that just goes there and doesn't understand anything.
Speaker: But I cried at the airport.
Speaker: I cried at the airport and I said, Dad, I don't want to go.
Speaker: And he's like, what?
Speaker: You got like the scholarship and everything.
Speaker: Why didn't you want to go?
Speaker: And I'm like, dude, it's China.
Speaker: I don't know anything about China.
Speaker: They all look the same.
Speaker: And it's just scary.
Speaker: They're communists.
Speaker: How can I go to China?
Speaker: And he's like, dude, just...
Speaker: I mean, we've already gotten to this point.
Speaker: Now you might as well get on the plane.
Speaker: But I was very scared.
Speaker: When I arrived in Beijing, every time I went outside of my door, I would pack a backpack with toilet paper and water.
Speaker: And I would write the addresses down.
Speaker: And I had my little dictionary and everything.
Speaker: It was like an expedition just to find the supermarket.
Speaker: Because I was very intimidated by the place.
Speaker: You see these armed guards everywhere.
Speaker: And you're like, is that the military?
Speaker: Can I just go into the campus?
Speaker: It would show my passport.
Speaker: And the guy would be like, what are you doing?
Speaker: I'm going to the university.
Speaker: And he's like, just go.
Speaker: But you're a guard.
Speaker: So here's my passport.
Speaker: But I'm not very brave.
Speaker: I'm not very brave about walking at night.
Speaker: I'm not very brave about camping or about sleeping at other people's places.
Speaker: And I kind of just roll with it, I guess.
Speaker: I just keep going.
Speaker: Imagine 26 years old, a foreign country, no sponsor, no training, a notebook, a camera and a mission.
Speaker: Step one is to walk through China, through the Gobi desert, through sandstorms, rain, lightning, wild animals, sickness, and just being so alone with your own thoughts.
Speaker: In an effort to explain what it's like, Kristoff asked an interviewer, have you ever counted all the way to 1,000?
Speaker: Walking through the Gobi, Kristoff would count his steps to 1,000, rewarding himself with a sip of water, and then starting the countdown over again.
Speaker: He said, it's harder than you think because you always mess up in the middle.
Speaker: And as he was talking about his journey through the Gobi,
Speaker: He also mentioned that if you're going through heartbreak, the Gobi Desert is a good place to be.
Speaker: He joked, the winds are so strong, it blocks the sound of your cries, and it even wipes away your tears.
Speaker: And there are no bridges or tall buildings for you to jump from.
Speaker: But jokes aside, those familiar with his story know that this description came from personal experience.
Speaker: All right, so thinking about you walking through China, through Xinjiang, through the Gobi Desert, what would your setup be?
Speaker: Like food, water, like how do you set up to sleep?
Speaker: And what if something goes wrong?
Speaker: I mean, you must have had that all planned out.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Well, there's basically two paradigms of walking in China.
Speaker: The first one is me with my backpack.
Speaker: And that's until the Gobi Desert, until Zhangye.
Speaker: I don't know if you're familiar with the place.
Speaker: It's the second of the big Gobi oases in Gansu.
Speaker: The first one is Wuwei and then it's Zhangye.
Speaker: It's the place where Marco Polo spent a year on his way into China because he was sick or something.
Speaker: So until then, I was with a backpack.
Speaker: I had too much in my backpack.
Speaker: I had two cameras dangling from my hips.
Speaker: I had a backpack.
Speaker: I had a tripod.
Speaker: I had two sleeping bags, all kinds of stuff.
Speaker: So there wasn't really much space that I had for food or water.
Speaker: I would just kind of go with what I can find during the day in some small shops and just get that.
Speaker: And also at that point in those areas, you would always find a place to sleep.
Speaker: Like you would always find, you go to a little village and you're like, so is there a hotel here?
Speaker: You know there isn't.
Speaker: But still, you ask, is there a hotel?
Speaker: And they're like, no.
Speaker: Why would you even ask that?
Speaker: And you're like, oh, because I'm so tired.
Speaker: See me with my backpack.
Speaker: What can I do?
Speaker: And they're like, well, the next town is 50 kilometers.
Speaker: Just take a bus.
Speaker: And you're like, but I cannot.
Speaker: And they're like, why can't you?
Speaker: And you're like, well, because there's a rule.
Speaker: And they're like, okay, that's stupid, but okay.
Speaker: And then somebody will be like, well, you know, Xiaowan moved out.
Speaker: His room is empty.
Speaker: Just go there.
Speaker: Give him like two euros or something like that, you know, 10 kuai or something.
Speaker: And that would work.
Speaker: So that's the first paradigm.
Speaker: Like basically I just eat.
Speaker: I go to little noodle places and I have like a warm meal every day.
Speaker: And then I would buy like crackers and bananas and apples and stuff like that.
Speaker: But not too much because I'm already carrying so much.
Speaker: And there was no contingency plan for not finding any civilization because there was always civilization around me.
Speaker: And then after Zhang Yie, when I made the trailer, the caboose, I made this, not me, I went to a welder and I made a drawing for him.
Speaker: I said, you need to make this for me, please.
Speaker: I need to pull this.
Speaker: And he's like, why do you need this?
Speaker: And I'm like, because I need to walk through the desert with it.
Speaker: And he's like, that's really dumb.
Speaker: And I'm like, well, but that's the rule.
Speaker: What can I do?
Speaker: You know, this has been decided.
Speaker: So he made the trailer.
Speaker: And then suddenly I was in a position where I can carry a lot of water.
