Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Ferenc and Evelin of Overland Site on Rallying, the Silk Road, and Overlanding China in a 2006 Prado

Transcript

Ferenc and Evelin of Overland Site on Rallying, the Silk Road, and Overlanding China in a 2006 Prado · The Overland Journal Podcast

0:04
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. My name
0:08
Speaker 1: is Ashley Jordana. I'm the senior editor of Overland Journal
0:11
Speaker 1: and Expedition Portal, and today we're doing a podcast from
0:14
Speaker 1: the field in beautiful and cold Alberta in the Rocky
0:19
Speaker 1: Mountains with Farence and Evelyn from Overland Site. Welcome you guys,
0:23
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here.
0:25
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thanks for having us.
0:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for having us.
0:28
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1:05
Speaker 4: like you live out your vehicle when you actually live
1:07
Speaker 4: out of your vehicle. Thanks again, Terren.
1:10
Speaker 1: Yeah excited, yeah, yeah.
1:13
Speaker 5: As I mentioned yesterday, we were feeling a medi celebrities,
1:15
Speaker 5: no overlanding legends, nonsense.
1:21
Speaker 1: I feel that way too, actually, because you guys have
1:23
Speaker 1: done You've seen a lot of things and going to
1:25
Speaker 1: a lot of places all over the world. Just tell
1:27
Speaker 1: me how you got into overlanding. What was the beginning
1:32
Speaker 1: of it all?
1:33
Speaker 5: Okay, Well, I guess it started with me. Yeah, and
1:37
Speaker 5: we've well, I I was always into cars. When I
1:40
Speaker 5: was a kid, I loved cars, and then I got
1:42
Speaker 5: into trailing in my twenties, I guess, so this is
1:44
Speaker 5: combining the two. And when I uh with two of
1:47
Speaker 5: my friends, we decided to enter the Mongolia charity Relly.
1:50
Speaker 5: We bought a pickup truck on eBay and then we
1:53
Speaker 5: just left from London heading to Mongolia. And long story short,
1:57
Speaker 5: we didn't make it to Mongolia with the truck. We
1:58
Speaker 5: made it to Mongolia without. By the time we got
2:00
Speaker 5: to Tajikistan, I really kind of finally loved the whole thing,
2:04
Speaker 5: and I love the fact that I'm with my mates.
2:07
Speaker 5: We go on camping, we don't know where we're going
2:09
Speaker 5: to sleep, and we're off roading. We're going through the
2:11
Speaker 5: sand dunes in Turkmenistan and meeting people that we would
2:15
Speaker 5: never meet as like a tourist in a regular sense
2:18
Speaker 5: of the world, meaning of the world.
2:20
Speaker 3: Yeah.
2:20
Speaker 5: I just after that trip we met, and apparently that's
2:23
Speaker 5: all I was talking about.
2:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. He kept talking about this Mongolian rally that
2:29
Speaker 3: he did with his two friends and it too.
2:31
Speaker 2: One of the friends is named Ashley.
2:33
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:35
Speaker 3: The whole trip was five weeks for them, and I
2:37
Speaker 3: was thinking about, oh my god, how can you sit
2:40
Speaker 3: in a car for five weeks? I need to, you know,
2:43
Speaker 3: get out and do exercises and workouts and everything. And
2:47
Speaker 3: they just constantly driving on the road and fans just
2:50
Speaker 3: told me, I can imagine how cool is to follow
2:54
Speaker 3: just some tracks in the grass in Mongolia, and he
2:56
Speaker 3: should do that someday. He kept talking about this dream
3:00
Speaker 3: and we decided to quit our job in twenty seventeen,
3:04
Speaker 3: so we did, and we also bought a rooftop tent
3:07
Speaker 3: to our or for hours.
3:09
Speaker 2: But first we actually so when we met, we didn't
3:11
Speaker 2: have our proto. Yeah, but when we were.
3:14
Speaker 5: Like going to buy a car, we needed a car,
3:17
Speaker 5: so I was like, Okay, what can I what can
3:19
Speaker 5: we buy that's going to be good for a future trip.
3:21
Speaker 5: We didn't have any plans at that point, just like, Okay,
3:24
Speaker 5: I know that at some point we're going to do this,
3:26
Speaker 5: and so what is the car that I can drive
3:28
Speaker 5: every day? I can turn it into an overland And
3:30
Speaker 5: that's when we bought the Prato.
3:32
Speaker 2: And then like a.
3:33
Speaker 5: Couple of the couple of years or maybe a year later,
3:35
Speaker 5: we like, let's buy a rooftop tent.
3:37
Speaker 2: That's how it starts.
3:38
Speaker 3: So in twenty sixteen we bought the Proto, and in
3:42
Speaker 3: twenty seventeen we decided to quit our job. We did
3:45
Speaker 3: in October and I did in October. First did in December,
3:49
Speaker 3: and we both bought a rooftop tent and we went
3:52
Speaker 3: to Scandinavia for two weeks just to test how am
3:57
Speaker 3: I feeling?
3:58
Speaker 2: That was before quitting the jobs during the summer, like
4:01
Speaker 2: a test trip.
4:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a test trip because before that I
4:05
Speaker 3: have never slept in a tent.
4:11
Speaker 6: And that experience, like, I.
4:13
Speaker 3: Mean, it was so comfortable because that roof of tent
4:16
Speaker 3: was quite big with a sponge inside.
4:19
Speaker 5: It was so like a mattress mattress, but basically it
4:23
Speaker 5: was a sponge.
4:26
Speaker 6: A sponge mattress.
4:27
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly, So that was really comfortable for me, and
4:31
Speaker 3: also the vader was really good, and first we camp
4:34
Speaker 3: in proper camp site, so we didn't do any Viet
4:38
Speaker 3: camp in Scandinavia. I really enjoyed that trip. And on
4:41
Speaker 3: the way back we just decided to go to Africa
4:44
Speaker 3: because we saw an advertisement or sort of like an
4:47
Speaker 3: advertisement on Facebook that an amateur rally from Budapest is
4:52
Speaker 3: going to to the MBA. So we just decided, okay,
4:56
Speaker 3: let's do another test drive before we do the Singapore
5:00
Speaker 3: The answer.
5:00
Speaker 1: You gotcha, and you are both originally from Hungary.
5:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, And did you.
5:05
Speaker 1: Buy the Prado there or somewhere else?
5:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, in Hungary?
