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Cycling around the world in 40 months.
(Short version)



53 tyres worn out, 1317 times a puncture on our cyclingtrip "around the World" in two extended journeys. For us, Nelly and Henny Barelds the bicycle remained the proper means of transport to learn to know other peoples and cultures. After our world-tour we continued cycling, a.o. once again in India but than in the South and also to Sri Lanka with our 4-year old little daughter in a basket on the back of the bicycle.
Our experiences have been published in various magazines and now digital on the net. It is a personal travel-story published in instalments, written by an enthousiastic lover of cycling, nature and the unknown. These are just short impressions, the whole story would cover thousands op pages.
When we returned home in 1969 in the Netherlands, we were asked what we thought of the unequal distribution of wealth in the world. We answered: "Development aid does not look very usefull to us, give the poor countries the possibility of free exports to the rich world, so they can vitalise their own economy and than solve their other social problems themselves. If this opportunity is not given to them, they will come here and get their share of the prosperity!" That is exactly what happenes now with all the economical refugees. We did believe that the world as a whole could not be so wealthy as the rich countries were (1969) and so here people had to step back for more prosperity in the other countries. To us it seemed ecologically impossible that the entire world would have western livingstandards. Henny meant: "If all Chinese would have a car and drive in it (why should they not be entitled?), the world would soon run out of oxigen!"


World around (nl) Cycling with children Recent tours Cooking on the way