Speaker: I can carry like 40 liters of water.
Speaker: No biggie.
Speaker: I can carry watermelons.
Speaker: Like before that, if somebody gives me a watermelon, I will be angry because I can't really very well refuse your gift of a watermelon.
Speaker: But also it's really heavy.
Speaker: You know, so I'm walking around with this.
Speaker: Basically, if you give me a watermelon, I will immediately eat it just because I can't carry it.
Speaker: But with the caboose, then I'd be like, yeah, I can bring them on.
Speaker: Watermelon, honey melon, just all cantaloupe, give me all the melons, it's fine.
Speaker: I get my trailer.
Speaker: And then, yeah, four days in the desert, it's no problem.
Speaker: About the plans for like dangerous stuff, no.
Speaker: What do I know?
Speaker: I don't know what to do if I'm bitten by a snake.
Speaker: I don't know what to do if I see a wolf.
Speaker: I mean, in that time, I was kind of reading on the internet what you do.
Speaker: You can't prepare for everything.
Speaker: There's a couple of these surprises along the way that I came across when I was going through your blog.
Speaker: One of them is you're in the, I think it's the Opan Shan mountain range.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: In Gansu.
Speaker: And nowhere to stay.
Speaker: So you pitch your tent in this farmer's field.
Speaker: It's the morning, it's pouring rain, and this group of farmers appeared.
Speaker: They come to collect firewood in the forest.
Speaker: And I'm kind of pitched next to the forest on this slope.
Speaker: And I'm thinking, okay, I've made it through the night.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: So everything is good now.
Speaker: I'm in a good mood, actually.
Speaker: And I will make it up the rest of the mountain.
Speaker: There's like a museum on top, so I'm not worried about supplies or anything.
Speaker: So these guys, these villagers, they come and they're like really...
Speaker: kind of, I don't know, anxious about something.
Speaker: And they keep telling me some, telling me baozi, which you know, there's these different tones in Chinese.
Speaker: So there's baozi, but there's also baozi.
Speaker: I'm not really that firm all the time.
Speaker: So I'm like, you guys want to give me baozi?
Speaker: That's like a steamed dumpling.
Speaker: I'm like, that's fine.
Speaker: If you want baozi, I can't help you because I don't have the baozi.
Speaker: But if you want to give me baozi, we can talk about that.
Speaker: I'm in my tent now.
Speaker: I need to brush my teeth and everything.
Speaker: They're like, dude, it's not baozi, it's baozi.
Speaker: So it's a different tone, different words.
Speaker: I look it up and it's leopard.
Speaker: I'm like, why are you talking about leopards?
Speaker: The problem is that especially Chinese villagers, but basically people everywhere, they really like to make their home a little bit more interesting sometimes.
Speaker: And they're like, you know, there's like a tiger or there's like bandits.
Speaker: I've been hearing stories about bandits like from everywhere, but they like telling stories.
Speaker: So I'm like, okay, you're talking about these leopards here.
Speaker: They're like,
Speaker: There's apparently these leopards on this mountain.
Speaker: When I get to the museum, I'm like, are there leopards here?
Speaker: And they're like, yeah, this is like a habitat.
Speaker: So there's these snow leopards that I had my tent pitched next to them.
Speaker: You don't see them.
Speaker: They see you.
Speaker: I'm not like pray for them.
Speaker: I'm too big, I guess, especially with a tent.
Speaker: But after that, I was kind of thinking if this had gone wrong, they would have found the tent, a mangled me, a bunch of blood or whatever.
Speaker: And they would have found my laptop with I don't remember what I was watching on it.
Speaker: I think prison break or something during that night, you know, and it would be like this thing where I get into the news and everyone's like, man, that's an idiot.
Speaker: But then how can you prepare for leopards, honestly?
Speaker: Baozhou, I love it.
Speaker: The baozhou, yeah.
Speaker: Another one too, like, you know, you're just talking about having lived in China for a while, I can imagine what it's like when you're just walking from place to place and you come into these, you know, some of these places, like, you're not going to find a place to stay.
Speaker: Like, you're in this little industrial outpost in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker: And I think there's this one where it's just outside of Lanzhou somewhere.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It's a rainstorm.
Speaker: It's the power plant, isn't it?
Speaker: It's the power plant.
Speaker: Yeah, I remember that one.
Speaker: So these two kids, like you're sheltering from a rainstorm and these two kids kind of like, hey, yeah, we know somewhere you can stay.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: That's the beautiful and random thing, really.
Speaker: I guess it comes from being obviously an idiot that needs protecting.
Speaker: That's a big part of the traveler identity, I think.
Speaker: If you're really suave...
Speaker: Yeah, and you know the world and you're like, everybody can see that you know what you're doing.
Speaker: I don't know if they would have offered me to stay in the power plant.
Speaker: But me, I'm walking around, I see this kind of chubby little kid and we start talking and he's like, it's raining, uncle.
Speaker: Where are you going?
Speaker: I'm like, I have no idea where I'm going.
Speaker: I'm really scared of the rain because it's a thunderstorm.
Speaker: And he's like, man, come with me.
Speaker: And then I get to sleep in the power plant, which it's impossible.
Speaker: It shouldn't happen.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: All the time.
Speaker: To everybody, the person that checked me in, I'm like, I am a foreigner.
Speaker: I hope it's okay.
Speaker: You know, I'm not going to take any pictures.
Speaker: But like, yeah, they're like, sure, it's okay.