5:08
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, just yeah, like it was like nine years old,
5:12
Speaker 5: perfect condition. First owner was really good. And then I
5:16
Speaker 5: actually wanted to do upgrades before we went to Africa,
5:19
Speaker 5: so I got some gear already. I got bought the
5:21
Speaker 5: anger fridge, I bought the rooftop tent. We got a
5:24
Speaker 5: few bits and pieces camping stuff. But then I knew
5:27
Speaker 5: if we want to go to Singapore over six months
5:29
Speaker 5: and seven months or however long it was, and then
5:31
Speaker 5: also through the Sahara desert and everything I want more
5:34
Speaker 5: than a stock truck. We brought it to a place
5:37
Speaker 5: in Austria where they just done all the work and
5:39
Speaker 5: it's got an Australian suspension system. Now it's got a snorkers,
5:43
Speaker 5: it's got the roof rack, it's got the just the regular,
5:47
Speaker 5: the usual stuff, and we built draw system in the
5:50
Speaker 5: back with my dad just the DIY. We didn't we
5:52
Speaker 5: didn't want to buy an off the shelf one like
5:55
Speaker 5: built not both kind of thing, and so we built that.
5:59
Speaker 5: Actually we built two version, built one for Africa, and
6:01
Speaker 5: then we decided that was good.
6:03
Speaker 2: That trip was actually good. That's why we call it
6:05
Speaker 2: like a test trip.
6:06
Speaker 5: It turned out to be a proper difficult trip actually
6:09
Speaker 5: because we thought, oh yeah, a month and a half
6:11
Speaker 5: in Africa, let's see, let's try our equipment and then
6:16
Speaker 5: see if that's going to work for us. Driving from
6:18
Speaker 5: Europe to Singapore. It turned out to be not just
6:20
Speaker 5: a test trip. It was actually quite difficult. But then
6:23
Speaker 5: we learned a lot. We learned how to drive on sandis,
6:25
Speaker 5: we learned how to go through a river, We learned
6:28
Speaker 5: quite a bit.
6:29
Speaker 6: Which countries in Africa did you go to during that trip?
6:32
Speaker 3: So Morocco, Western Sahara, May Senegal and Gambia.
6:36
Speaker 2: And another way back of course as well.
6:38
Speaker 3: Five countries and Tolto. Yeah, but before that, we haven't
6:42
Speaker 3: done any overlanding trip, or I haven't.
6:44
Speaker 2: Done before, at least not like this.
6:47
Speaker 6: Yeah.
6:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it was a good test to drive.
6:50
Speaker 1: So you use the proto for your daily driver as
6:53
Speaker 1: well as an overland vehicle. What benefits did it have
6:57
Speaker 1: for both? Like, how did that work together for both things?
7:01
Speaker 5: Well, the first of all, we live in the middle
7:03
Speaker 5: of the city, so we were only on the cars
7:05
Speaker 5: as well, So like I couldn't possibly justify another two cars,
7:09
Speaker 5: so we just had the one, and we had to
7:11
Speaker 5: make a compromise. I guess it was big enough for
7:14
Speaker 5: an overlander. We could even sleep inside. And the fact
7:16
Speaker 5: that it's not like a roof conversion. There is no
7:19
Speaker 5: pop top, there is no permanent changes in the truck
7:22
Speaker 5: at and then the suspension and a snorkel, the sleeping
7:25
Speaker 5: platform inside or obviously the rooftop tent can be taken out.
7:29
Speaker 5: The sleeping platform could be taken out, so once we
7:33
Speaker 5: got home, I could remove on boat all these things,
7:36
Speaker 5: boxes from the roof and the rooftop tent, and then
7:39
Speaker 5: it suddenly was a normal car. Okay, it looked a
7:41
Speaker 5: lot better than a normal car because it lifted and
7:44
Speaker 5: chunky tires and everything, but still it was a good
7:47
Speaker 5: daily driver.
7:47
Speaker 2: Still.
7:48
Speaker 1: Okay, so you did this trip to Africa. What did
7:50
Speaker 1: you take away from that trip, Like, what did you
7:53
Speaker 1: learn in terms of about yourself or about Africa or
7:58
Speaker 1: the world that you didn't know going into the dress.
8:01
Speaker 3: So I learned that we are so lucky just in
8:03
Speaker 3: general to live in a very developed country in the
8:06
Speaker 3: middle of Europe. So because with so many Africans dealing
8:10
Speaker 3: with water problems or any kind of problems with problems
8:15
Speaker 3: and everything, we could easily cross any border with our
8:19
Speaker 3: European passport and the African people couldn't. So they were
8:25
Speaker 3: just you know, gathering at the border. They tried to
8:27
Speaker 3: cross the border and they couldn't. So at that time
8:30
Speaker 3: I just realized how lucky I am that I born
8:33
Speaker 3: in Hungarly and I have the European passport, and also
8:37
Speaker 3: that we can't have access to water, drinking water, for example.
8:43
Speaker 3: So so it just told me that how lucky we
8:45
Speaker 3: are just in general, and we don't have to you know,
8:48
Speaker 3: always say that ah complain about everything.
8:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, you guys are so funny. You were
8:55
Speaker 1: telling me last night about Hungarians.
8:57
Speaker 3: Just complain all the time to hang it, I habit,
9:01
Speaker 3: actually yes and say that, but that's true.
9:04
Speaker 2: If any hung Years are listening, I don't care what
9:07
Speaker 2: you think. It's true. It's true.
9:11
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, but we're on a smaller scale of things.
9:14
Speaker 5: We also learned that we get cold very easily because
9:16
Speaker 5: we slept in a roofs of tenet yet ice outside
9:19
Speaker 5: and just frozen, and we were cold a lot in Africa,
9:23
Speaker 5: which was shocking, right, Yeah, but it was January, to
9:26
Speaker 5: be fair, January February going through the Atlas Mountain. Still
9:29
Speaker 5: we thought it's going to be warmer than it was.
9:31
Speaker 5: Also another thing, I have to admit that one of
9:33
Speaker 5: the factors why we went with this organized really which
9:37
Speaker 5: I would never do again, let not with that kind
9:39
Speaker 5: of organization at least, not that just don't have any
9:41
Speaker 5: issues with the organization with that organization, just wouldn't go
9:44
Speaker 5: with one hundred and fifty cars again, because that's how
9:47
Speaker 5: big it was, and it was a rush trip and
9:49
Speaker 5: it was too fast for I think we travel faster
9:52
Speaker 5: than regular Overlanders anyway, but it's not like we want
9:55
Speaker 5: to drive twenty hours a day. So it was a
9:58
Speaker 5: bit overwhelming. It was a lot of driving and a
10:02
Speaker 5: lot of distance and a lot of I would say
10:04
Speaker 5: chaos in like trying to get from A.