Speaker: You know, the boss's son or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah, these things, they make traveling nice.
Speaker: Yeah, it really felt like going through these posts, like you just did not know what to expect from one day to the next.
Speaker: I like to be, I like to, I think one beautiful thing about walking is that the cities, for example, they appear gradually.
Speaker: So you're like in a countryside.
Speaker: And then, for example, Landau, what we were talking about just now, there's all these little villages and they're very dusty.
Speaker: So like you're in these very gray landscapes and walking and I don't know, you stay in like these small farmhouses next to the pig, you know, there's a little pigsty and everything.
Speaker: And then suddenly I get on top of a hill and I look down and there's an ocean of buildings and all of them are like these high rise buildings, Lan Zhou.
Speaker: And that moment, it's just so strong.
Speaker: That moment where you're like, oh, Lan Zhou, you just hit me in the face, didn't you?
Speaker: Another town might appear through kind of more gradually through like a tall building here, tall building there.
Speaker: And you're like, uh-huh, you know, I'm getting close.
Speaker: And then you're kind of there.
Speaker: That's a very nice experience.
Speaker: That's very different from kind of landing there outside of the city in an airport, taking some kind of transportation to the city center and being like, what is where?
Speaker: Where am I?
Speaker: Oftentimes you come into a city and you're like, yeah, it has to be here.
Speaker: Of course, this is the place.
Speaker: This is where the river meets another river.
Speaker: Has to be the town.
Speaker: Or this is where there's a pass through the mountains.
Speaker: Has to be here.
Speaker: And that feels very nice.
Speaker: It gives the world some sort of rules.
Speaker: It's less random in that way.
Speaker: All of these places that I've walked through, I feel like I've earned them.
Speaker: And I understand that they're there.
Speaker: Not that I understand every town and all the history or whatever, but it kind of, for example, these desert towns like Wu Wei or Zhang Ye, they make perfect sense.
Speaker: If you go there walking, you will say, okay, green has started in the desert.
Speaker: There's a, you know, something has changed now.
Speaker: And then there's massive green and fields.
Speaker: And you're like, okay, this is where I would put a village or something.
Speaker: And then you get into the town and you're like, well, that's logical.
Speaker: That's like a...
Speaker: It's like a pearl on a necklace kind of, you know, like town, town, town.
Speaker: And they're, they're in these places where they should be.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, and that's, that's a very nice experience.
Speaker: It's not just popping out there and being like, okay, I'm here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love how you noticed these little things like it.
Speaker: That's one of the other things that sort of struck me throughout your, your posts and your, your blog and, and surprises, like things that just happened.
Speaker: So random.
Speaker: That's the good stuff.
Speaker: The random stuff.
Speaker: That's the good stuff in life, man.
Speaker: Do you feel like you're still surprised out there?
Speaker: All the time.
Speaker: You've been doing it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All the time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's the, I struggle with the obsession and I really want to finish and not never again, get a, get an obsession like that.
Speaker: Like, I would like to walk and enjoy it and feel like, okay, I'm going to walk to, I don't know, whatever, someplace, Zurich.
Speaker: And then I'm going to have Toblerone in Switzerland or whatever.
Speaker: But it can't be an obsession.
Speaker: But at the same time, the beauty on the way is unmatched.
Speaker: The randomness of the encounters and just anything.
Speaker: I think because there's, like, the less preparation you have,
Speaker: the more room you leave for bad things to happen to you and turn into a story where you're like, you know, this terrible thing happened to me.
Speaker: It's an adventure.
Speaker: Or random good things happening.
Speaker: All kinds of things happening.
Speaker: And they're nice.
Speaker: That is nice.
Speaker: But yeah, these things, they make traveling beautiful.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it, I think it speaks to walking as a form of travel in the sense that like you're, you're vulnerable.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: You're open to these kinds of interactions.
Speaker: That's very, very well put.
Speaker: It's the vulnerability.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's, um, on the one hand,
Speaker: you are visibly not in need of substantial help.
Speaker: You're not going to be living off of them.
Speaker: But on the other hand, they can make you happy with very small things, with water, with an apple, with cookies, or with just talking to you.
Speaker: And that just feels really nice to people.
Speaker: Whereas if you're on a motorcycle and you just rush past, they're like, that was an awesome dude.
Speaker: A very slick motorcycle with like the shades and everything, but how am I going to interact with this person?
Speaker: He doesn't need me, does he?
Speaker: And yeah, the walker, they can relate to it because everybody knows what it's like to walk physically on two feet and to feel tired and hungry and, I don't know, sweaty.
Speaker: So that makes you, it makes it very easy to engage.
Speaker: Everywhere.
Speaker: These things, they don't only apply to China.
Speaker: It's necessarily correct that I would say Asia is more hospitable, more open than Europe.
Speaker: The more towards Germany you get, the more colder it gets, like on an interpersonal level.
Speaker: People focus on the differences between places and countries.
Speaker: Traveling through so many, do you feel that people are really that different from one place to the next?
Speaker: I would say generally the countryside, the smaller it gets, the more hospitable and the more, if you could use the word naive, but in a positive way, but they're not so suspicious, you know, in the village.
Speaker: Chinese villages, I would come in.
Speaker: And I would toss my backpack or whatever in some corner and go have food in another place and come back.
Speaker: And if the backpack is not there, somebody moved it to a better place because it was raining or whatever.
Speaker: Really, like these small villages, easy.
Speaker: Everybody knows everybody.