10:06
Speaker 2: To B anyway. So I wouldn't do that again.
10:08
Speaker 5: But one of the reasons why we signed up to
10:10
Speaker 5: that really was because we've never been to Africa, and
10:12
Speaker 5: we're like, okay, in Northwest Africa, we don't know how.
10:15
Speaker 2: It is there. Let's go with other people and this
10:17
Speaker 2: is like, this sounds fun, so let's do that.
10:19
Speaker 5: When we plan a trip, like let's say this one
10:22
Speaker 5: and we're going to go to South America or Mexico
10:24
Speaker 5: or places like, I don't be sell friends and family
10:26
Speaker 5: are asking us, how come you go in there?
10:28
Speaker 2: It's so dangerous and you're going to get killed, those.
10:30
Speaker 5: Kind of comments that many people get when they plan
10:33
Speaker 5: tips to these countries. I'm kind of getting upset when
10:36
Speaker 5: I get those questions. I'm like, why do you think
10:38
Speaker 5: that you've never been there? You just hear the news
10:40
Speaker 5: and you think it's bad and people shoot that there's.
10:43
Speaker 2: A lot of killings and whatever.
10:45
Speaker 5: But I was the same kind in a way when
10:48
Speaker 5: I planned my trip to We planned our trip to
10:50
Speaker 5: Africa like we were comfortable more comfortable to go with
10:54
Speaker 5: other people than alone, and we would have been fine,
10:57
Speaker 5: of course, right, So.
10:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, we didn't have any issues because in the way
11:02
Speaker 3: back we were alone or almost alone.
11:05
Speaker 2: And yeah, it was fine, of course.
11:07
Speaker 6: Any guys, was it two weeks from Hungary down?
11:11
Speaker 5: It was about sixteen days from Hungary to the Gambia,
11:15
Speaker 5: so it's a lot of distance, like eight thousand kilometers
11:18
Speaker 5: or something. And then on our way back we took
11:19
Speaker 5: our time and then stopped in places where we wanted to.
11:23
Speaker 5: But otherwise it's because it's a kind of a that
11:25
Speaker 5: rally we're talking about it, it's kind of a challenge
11:27
Speaker 5: to do. So you've got to be there, your truck
11:30
Speaker 5: has to be able to do it, or you have
11:32
Speaker 5: to be able to do it. The advantage of that
11:34
Speaker 5: doing that rally was that we got to places it
11:37
Speaker 5: wouldn't be going like because it went through some really
11:41
Speaker 5: sketchy areas actually where the military was guarding the camp
11:45
Speaker 5: because it would have been a target. Too many people
11:47
Speaker 5: from Europe in one place in the desert, apparently it
11:50
Speaker 5: would have been a target. So we went far into
11:53
Speaker 5: the Sahara Desert as well in Mauritania, so we wouldn't
11:55
Speaker 5: have done it alone.
11:56
Speaker 2: So things for those kind of things. It was a
11:59
Speaker 2: very good experience and we met fantastic people on the trip.
12:03
Speaker 6: How would you prepare for another rally if you're going
12:06
Speaker 6: to do one versus a longer term overland trip.
12:09
Speaker 2: I wouldn't do a rally, that's the thing.
12:12
Speaker 6: So I would out there that I want to do
12:14
Speaker 6: a round.
12:15
Speaker 5: Okay, Actually there was a guy from California who's done
12:18
Speaker 5: the same trip and Mark. There's a lot of things
12:21
Speaker 5: to consider because you either buy because it starts in
12:24
Speaker 5: Europe in Hungary, but obviously once you're in Europe, you
12:27
Speaker 5: can buy the truck or the car that you want
12:29
Speaker 5: anywhere in Europe and then just use those plates and
12:32
Speaker 5: drive to Africa sell it there if you want to
12:34
Speaker 5: drive it back to Europe and sell it then. But
12:36
Speaker 5: then what Mark's done, He weighed the pros and cons
12:39
Speaker 5: of buying it locally in California, upgrade the truck in
12:42
Speaker 5: a way that he wanted to buy. Everything tested gone
12:45
Speaker 5: to a four while like a four wheel drive driving
12:48
Speaker 5: course things, so he could do that with his own truck,
12:50
Speaker 5: and then he shipped it and then use the truck,
12:52
Speaker 5: sold it or actually he gave it away in Africa
12:55
Speaker 5: to a charity. One thing is the vehicle to consider.
12:58
Speaker 5: The second thing is whether you want to go to
13:00
Speaker 5: on the other side of the planet and do a
13:02
Speaker 5: rally like this, or you want to do something like
13:03
Speaker 5: the Baja rallies. I'm sure there is rallies in Africa
13:06
Speaker 5: like that or in Asia as well like that. But
13:09
Speaker 5: it's fun because you meet a lot of like minded
13:12
Speaker 5: people in a very short period of time. So if
13:14
Speaker 5: you don't have time for like a six month overland
13:17
Speaker 5: trip on your own, then these tend to be much
13:20
Speaker 5: shorter because most people doing this specific rally were on
13:24
Speaker 5: just a yearly vacation for two weeks. Because then you
13:27
Speaker 5: can do it that you can fit in. So that's
13:29
Speaker 5: I guess that's another advantage of it.
13:32
Speaker 6: Out of the rallies, the purpose of it is to
13:34
Speaker 6: leave a vehicle behind.
13:36
Speaker 2: A lot of it.
13:37
Speaker 5: Would be yeah, like the like the charity rally that
13:40
Speaker 5: I've attempted to do in twenty fourteen and we didn't
13:43
Speaker 5: make it there, but yeah, that was the same kind
13:45
Speaker 5: of idea, although for example, compared to this rally, to
13:49
Speaker 5: that one is like one of like the African one
13:53
Speaker 5: was to all one hundred and fifty cars going almost
13:57
Speaker 5: with the same pace every day, checking in like every
14:01
Speaker 5: stage kind of thing, although there's different categoriesm you might
14:04
Speaker 5: not need to check in, but there's like the rally
14:06
Speaker 5: was going as a group together, whereas with the London
14:09
Speaker 5: to Mongolia Charity really was like you leave on one
14:12
Speaker 5: specific day if you want together and it's like there's
14:14
Speaker 5: like a ceremony and then you arrive in Ulambat or
14:17
Speaker 5: whenever you want, so you take as long as you want,
14:19
Speaker 5: any route you want, whereas the African rally was like
14:22
Speaker 5: a set route.
14:23
Speaker 6: What were the names of those rallies particularly.
14:25
Speaker 5: So the African was the Budapest Bamaco Rally and the
14:29
Speaker 5: London to Mongolia was the Mongolia Charity Rally, because there's
14:33
Speaker 5: the Mongo Rally, but that's totally different, So this is
14:35
Speaker 5: a Mongolia Charity rally.
14:37
Speaker 6: Gotcha very cool?
14:38
Speaker 5: And of course so we not only we were not
14:40
Speaker 5: only doing rallies, but we were doing our own little
14:43
Speaker 5: road trips and camping trips as well, and then Scandinavia
14:46
Speaker 5: and these rallies, so we didn't just do these organized rallies.
14:50
Speaker 2: We've done. I've done a.
14:51
Speaker 5: Lot of road trips with friends a lot like in Europe.
14:54
Speaker 5: It's I think Europe is fantastic to do road trips,
14:57
Speaker 5: not necessarily, at least not the western part for off
15:00
Speaker 5: roading or remote back country camping, because there are too
15:03
Speaker 5: many people for that in Europe, still crowded for that
15:06
Speaker 5: eastern part. You can do it southern part, yeah, but
15:09
Speaker 5: for road ships and maybe staying in organized campsites.
15:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it's beautiful.
15:13
Speaker 1: So you finished the Africa trip slash rally, yep, and
15:17
Speaker 1: then you went back home to prepare for the big.
15:21
Speaker 3: Not really we went back home.
15:24
Speaker 2: We went back home for like a week, Yeah, for
15:27
Speaker 2: a week.
15:27
Speaker 3: But after that we flew to Asia, Southeast Asia, to
15:34
Speaker 3: Vietnam to spend a month there, and also to Bali
15:38
Speaker 3: to spend Yeah.
15:39
Speaker 5: So we've spent a month in each, in Saigon and
15:43
Speaker 5: in Bali, and we just spent two months in Asia
15:46
Speaker 5: and then we flew back. So this is another thing
15:48
Speaker 5: I might I wouldn't necessarily do again this way because
15:51
Speaker 5: we flew back from Asia. So we spent like a
15:54
Speaker 5: month and a half in Africa, then two months in
15:56
Speaker 5: Asia just flying there, and then we flew back to
15:59
Speaker 5: Europe and then started the trip, but that meant it
16:01
Speaker 5: was a very hectic preparation because we got back and Okay,
16:05
Speaker 5: let's upgrade drawer system, let's buy this, let's order that
16:08
Speaker 5: it's not going to arrive. We can't buy that, so's
16:11
Speaker 5: I wouldn't do it this way anymore. But we were like, okay,
16:14
Speaker 5: we have two months, we're not working, let's do something
16:17
Speaker 5: that doesn't involve sitting at home.
16:19
Speaker 2: So we flew to Asia. Yeah, it was fun, it
16:21
Speaker 2: was good.
16:21
Speaker 6: Yeah, what were the highlights of the trip. You're backpacking?
16:24
Speaker 3: I imagine we actually worked?
16:27
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, we actually worked online. So I was setting
16:30
Speaker 5: up the website. Evelyn was also starting her freelancers exactly.
16:35
Speaker 3: I tried to be at a web shop and the
16:37
Speaker 3: drop shipping web shop, but after that I just realized
16:40
Speaker 3: that how much I love the advertisement part of marketing,
16:44
Speaker 3: so I specialized myself in Facebook and Instagram advertising and
16:48
Speaker 3: also in Google advertising. So yeah, we went to Singapore,
16:52
Speaker 3: and after Singapore, I just started to work as a
16:55
Speaker 3: freelancer basically. But the two months like we spent in
16:59
Speaker 3: South Asia, it was a very good time for me
17:02
Speaker 3: to learn a lot of things about online marketing. So interestingly,
17:07
Speaker 3: appreciated that time. And also we met amazing people that
17:11
Speaker 3: and Peaches. You know, you just get inspired by.
17:14
Speaker 5: Adult people because we stayed in this really cool co
17:17
Speaker 5: working space. We worked in a co working space in Bali,
17:20
Speaker 5: Like you have a pool and the beach is like
17:22
Speaker 5: two hundred meters away, but you're working all day. So
17:25
Speaker 5: we were thinking, Okay, we're going to spend these two
17:27
Speaker 5: months between the two trips Africa trip and the Asian
17:30
Speaker 5: trip with work. We're trying to sort of establish ourselves
17:33
Speaker 5: working online, but let's not do it in Europe or
17:36
Speaker 5: but the passion. So we flew to Asia and it
17:39
Speaker 5: was like it sounds maybe sounds a bit.
17:41
Speaker 2: I don't know, wonderful, yes, but sounds a bit like, oh,
17:46
Speaker 2: that's just a bit too extravagant to fly to Asia
17:50
Speaker 2: to work or something. It was actually cheaper to stay
17:52
Speaker 2: there for those two months than staying at home.
17:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know it's a life style. So digital
17:58
Speaker 3: nomas live in Southeast Asia and work from there. Yeah,
18:03
Speaker 3: it's just a very cool lifestyle.
18:05
Speaker 6: Nice.
18:06
Speaker 1: How did you transition from your what I imagine was
18:09
Speaker 1: a full time job to being a freelancer.
18:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I always hated this nine to five jobs.
18:16
Speaker 3: But I really loved marketing and I was always working
18:20
Speaker 3: in online marketing. Yeah, I hated this office lifestyle. So
18:24
Speaker 3: I was really relieved when they just decided, okay, let's
18:28
Speaker 3: quit our job. Then I have a year to figure
18:31
Speaker 3: out what am I gonna do with my life. And
18:34
Speaker 3: I was twenty six or twenty seven by then, so
18:38
Speaker 3: I was quieting. So I just realized that, yeah, I
18:43
Speaker 3: still have time to figure it out. And Southeast Asia
18:47
Speaker 3: it just happened, you know, and I realized that what
18:50
Speaker 3: am I gonna focus When we done with this Singapore trip,
18:54
Speaker 3: and when we got back home, I was still a
18:57
Speaker 3: little bit confused, and I even job interviews and my
19:02
Speaker 3: steps in the building and in the office, I looked
19:05
Speaker 3: around me and the people were so depressed and so,
19:09
Speaker 3: you know, exhausted, and I just decided, no, I can't.
19:13
Speaker 3: I can't do that anymore. So I went back home.
19:16
Speaker 3: After my first job interview, I just took myself one
19:19
Speaker 3: upward because that's the freelancer platform and you can find
19:23
Speaker 3: jobs there, and I was, yeah, I just really focused
19:27
Speaker 3: to find an online job there. So that's where I
19:30
Speaker 3: got my first client, and the adult clients just came
19:34
Speaker 3: by recommendations.