Speaker: People have heard about me before I even got there because somebody is like, wow, so you're not 2.5 meters tall.
Speaker: That's what my cousin told me.
Speaker: He saw you when he was delivering melons, you know, and it's like you're finally here.
Speaker: In the cities, no.
Speaker: What are you going to do if you live in a city of 8 million people with the speed, with the stress of everyday life, and you see some weirdo walking around and you're like, I would like to engage with that person, but I don't have time.
Speaker: I don't have the energy.
Speaker: I don't know what they're up to.
Speaker: And that kind of goes for, I guess, all places.
Speaker: Like even in Europe where the hospitality is kind of less prominent and people are more, I guess,
Speaker: reserved.
Speaker: Even here, the villages are more open than the cities.
Speaker: In the cities, you know, everyone has their own thing, I think, in this huge ocean of people.
Speaker: When I was in China, I started walking and then at some point after about Shaanxi, so like Xi'an, that area, up until that point, it had still been very homogenous, just Han dominated culture.
Speaker: But after Sha'anxi, you started getting into these places that were maybe Hui, like these Chinese Muslims, or they were Tibetan or some other smaller, these small minorities.
Speaker: And then people would start saying, you know, here in this area, you're fine, don't worry.
Speaker: If you go to a village, just like I said, like put your backpack down, have some noodles, come back, don't worry.
Speaker: But once you get into Gansu, the next province, be careful.
Speaker: There's a lot of weird people there.
Speaker: And I'd be like, who are those weird people?
Speaker: And they're like, you will see.
Speaker: But, you know, it's not like here.
Speaker: And then you get to Gansu and they're like, well, here it's fine.
Speaker: But once you get to Xinjiang, that's some wild people.
Speaker: You know, be careful.
Speaker: I'll be like, who are these wild people?
Speaker: They're like, you know, you know, you'll see.
Speaker: And then you get to Xinjiang and you're like, so I'm finally in a place of wild people.
Speaker: And they're like, yeah, but...
Speaker: Have you heard of what's going on in the Kouli?
Speaker: What is it called?
Speaker: Like in the inside of the country?
Speaker: Man, it's wild.
Speaker: These Han Chinese, they're cheating each other.
Speaker: It's so many people in one place.
Speaker: The food isn't safe.
Speaker: Just stay in Xinjiang.
Speaker: Here, everything is safe.
Speaker: It got completely turned around.
Speaker: I guess everybody is just kind of always making out the neighboring province or country or area or territory to be...
Speaker: different from their own and to be somehow scary.
Speaker: But really, like you're just constantly moving in a safe place where they keep telling you the next place is dangerous.
Speaker: And then you get to the next place and the previous place was dangerous.
Speaker: So you're like, okay, that's how it goes.
Speaker: This is an excerpt from Chris's blog.
Speaker: Day 333, he's making his way through the Gobi Desert, passing through small towns with bad food, dirty beds, unsavory businesses.
Speaker: And as he ventures further into the nothingness, these towns, they become further and further apart.
Speaker: And he writes, as I was preparing myself mentally to pitch a tent somewhere in that boring nothingness, suddenly a tire repair shop from Shanxi province appeared.
Speaker: When I stuck my face in through the front door, I was looking at two families sitting around a table having food.
Speaker: They didn't seem very surprised to see me.
Speaker: You wouldn't happen to have a spare room for me, would you?
Speaker: I asked, and I tried my best to look as polite and harmless as I could.
Speaker: One of the men smiled.
Speaker: Sure we do.
Speaker: Come on over and have a look.
Speaker: Now his next step was to get an internet connection so he could upload a few posts to the site.
Speaker: He could see a transmitter in the distance, but he couldn't seem to get a signal.
Speaker: So he places his notebook on a truck in the yard facing the transmitters.
Speaker: He writes,
Speaker: basically don't exist anymore.
Speaker: Oh yeah, definitely.
Speaker: Like, I don't even know if you could even make that journey today.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, China is done.
Speaker: Like if you're state sponsored, you could do anything you want in China, but not like me.
Speaker: That was already in 2012, it already felt like the news is tightening.
Speaker: And that was before Xi Jinping.
Speaker: But even then it was, man, the police presence, the passport checks, the aggression that you got.
Speaker: It was different.
Speaker: 2008 was, I don't know, it was the last kind of open time, I think.
Speaker: Lucky me.
Speaker: Lucky me, man.
Speaker: And I feel like that's another reason why this is such an important record.
Speaker: Yeah, you could say that.
Speaker: I mean, the saying, I think it's, what's his name?
Speaker: Henri Cartier-Bresson, this photographer.
Speaker: the street photographer, he said, like somebody asked him in the 40s, like, why are you photographing everything?
Speaker: Everything has been photographed.
Speaker: Like, why are you taking a picture of the Eiffel Tower?
Speaker: Like, the Eiffel Tower has been photographed, but he said, everything has been photographed, but not by everyone.
Speaker: And so I think, yeah, there's, of course there's value.
Speaker: If it's me walking through Xinjiang in 2008, there is a certain value to it because there's a, it's a specific view from me.
Speaker: If it's somebody else in another year, there's also value to it.
Speaker: It doesn't even matter what the ideology is behind it.
Speaker: You can always find something in it.
Speaker: Yes, absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You started off with a backpack and then you switched over to the caboose, which is,
Speaker: basically the cart that you're pulling along as you walk.
Speaker: You describe yourself as like a caboose dad and a caboose friend.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm a friend.
Speaker: I wouldn't say I'm a dad.
Speaker: I'm a friend.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So what is your relationship with the caboose?
Speaker: It's a bit silly to say.
Speaker: Have you watched Castaway?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a very flawed movie, but it has a very...
Speaker: I think that the performance is awesome.
Speaker: And one thing that stuck with me was the Wilson thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And it is true.
Speaker: It is actually true.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: It's easy to dismiss it because it's just a work of fiction.
Speaker: But it's actually true.
Speaker: After a while, the caboose came, I guess, into my life.
Speaker: And she started having these character quirks.
Speaker: And I like her.
Speaker: I feel very protective of her.
Speaker: I don't like when people just touch her without asking.
Speaker: Not because she's my property, but just because I find it
Speaker: improper, you know, like how do you know she's comfortable just being you know like for fun you don't pull the caboose for fun, you know, we're a team the caboose and I So, yeah, these this started to happen.
Speaker: It's I don't think it's it's very healthy in the long run because at some point that you know, we got us part way so it's gonna be a divorce but Yeah
Speaker: You know, at this point when I'm walking, it's actually not very practical to have the caboose because I haven't been to a desert in, I don't know, 4,000 kilometers or something like that.
Speaker: I think the last was in Azerbaijan.
Speaker: And there have been a lot of mountainous roads or hills at least and a lot of busy traffic.
Speaker: It would be maybe easier to switch to a smaller trailer or to just go buy a backpack again.
Speaker: But I can't.
Speaker: It's like, what am I going to do?
Speaker: You know, I can't get the caboose is in this.
Speaker: That's it's our travel.
Speaker: She's Wilson.
Speaker: Yeah, no.
Speaker: And I think if, I mean, following you, I get that feeling too.
Speaker: Like, I feel like I would be let down if the caboose didn't make it to your hometown.
Speaker: Early on in your travels, you, I think it's the city of Ping Lian.
Speaker: Ping Lian, uh-huh.
Speaker: And you want to send something back home.
Speaker: And in the post, you have this picture of a guy sitting on the curb, hunched over, and he's got this yellow bag.
Speaker: And you say, in this yellow bag, you imagine that is all of this man's worldly possessions in that one bag.
Speaker: And so you pose the question, assuming we all have our yellow bags, what's in mine?
Speaker: Man, I was really pushing it there, wasn't I?
Speaker: Well, you, I mean, okay, do you remember what you said was in your yellow bag at the time?
Speaker: Did I give an answer?
Speaker: I didn't.
Speaker: You did, yeah.
Speaker: I did?
Speaker: And what was in my yellow bag?
Speaker: Photographs.
Speaker: Huh, interesting.
Speaker: So what's in your yellow bag now?
Speaker: Is it still photographs?
Speaker: No, no, no, no.
Speaker: It's my, I have these private diaries, that's it.
Speaker: I would really advise everybody, no matter what you do, to keep a private journal.
Speaker: I have these little notebooks, not digital.
Speaker: I write them with a pen because it's also a more natural thing.
Speaker: Your hand just kind of goes like that.
Speaker: And I write so much in my journals.
Speaker: I keep notes of things that happen.
Speaker: I don't read my journals because they're not that interesting.
Speaker: It's not like a novel or anything.
Speaker: But sometimes I go through them and I'm like, man, I've totally forgotten about this.
Speaker: This is so interesting, this thing that's so strange to me now.
Speaker: And then it kind of comes back.
Speaker: I live much more in the written word, much less.
Speaker: I think my photography is kind of okayish.
Speaker: I like the complete freedom that I have when I'm writing.
Speaker: Because if we were to meet and I take out my camera, it will change our interaction.
Speaker: You know, you suddenly have this huge lens in your face and there's this guy who's like, oh, no, just relax, just relax, just be however you want to be.
Speaker: But how does that work for you?
Speaker: You can make it work if you're a talented photographer.
Speaker: But for me, it's much easier to just kind of be like that.
Speaker: And then after we're done, I will write in my little journal and I will be merciless to you and to me.
Speaker: All the things will be in there.
Speaker: It's just mine.
Speaker: And that's nice.
Speaker: Is there any advice that you could give me or anybody else who's listening to this to encourage them to start keeping a journal?
Speaker: There's a very famous line from a Franz Kafka journal.
Speaker: It's during the war.
Speaker: And he says, first world war, and he says, went to the movies, cried.
Speaker: You know, it's Franz Kafka.
Speaker: If he can write that, you can write that too.
Speaker: You're allowed to.
Speaker: You're allowed to write mundane, boring, everyday.
Speaker: It doesn't have to be Dostoevsky all the time.
Speaker: I think if you get into the habit of just recording little snippets, little things every day, or maybe every two days, then after a while, it feels natural, it feels good.
Speaker: But if you weigh yourself down with trying to, I don't know, come up with good formulations and like,
Speaker: Long texts you're gonna do that for like a week and then you're gonna give up.
Speaker: That's what I did You know and then the long posts are gonna come naturally if you I don't know get into a breakup Your posts are gonna be long and winding and whiny and that's okay, too But sometimes it's just gonna be went to the movies cried
Speaker: It feels doable when you say it that way.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It's absolutely doable.
Speaker: I like to collect little things and put them in my notebooks.
Speaker: I like to collect flowers and leaves because they feel organic and up until that point they're alive, I guess.
Speaker: I like to put them in the notebook.
Speaker: I like to put little maybe stickers or something.