19:35
Speaker 1: That's so powerful, the word of mouth. Like you have
19:40
Speaker 1: one client do a really really good job, they will
19:43
Speaker 1: recommend you to a bunch of other people who will
19:45
Speaker 1: recommend you to other people. And that's I think. Even
19:48
Speaker 1: with social media and email and all that, it seems
19:53
Speaker 1: like word of mouth is still super powerful. Yeah, yeah,
19:57
Speaker 1: And what were you doing?
19:58
Speaker 2: So?
19:59
Speaker 5: Originally I'm a lawyer and I worked for investment companies
20:02
Speaker 5: in London, and I've done that remotely from Budapesh most
20:04
Speaker 5: of the time, but I spent a lot of time
20:05
Speaker 5: in London as well before. And I liked a lot
20:08
Speaker 5: of parts of my job, at least initially I used to,
20:11
Speaker 5: but I mostly liked the whole environment with like I worked.
20:14
Speaker 2: With very smart people. I worked with like challenging tasks
20:18
Speaker 2: and everything.
20:18
Speaker 5: But after a while it just got to be too
20:20
Speaker 5: difficult for what I I compared to what I want
20:23
Speaker 5: to do, like the outdoors, you know, spend more time
20:26
Speaker 5: with travel, And this was like a very strict corporate
20:30
Speaker 5: environment that I didn't like anymore. Even though I was
20:33
Speaker 5: very lucky to work remotely pre pandemic world, you know,
20:37
Speaker 5: I was working for like seven years from my own
20:40
Speaker 5: apartment for a boss that was a thousand miles away,
20:43
Speaker 5: and there was again still like it still got to
20:46
Speaker 5: a level and I'm like, okay, I went to Mongoli
20:49
Speaker 5: with my mates. I know I want to get out
20:51
Speaker 5: of this job, and finally we quit in twenty seventeen.
20:55
Speaker 5: But it's very hard, so I guess because I don't
20:57
Speaker 5: dislike all of the parts of my job, but it
21:00
Speaker 5: gives me the opportunity to do this right now, it's
21:03
Speaker 5: very hard to get away from it. But I did
21:05
Speaker 5: three times, but that means I went back three times.
21:08
Speaker 5: So this is what's happening now, Like I quit my
21:12
Speaker 5: well it's not a say job, and it's really a job,
21:14
Speaker 5: but I also have my clients because I work as
21:17
Speaker 5: a consultant, and it also goes through recommendation.
21:20
Speaker 2: But it's just a very official, very strict world working for.
21:23
Speaker 5: These big companies, and it's just I want this, Like
21:27
Speaker 5: you know, you look outside and there's a river there.
21:29
Speaker 5: It doesn't involve that. What I'm trying to do is
21:32
Speaker 5: set up my own online business and like do my
21:34
Speaker 5: own things online as well. So I'm in the process
21:36
Speaker 5: of doing that, but chances are I will just go
21:39
Speaker 5: back and work for another, like to another six month project,
21:42
Speaker 5: twelve project, and then we're off to the Antarctica again.
21:44
Speaker 2: I don't know. I find that this is a very
21:46
Speaker 2: frequent question when you talk to people, especially people who
21:49
Speaker 2: are not overlanding or not long term, like how can
21:52
Speaker 2: you afford it? How do you do it?
21:53
Speaker 5: And the main answer that we have usually is we
21:56
Speaker 5: don't buy stuff, you know, we don't buy the latest phones.
21:59
Speaker 5: We don't buy a new clubdes we don't buy new cars,
22:01
Speaker 5: we don't have a car loan, Especially if somebody is
22:05
Speaker 5: asking who's paying for like a seven hundred dollars monthly
22:08
Speaker 5: car loan and asking us like how can you do this?
22:11
Speaker 5: How can you afford it? Something like there's your answer.
22:13
Speaker 5: I mean, but if that's your preference to drive a
22:15
Speaker 5: brand new truck but then not.
22:17
Speaker 2: Travel, you can't. Maybe you cannot have both. Some people can.
22:20
Speaker 5: We wouldn't be able to pay for a car loan
22:22
Speaker 5: and a mortgage and everything else and then do this.
22:24
Speaker 5: So we decided this is our preference.
22:26
Speaker 1: Making a priority, and then there are always sacrifices or
22:30
Speaker 1: decisions that you have to make.
22:31
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's just as I said, like we're driving
22:34
Speaker 5: the same truck that drove we drove to Singapore, A
22:37
Speaker 5: lot of people would have bought.
22:38
Speaker 2: To be fair, I would have bought.
22:40
Speaker 5: With my mindset now, I would have bought a separate
22:42
Speaker 5: trap for that trip and then sell it later.
22:45
Speaker 1: So now, looking back, you said that you would, actually,
22:49
Speaker 1: in an ideal world, prefer to have one purpose built
22:52
Speaker 1: vehicle for overlanding and then a separate one for a
22:54
Speaker 1: daily driver. What about that vehicle that was built for both.
22:58
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you should have been change.
23:00
Speaker 5: I still love that truck. I love that it's it's
23:03
Speaker 5: the Total and Cruiser one twenty proto. It's it's really great.
23:06
Speaker 5: It's a great truck. But and if you're doing like
23:09
Speaker 5: two weeks overland trips, maybe a weekend trip, maybe like
23:11
Speaker 5: shorter trips, my answer would still be the same as
23:14
Speaker 5: in like use your daily driver, put a rooftop tent
23:17
Speaker 5: on top, or sleep inside.
23:18
Speaker 2: Just do that.
23:19
Speaker 5: But if you're going on a six month plus long trip,
23:22
Speaker 5: have a purposely made over land truck because your life
23:26
Speaker 5: is going to be easier and better on the road.
23:30
Speaker 5: Like for example, with the Prato, it was I wish
23:33
Speaker 5: we had like a pop top roof where we could
23:36
Speaker 5: have stood up inside and if the weather was bad,
23:39
Speaker 5: we could have made a tea or rush out peace
23:41
Speaker 5: inside something like that.
23:42
Speaker 2: We were always outside.
23:44
Speaker 5: And the fact that we went through Central Asia and
23:46
Speaker 5: the Himalayas or part of the Himalayas, big mountain ranges,
23:50
Speaker 5: bad weather. If you're doing everything outside, it's not as
23:53
Speaker 5: comfortable if you just have your daily driver with a
23:55
Speaker 5: rooftop tent. And also another thing is, even though it's
23:58
Speaker 5: a very capable truck, I would have probably bought a
24:01
Speaker 5: stronger one, maybe higher lift or bigger tires, more recovery equipment.