Speaker: And it feels like an alive thing from my life.
Speaker: That's how you should treat it.
Speaker: Like your little friend.
Speaker: It's not this huge responsibility, like that's going to weigh you down.
Speaker: That's the most important thing.
Speaker: You can get a real feeling for Chris's style of writing and his observations on the longest way.com.
Speaker: And there you'll find his blog.
Speaker: There are detailed maps.
Speaker: There's times, uh, distance charts.
Speaker: In fact, you can even see the music that Chris was listening to as he walked on various portions of the journey.
Speaker: Chris writes.
Speaker: I put my jacket on and some old, mellow tunes in my earphones, and I slowly made my way through the watery darkness.
Speaker: Same old story.
Speaker: A hurting body harboring a joyful mind.
Speaker: I was loving it.
Speaker: Throughout the longest way, Chris encounters his fair share of interesting characters.
Speaker: One that stood out to me was Teacher Xie from a place called Ningbo, just outside of Shanghai.
Speaker: This is Chris in a post from June 18, 2008, entitled Teacher Xie.
Speaker: It's day 223.
Speaker: And here he calls Teacher Xie a true master of walking.
Speaker: He said, while certain others run around whining about this and that, taking sassy pictures with digital cameras,
Speaker: This good man has been walking around China ever since 1983, quietly and modestly.
Speaker: Can you tell me about Teacher Xie?
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Like, how did you meet?
Speaker: Is Teacher Xie Yoda?
Speaker: I guess, I guess.
Speaker: You could say that.
Speaker: Teacher Xie was the first walking person that I ran into.
Speaker: which I have a lot of character flaws.
Speaker: One of them being I'm pretty conceited, I think.
Speaker: I'm pretty proud sometimes, you know, like I'm walking there.
Speaker: I didn't have the caboose at that time.
Speaker: I was walking with my backpack and I was at about 3000 kilometers total.
Speaker: So I feel like I've accomplished something.
Speaker: I know what I'm doing.
Speaker: And whenever I meet bicycle tourists, I kind of look down on them in this way where I'm like really patronizing.
Speaker: I'm like, oh, you're riding your bicycle.
Speaker: Oh, that's cool.
Speaker: From where?
Speaker: From Greece.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: That's really cool for you.
Speaker: for you, you know, because I'm like this one.
Speaker: I'm like I'm a different level, you know, so I had no competition, which was really nice because I'm not very good at walking per se.
Speaker: If you dig into what people do like walkers, you will find out I'm not one of the good ones.
Speaker: There's very awesome people.
Speaker: I'm not one of them.
Speaker: So at some point I see this guy's trailer under a railroad bridge where I wanted to go because it was in the desert and I want to get some shade.
Speaker: And then I see in the shade this trailer made of wood, really big, three meters long or something.
Speaker: And it looks very odd.
Speaker: It looks like something that I've never seen before.
Speaker: It has two wheels and kind of like a pulley thing.
Speaker: But there's nobody there.
Speaker: And then I see some newspaper clippings on the side of the trailer.
Speaker: And they talk about some hero, like an in-shong.
Speaker: They always mention this in-shong.
Speaker: Like there's this guy, this hero that walks.
Speaker: And he has walked through Tibet.
Speaker: And he's walked through here and there.
Speaker: And I'm like, whoa.
Speaker: Competition.
Speaker: Somebody is walking.
Speaker: But where is he?
Speaker: So I start yelling and knocking on the trailer because I think maybe he's like around the corner taking a lee or something, a loo.
Speaker: And he comes out of the trailer.
Speaker: He's a tiny man.
Speaker: He's 155 or something like that.
Speaker: He's kind of 50-ish and he looks at me and he's like, where are you from?
Speaker: And I'm like, Germany.
Speaker: And then he says something that is awesome because everybody else, like being, I don't know what you get, you know, maybe you get like Trump or whatever or hamburgers or some cliche that just makes you very tired.
Speaker: I get Benz and BMW and Hitler being a German or beer.
Speaker: So I'm very tired of it.
Speaker: And this guy sees me, he's like, German, huh?
Speaker: Cunt, needs shit.
Speaker: And I'm like, whoa, you know, like I've run into this Yoda kind of guy.
Speaker: And then I think, okay, but that's the competition.
Speaker: I don't want to be too forward because I'm in the same kind of job description.
Speaker: I'm also a walker and I cannot really look down on another walker.
Speaker: Unless he's much worse than me.
Speaker: But this guy looks like he might have walked a little bit more than me.
Speaker: So I say, how long?
Speaker: And he says, you know, I've walked for seven months, 3000 kilometers at the time.
Speaker: And I'm thinking it might be a bit more than me.
Speaker: I'm fine with that.
Speaker: But this guy, he's like, well, it's 2008 now.
Speaker: I started in 1982.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: You know, I'm like softball junior league, you know, and I've just run into Babe Ruth or something like that, you know, or some dude, some icon.
Speaker: I don't know what you do in baseball, but I'm like, OK, let's not talk about this anymore.
Speaker: But yeah, we become friends, the teacher and me and the teacher.
Speaker: Honestly, I tell them I have the rules.
Speaker: Like I have to grow my hair, I have to grow my beard, there has to be a daily photo.
Speaker: I have the rule of washing my feet every day and I change new socks every day.
Speaker: It doesn't matter what happens.
Speaker: If I'm in the desert and I don't have much water, it will be very difficult, but I will wash my feet.
Speaker: If I'm in the snow, I will take snow and I will wash my, which is really stupid because then you're going into the sleeping bag with ice blocks on your, you know, like they're really cold.
Speaker: I tell him all the stuff.
Speaker: I tell him about the rules of the walking, how I have to walk.
Speaker: And it's so important.
Speaker: He's like, why did you sign a contract?
Speaker: And I'm like, no, of course not.
Speaker: I'm just walking for myself.
Speaker: He's like, well, so why do you have to walk every step?
Speaker: No, because I decided it.
Speaker: I have to walk home.
Speaker: And he's like, well, but he he told me he has walked at that time, maybe 100,000, maybe 200,000 kilometers.
Speaker: He never counted.
Speaker: And he thinks it doesn't matter.
Speaker: You know, he's like, if you get to a place and you can't cross, take a train.
Speaker: It's about the experience, son.
Speaker: Don't take it so seriously.
Speaker: Be the master.
Speaker: And I'm like, oh, I understand that logically.
Speaker: And I tell him, I'm like nodding, how you nod to a teacher where you just want him to kind of get off the subject, but you really didn't understand.
Speaker: That was the lesson.
Speaker: And I'm still struggling with that lesson, honestly.
Speaker: The teacher doesn't walk like me.
Speaker: The teacher walks because that's his life.
Speaker: I walk because I have a mission.
Speaker: It's different.
Speaker: But he always told me he was open to anything.
Speaker: He's open to just stopping walking at any time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And if he meets someone, he's like, maybe tomorrow, maybe in a year.
Speaker: But I'm open.
Speaker: He is not obsessed.
Speaker: There's no master.
Speaker: He's just he does what he does.
Speaker: And he died walking.
Speaker: So I guess in a way, it's fine.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I don't live in his heart.
Speaker: I don't know if his words were really the truest truth or if he was also obsessed.
Speaker: Because I can also tell you these things, but I don't incorporate them 100%.
Speaker: Maybe he was also obsessed with walking and in the end it got him.
Speaker: There was just joy in meeting this guy.
Speaker: He tells you stories that are so outrageous.
Speaker: And he tells them and he doesn't even understand how outrageous they are because he doesn't really care about them.
Speaker: They just happened on the way.
Speaker: And he's like, yeah, but what I really wanted to talk about is cunt now.
Speaker: And you're like, okay, but go back to the point where you were sleeping in a coffin with a corpse.
Speaker: And he's like, no, no, okay, that happened.
Speaker: But what about cunt?
Speaker: Day 223.
Speaker: Chris records some advice from teacher Xieh.
Speaker: Listen, lad, Teacher Shea told me when we had dinner that night outside of a restaurant.
Speaker: Just try not to be too foolish.
Speaker: Of course, you want to walk all the way home, and I respect that.
Speaker: Hey, I'd be the first to go with you if there was a chance that I could ever get the visa.
Speaker: But you German people just have to learn how to be a bit more flexible.
Speaker: What are you going to do when you reach the Tian Shan mountain range in the west of Xinjiang this winter?
Speaker: when it's minus 30 and you just can't walk across.
Speaker: You're going to have to find another way then, maybe even take a car or something.
Speaker: Just remember, you set the rules by yourself and you're always free to change them.
Speaker: You can't put yourself in danger and try not to take too long.
Speaker: The way I see it, your girl is going to wait for you for a while, but nobody can wait forever.
Speaker: What if you make it home after five years and she's already run off with someone else?
Speaker: So you think you're so awesome for walking all the way and sticking to your principles, but what good is that?
Speaker: He says, and then he laughs, leaning back, lighting another cigarette.
Speaker: Months later, it seems as though teacher Shea's advice was right.
Speaker: On day 345, Chris's blog post on the longest way was a post entitled My Light.
Speaker: Now the post contained a photo of hot water being poured into a tall glass of green tea leaves.
Speaker: He writes, Just as I was in the process of taking some photos and thinking about writing about tea, Julie called and said it had to be over between us.
Speaker: The following day's posts were entitled, Down in a Hole, Roadkill, Days to Quietly Walk and Think, Downfall, The Cut, and finally a post entitled, Figured Out, where Chris writes, I used to believe that I would be able to figure out some things on this walk, but now I'm not so sure anymore.
Speaker: We're left with an image of the top half of Christophe's face and a pair of lost looking blue eyes that feel as if they're staring through the camera.
Speaker: And that was the last post for almost two years.
Speaker: I wonder if I could ask you, like early on 2008, when you left that period of time, did you debate pushing through?
Speaker: What was the process like when you decided to kind of stop and how did you decide to continue after that?
Speaker: It was very sudden.
Speaker: I had never had any doubts about stopping.
Speaker: And I did all kinds of things wrong in that relationship.
Speaker: And it looked like I wasn't very committed, but I think inside I was in my own, I don't know, toxic way, I guess.
Speaker: But when she told me at some point that she's not going to wait around and it's done,
Speaker: I suddenly understood that I have no direction.
Speaker: I'm not walking towards anything anymore because the feeling that I had was, okay, I'm pitching my tent here in the desert.
Speaker: And then I look at the moon and then I think she's also looking at the same moon from a different angle.
Speaker: Or like I see a flower and I pick the flower and I'm like, she would like that flower.
Speaker: You know, I don't know what you do, I guess.
Speaker: When she was gone, I was like, man, all of this is wrong.
Speaker: Like all of this is wrong.
Speaker: And I need to understand what the teacher said because the teacher said, dude,
Speaker: She's not going to wait forever.