24:07
Speaker 5: I think we were Again this is a balance how
24:10
Speaker 5: much money you want to spend and how much weight
24:12
Speaker 5: you want to take. And I think weight is equally
24:14
Speaker 5: important as money in these terms. And like a winch
24:18
Speaker 5: or highly jack or things like that, if you have
24:20
Speaker 5: a small car, which the one twenty product relatively is
24:24
Speaker 5: a small one, you got to decide whether you take
24:26
Speaker 5: a big tool that you may or may not need
24:29
Speaker 5: over trip like that. So long trips have a purposely
24:32
Speaker 5: built one. Shorter trips use a daily driver.
24:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it was a good idea to show the
24:37
Speaker 3: people that you don't have fancy cars. So if you
24:40
Speaker 3: have a family car, you can just upgrade it. It
24:43
Speaker 3: governever you want for an overland trip. Yeah, so you don't. Yeah,
24:47
Speaker 3: you can do have fancy cars or offense events. But
24:50
Speaker 3: as you can see on the road, So it was
24:52
Speaker 3: a good opportunity to show the people that the fact
24:56
Speaker 3: that you can have a family car and you can
24:59
Speaker 3: have rady. It actually inspired my friends who has a
25:03
Speaker 3: who have Corona? Is it?
25:05
Speaker 5: Yeah, like a fifteen year old Corolla that's a very
25:08
Speaker 5: small car.
25:09
Speaker 3: And yeah, financials inspire them with this drawer system in
25:13
Speaker 3: the bag, so they build their own and they could
25:17
Speaker 3: sleep inside in that small car. And they e went
25:20
Speaker 3: to Croatia and also to Slovenia last year and also
25:24
Speaker 3: this year. They're gonna do that again until they find
25:29
Speaker 3: their I don't know, jim van which is a transporter
25:33
Speaker 3: T four or T three, I don't I can't remember that.
25:37
Speaker 3: But yeah, they just inspired our friends and it's so cool.
25:43
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25:50
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26:39
Speaker 1: Speaking of inspiring and vans, So you guys did this
26:43
Speaker 1: trip from was it Budapest to Singapore in the Prato
26:48
Speaker 1: and you learned a lot about that You, like many
26:51
Speaker 1: many other people that I've chatted with, had the experience
26:54
Speaker 1: in that vehicle and then the inside living space for
26:58
Speaker 1: longer trips becomes more important. And so what did you
27:03
Speaker 1: choose and why?
27:05
Speaker 5: I mean, my ideal dream truck was always the seventy
27:08
Speaker 5: series Troopy land Cruiser, but then by the time so
27:12
Speaker 5: that would have been idea for Bullapes Singapore trip, and
27:14
Speaker 5: we met lots of really well built seventy series on
27:17
Speaker 5: that trip, and I was like always just jealous, but
27:20
Speaker 5: then by the time we got back and we were
27:22
Speaker 5: thinking of okay, how permanent are we going to work online?
27:26
Speaker 5: And how long and all those kind of things. And
27:28
Speaker 5: for that a roof conversion like a pop top roof.
27:32
Speaker 5: That's that's how you call it, right, Those are just
27:35
Speaker 5: those are great, but not enough, not big enough for
27:39
Speaker 5: permanent living inside, which we had plans for.
27:43
Speaker 2: So we wanted a four x four van.
27:45
Speaker 5: We wanted to stick with foward drive because that last
27:49
Speaker 5: part of the trip that you want to take to
27:51
Speaker 5: get to the most beautiful places you need forward drive
27:54
Speaker 5: or high ground clearance and all that.
27:55
Speaker 2: So we were looking at all the options.
27:57
Speaker 5: We were looking at what kind of vans can we buy,
27:59
Speaker 5: what can we afford, what is on the market, And
28:01
Speaker 5: luckily in Europe there is a maker truck maker code Evaco,
28:05
Speaker 5: which we're sitting in right now, which is a major brand.
28:08
Speaker 5: It's not known in North America, but it's a major
28:10
Speaker 5: truck maker in Europe, and they have this sprint ter
28:14
Speaker 5: Mercedi sprinter sized van that they're making, two D flocks,
28:17
Speaker 5: low range gearbox, four wheel drive, high ground clearance, everything
28:21
Speaker 5: that you need. So we're looking for that for two
28:24
Speaker 5: years because we weren't in a rush because then obviously
28:26
Speaker 5: COVID hit and we were like, okay, let's let's do this,
28:30
Speaker 5: let's find one. But then COVID made COVID just made
28:35
Speaker 5: buying these vehicles more difficult because everybody found out about
28:37
Speaker 5: this kind of travel style. And there was a couple
28:40
Speaker 5: of events that we looked at. These are all used
28:42
Speaker 5: vans obviously that we looked at about twenty years old vans.
28:45
Speaker 5: We looked at younger ones as well, but then the
28:47
Speaker 5: price just goes through the roof. There was like two
28:49
Speaker 5: or three that we were just not quick enough to
28:52
Speaker 5: buy because other people bought it. And this would be
28:54
Speaker 5: talking about a couple of days that they went up
28:56
Speaker 5: on a on a like an advertisement side, and then
28:59
Speaker 5: suddenly this came him up. He just bought it without
29:01
Speaker 5: even seeing it, just like transfer the money straight away.
29:04
Speaker 5: Talk to the guy in Germany, just like, can I
29:06
Speaker 5: send you the money now? And then I think the
29:08
Speaker 5: next day I sent it. I haven't even obviously seen pictures,
29:10
Speaker 5: and I've spoke to the owner, transfer the money, no negotiations, nothing,
29:15
Speaker 5: I'm like how much you asking?
29:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, here you go, And I think.
29:18
Speaker 5: Three weeks later we drove there with my dad and
29:20
Speaker 5: picked it up. Of course, there was many that we
29:23
Speaker 5: didn't like, so many that by that time we learned
29:27
Speaker 5: what we want, Like we want a table inside, we
29:29
Speaker 5: want to sleep inside, we want to be able to
29:30
Speaker 5: stand up inside, have a little sink and fridge.
29:33
Speaker 2: That was like the kind of the basics.
29:36
Speaker 5: That we wanted, and this this had everything of that
29:39
Speaker 5: and a bit more like it had solar panels already,
29:41
Speaker 5: it had a tougher suspension.
29:44
Speaker 6: So it was used for travel before you Yeah.