Speaker: And you need to make decisions.
Speaker: What is more important?
Speaker: Is the walking more important or your beard or this woman or whatever?
Speaker: And then I made the decision, okay, I've stopped.
Speaker: The master is gone.
Speaker: The mission is gone.
Speaker: The weight upon me is gone.
Speaker: The responsibility is gone.
Speaker: And I transitioned into a new life of being just the guy that failed at this walking thing.
Speaker: But after that, I slowly, slowly understood that it wasn't gone.
Speaker: I'm in this new life where I go to university and I study or I write a book or I do other stuff.
Speaker: But when I'm sad or when I feel I need some sort of push or whatever, I will go on Google Earth and I will look up what is that lake there that's so blue?
Speaker: Or what is Samarkand there?
Speaker: What's around it?
Speaker: Is it desert around it or is it green?
Speaker: And I will look at it and I will think, man, that would be nice.
Speaker: And so I don't know, it was never gone.
Speaker: It was like, you can cut the plants, but the roots are still there.
Speaker: But I didn't know.
Speaker: Now I know.
Speaker: Well, during this period of 15 years since the longest way began, there have been a lot of ups and downs.
Speaker: But Chris has remained resilient despite receiving some bad news in October 2021 when he was diagnosed with MS.
Speaker: Let me play for you a few minutes of the audio from Chris's video entitled The Diagnosis, where he describes its impact on the longest way.
Speaker: It's like when you play Super Mario or I don't know, Tetris or something.
Speaker: Sometimes you will level up.
Speaker: It doesn't mean it gets easier.
Speaker: It means it gets harder, but that's what you want, right?
Speaker: Or like when you play Mario Kart, you can play 50cc, you can play 100cc, you can be gangster and play 200.
Speaker: Now I'm not good at Mario Kart, but I want to play 200.
Speaker: So now yeah, I've leveled up.
Speaker: The walking thing.
Speaker: It went from, I don't know if it was ever easy, but it went from normal to this new thing.
Speaker: I guess it's hard now.
Speaker: I'm kind of new to this.
Speaker: It's scary.
Speaker: But what are we supposed to do?
Speaker: The way is there.
Speaker: Since that was recorded in October 2021, Chris has been able to build up his endurance and continue on the longest way.
Speaker: Recently though, he's met with another setback, a herniated disc in his back.
Speaker: Chris is resting in Budapest, Hungary, patiently waiting to see if he can avoid surgery, recover, and finish the last leg of this journey.
Speaker: After spending this time with Chris and reflecting on the longest way, I asked if he had any advice for someone considering a similar path.
Speaker: Be very careful with the obsession.
Speaker: There is so much joy in walking.
Speaker: There is so much, to me it feels like I'm in Budapest now.
Speaker: When I leave my house, I know the direction of Beijing.
Speaker: Because I have come from Beijing and I know the street that I have to go down to and then I know all the other roads I have to take and I could be back in Beijing.
Speaker: And that makes me feel very grounded in this place because I have walked it and I know all the other places on the way and that makes me feel very happy.
Speaker: And I remember all these faces on the way and I remember the animals on the way.
Speaker: And I remember the sunsets and the sunrises and there were moments that were so beautiful that I had to cry.
Speaker: It's really, it's something that you say or you keep hearing on the TV, but it's actually true.
Speaker: And I didn't know that before.
Speaker: I don't sit in my apartment and I play, I don't know, Xbox or something and suddenly I start crying because it's so good.
Speaker: No, but then I did on the way.
Speaker: So there's all this beauty, but the obsession is a dangerous thing.
Speaker: It'll be an exciting day when you make it back home.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I dreamt of that day two nights ago.
Speaker: First time.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the interesting thing is when I was dreaming of it, there was a Turkish friend, a very good friend of mine that I've known for 20 years.
Speaker: He was there for some reason.
Speaker: And we found out that I had actually not started walking in Beijing, but I had started walking from that house.
Speaker: that I was going to.
Speaker: So it wasn't a walk from China to Germany, it was a walk from Germany to Germany, it was a circle.
Speaker: And I wonder what that means.
Speaker: A more recent post from Kristof on May 4th, 2022.
Speaker: He has now walked a total of 14,103 kilometers.
Speaker: And we find our road warrior walking between villages in Serbia.
Speaker: And after a particularly cold night, we find Kristof cursing his choice of sleeping bag.
Speaker: And in the morning, he's greeted by an old man with the gift of some homemade moonshine.
Speaker: It's not long before that icy cold night becomes day and the fiery Serbian sun roasts Kristof as he makes incline after incline, serpentine after serpentine on a road that seems to show no mercy.
Speaker: He turns up the music and goes blasting up the hill with his pulse up to 180.
Speaker: He writes...
Speaker: It's awesome to think that I'm still doing this.
Speaker: After all these years, after the blows of the pandemic, depression, and my diagnosis, I'm still doing this.
Speaker: I love nothing more than this.
Speaker: We're so happy to have been able to make a small part of Christoph Rehaag's The Longest Way part of the Forever Stories archive.
Speaker: Our goal is to create digital public vaults containing these stories worth telling forever and to ensure that these cultural artifacts are preserved for future generations.
Speaker: How?
Speaker: We're using a cord powered by Arweave to store our data.
Speaker: To find out more about this technology, making our digital archives permanent for hundreds of years, you can visit our site at foreverstories.xyz.
Speaker: There, you can even record your own story for free and have it preserved for generations to come.