29:47
Speaker 5: Yeah, So the owner, like two owners prior to me,
29:51
Speaker 5: built the truck and he was a mechanic who wanted
29:54
Speaker 5: to travel the world, and unfortunately he had a parag
29:57
Speaker 5: linding accident so he couldn't use a menu a standard
29:59
Speaker 5: anymore to buy an automatic. So we had to sell
30:02
Speaker 5: this and sold it to the family whom I built
30:04
Speaker 5: is from, and the family sold it because they had
30:07
Speaker 5: their second kid on the way, so it's too small
30:09
Speaker 5: for that. But I think the talking of the size
30:13
Speaker 5: of the van, it's perfect size because it's short, will
30:16
Speaker 5: short wheelbase, very high ground clearance as like as a base,
30:21
Speaker 5: and it's got the lower range gearbox and the flocks.
30:24
Speaker 5: So the engine is the weak point in a way
30:26
Speaker 5: that it's very very it's lacking power like very much.
30:29
Speaker 5: It's like one hundred and two horse power for four
30:31
Speaker 5: ton vehicle. The actual standard gearbox is the gear The
30:35
Speaker 5: gears are set up in a way that it's compensating
30:37
Speaker 5: for the lack of power. Plus we have the lower
30:41
Speaker 5: range so it can go anywhere but slowly and loudly.
30:44
Speaker 1: What would you change about it or are you happy with?
30:47
Speaker 1: Pretty much everything in.
30:49
Speaker 5: Terms of we changed a lot on it, Like the
30:51
Speaker 5: main build was there, and then we added a few bits,
30:54
Speaker 5: like we changed the box on the front, we shaved
30:56
Speaker 5: the led light, we changed the I don't know. We
30:59
Speaker 5: set up our FI kind of router. The inverter was
31:03
Speaker 5: like there was no inverter. So I have a really
31:05
Speaker 5: good quality inverter. I've got a Victorian inverter installed. We
31:12
Speaker 5: made it I think a little bit nicer inside.
31:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I put these white foil on the yeah,
31:19
Speaker 3: on the furniture so it looks more modern. And also
31:24
Speaker 3: we changed yeah and also the cushions, cushions yeah, yeah.
31:31
Speaker 5: So my dad helped a lot because he's like into
31:34
Speaker 5: they he loves the IY so he made the cushions
31:37
Speaker 5: and he helped with various bits around where it's like
31:40
Speaker 5: you know, hammering and using a screwdriver involved. So we've
31:44
Speaker 5: done a bit and also recovery. We got all our
31:47
Speaker 5: recovery gear from ARB. We got a nice awning outside.
31:51
Speaker 5: So these these little things, little changes that we we
31:55
Speaker 5: just customized it for our needs.
31:57
Speaker 2: But the main build was there.
31:58
Speaker 1: Got yeah, yeah, it's very well laid out. And this
32:02
Speaker 1: area the dynet falls down into a bed right.
32:05
Speaker 3: Exactly, yeah, exactly nice, and under this sitting area we
32:10
Speaker 3: have a lot of storage, so it's just really comfortable.
32:14
Speaker 3: And I know that I mentioned you before in another
32:16
Speaker 3: interview that I really like these boxes to organize everything.
32:21
Speaker 3: So we bought some boxes in the ita put our
32:26
Speaker 3: clothes in it, and also we have some plastic organizers
32:29
Speaker 3: in that cupboard so we could organize our food, our clothes,
32:33
Speaker 3: our gears, accessories, everything.
32:36
Speaker 5: So yeah, fine, And obviously we've been in bigger builds
32:39
Speaker 5: and nicer big expedition trucks and everything, so we see
32:42
Speaker 5: how comfortable can the truck be. And of course when
32:45
Speaker 5: we are here inside and we cannot go outside because
32:47
Speaker 5: of the weather or whatever, it's in the evening and
32:50
Speaker 5: you know, we're inside already, and we sort of scramble
32:53
Speaker 5: around because the space is too small. But then you
32:56
Speaker 5: kind of okay with the small space because we compare
33:00
Speaker 5: to the Prado, like we would be outside now, we
33:02
Speaker 5: would be or sitting in the tent, you know, like
33:04
Speaker 5: on the roof, So compared to that, this is luxury
33:08
Speaker 5: really and the fact that I can stand up is
33:10
Speaker 5: just a big fact.
33:12
Speaker 1: So I'm going to go back a little bit and
33:13
Speaker 1: I want to talk about your Budapest to Singapore trip.
33:17
Speaker 1: Which countries did you go through and how long was it?
33:20
Speaker 3: So it was six months total and the events through Romania,
33:24
Speaker 3: Bulgaria and Turkey, Georgia, Russia, Kazakstan, Russia again a bit
33:31
Speaker 3: and Mongolia, China, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. A lot
33:41
Speaker 3: of countries.
33:42
Speaker 1: No, No, that was on what were your strongest impressions
33:47
Speaker 1: about certain regions or places along the way on that trip,
33:51
Speaker 1: because you saw a lot obviously those are a lot
33:53
Speaker 1: of countries to go through.
33:54
Speaker 5: It's a lot of countries in six months as well,
33:56
Speaker 5: so other than the Prado would change the length of
33:59
Speaker 5: the trip like tons of times, so it could probably
34:02
Speaker 5: a year have been better for that business. I've been
34:05
Speaker 5: to Mongolia before the trip, and I keep mentioning Mongolia
34:07
Speaker 5: to you guys, but it's it's a fantastic place for overlanders.
34:11
Speaker 2: I think.
34:11
Speaker 5: I don't know you, but China was made a huge impression,
34:14
Speaker 5: especially that we were on the western part, not the
34:17
Speaker 5: eastern part, so we would say like less developed than
34:19
Speaker 5: the west. Probably it was still massively developed. We came
34:22
Speaker 5: through cities. I came across cities with five six million
34:26
Speaker 5: people you've never heard of, at least I haven't heard of.
34:28
Speaker 5: And roads are really well built, cities are massive, people
34:33
Speaker 5: are extremely nice, and food is out of this world.
34:37
Speaker 2: It's just so good.
34:41
Speaker 1: And you had to hire a guide, and you was
34:44
Speaker 1: it shared one or two guides with a couple of other.
34:47
Speaker 5: No, there was only one guide at the time, so
34:49
Speaker 5: we had two guys, but split into first two weeks
34:52
Speaker 5: and then the second was first three weeks and the
34:54
Speaker 5: second three weeks.
34:55
Speaker 2: It was forty three days in total, so you have
34:57
Speaker 2: to have a guide.
34:58
Speaker 5: Yes, driving through China with your own vehicle, the guide
35:02
Speaker 5: is sitting in one of the vehicles, which sometimes ours.
35:05
Speaker 5: Sometimes we were three cars in our convoy. Super nice experience.
35:10
Speaker 5: Both of the guides were really nice, Shang and Brenda.
35:14
Speaker 5: I mean, I guess you don't know what to expect
35:15
Speaker 5: when you go to a totally different culture and somebody
35:19
Speaker 5: you've never met before it's going to sit with you
35:21
Speaker 5: for thousands of miles or kilometers with you. And it
35:24
Speaker 5: was fantastic, Like we could have a lot of questions,
35:27
Speaker 5: we could ask, like, we had a nice chat. We
35:30
Speaker 5: got to know them very well, really great, and they
35:32
Speaker 5: speak very good English.
35:33
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah.
35:34
Speaker 6: What were some things that you learned about that country
35:37
Speaker 6: from the guide that you wouldn't have.
35:39
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, a lot, yeah, I mean almost.
35:42
Speaker 3: And you cannot communicate with the people, you know that
35:45
Speaker 3: because they don't speak English, you don't speak Chinese, so yeah,
35:50
Speaker 3: and you cannot communicate non verbally because that's different there,
35:54
Speaker 3: so you need a guide. But we had a very
35:57
Speaker 3: nice experience. The people were so friendly with us, and
36:01
Speaker 3: we also got some presents from the people there. Yeah,
36:04
Speaker 3: because we tried to avoid the big cities, so we
36:07
Speaker 3: went through the rural area, but just trans mansions to
36:10
Speaker 3: the western part of China, and sometimes we just stopped
36:13
Speaker 3: at a small village, I mean on the basket field,
36:16
Speaker 3: basketball field, and the whole village just turned up and
36:20
Speaker 3: they were watching us cooking our meals for dinner, and
36:24
Speaker 3: they were just asking why don't they eat rice for dinner?
36:27
Speaker 3: For example, we were making Italian pasta. Yeah, and they
36:33
Speaker 3: were taking some photos and videos of me. How I
36:38
Speaker 3: caught the onions because that was so strange for them.
36:41
Speaker 3: I don't know, maybe they have another technique for.
36:44
Speaker 5: That, but yeah, the whole village turned up, the whole
36:48
Speaker 5: village and fifteen mobile phones just like pointed at us
36:51
Speaker 5: and taking pictures and videos.
36:53
Speaker 2: And we have of that.
36:56
Speaker 5: So yeah, like everywhere you go as and over and
36:59
Speaker 5: you stand out because you tend to end up in
37:01
Speaker 5: small villages and remote places. And I guess that's a
37:04
Speaker 5: little bit even more extreme in China because no overlanders
37:08
Speaker 5: go through really compared to the scale of the country
37:11
Speaker 5: and compared to how much it has to offer. But
37:13
Speaker 5: I guess this guide requirement makes it difficult both financially
37:18
Speaker 5: and makes it more complicated as well. Or these people
37:20
Speaker 5: think it's complicated, But if you find the right company
37:23
Speaker 5: to help you find the right guide, then it's not
37:26
Speaker 5: that difficult.
37:27
Speaker 2: You have to provide a.
37:28
Speaker 1: Lot of documents, right, I was going to ask you
37:30
Speaker 1: how did you find a good guide or guides? And
37:33
Speaker 1: then also how did you link up with the other
37:36
Speaker 1: two travelers or two vehicles?
37:39
Speaker 5: I'm not sure they have three travelers in two vehicles
37:42
Speaker 5: and online of course. So first of all, Facebook groups
37:46
Speaker 5: like the Asia Overland group I think, or maybe the
37:48
Speaker 5: China Overland group, I cannot remember one or the other.
37:50
Speaker 5: There were recommendations there before and also just googling it.
37:54
Speaker 5: And then we made a list in like an extra
37:57
Speaker 5: sheet and then just you know, put all data into
38:00
Speaker 5: the extra sheet. And then actually I didn't do that. Nils,
38:03
Speaker 5: who we were traveling with, was very organized and done it.
38:07
Speaker 5: Who just collected all the information we had and we
38:10
Speaker 5: had like monthly calls with Yeah. So first of all,
38:12
Speaker 5: we hooked up with our future traveler partners also online
38:17
Speaker 5: through the Facebook group or yeah through the Facebook group,
38:20
Speaker 5: and we started chatting. We created our own little Skype
38:23
Speaker 5: group and then started chatting who wants what. Initially it
38:26
Speaker 5: was like five vehicles together, and then two vehicles dropped
38:29
Speaker 5: off because of different timing or different preferences I don't
38:33
Speaker 5: know now, but it was three cars eventually, and we
38:35
Speaker 5: had monthly calls and it took us about three months
38:38
Speaker 5: at least to decide which out of the six or
38:42
Speaker 5: seven companies we listed, which one to go for. And
38:45
Speaker 5: we were like the ones we went for the ones
38:47
Speaker 5: that were one that seemed to be more accommodating than
38:51
Speaker 5: the others in terms of like we want a wild camp,
38:53
Speaker 5: we want to go this route and that route, and
38:55
Speaker 5: we want to do this length. Price obviously was discovered considered,
39:00
Speaker 5: this is how we decide. We ended up with I
39:02
Speaker 5: think it's called Adventure. That's China dot com and Shang
39:05
Speaker 5: is a really great guy. He's managing the company. Yeah,
39:09
Speaker 5: I can send it to anybody if anybody's asking, but yeah,
39:11
Speaker 5: it's possible to find it in the face groups like
39:14
Speaker 5: through recommendations, and we also met other travelers through. Everybody
39:18
Speaker 5: ends up in Most people ends up in Laos after
39:21
Speaker 5: China from Mongolia or if people do it obviously the
39:23
Speaker 5: other way around, but from Europe, you end up in Laos,
39:26
Speaker 5: and you meet a lot of other people who were
39:28
Speaker 5: going through China at the same time, but obviously in
39:31
Speaker 5: other roots with other companies and a lot of well,
39:34
Speaker 5: some of them were complaining that they didn't get what
39:36
Speaker 5: they wanted. They didn't actually go through those routes that
39:40
Speaker 5: they agreed to or you know, those kinds of things.
39:42
Speaker 5: And we didn't have a single issue or problem and
39:46
Speaker 5: our group worked really well as well. So other groups.
39:49
Speaker 5: It's again, you are sort of locked in for forty
39:54
Speaker 5: odd days with other travelers. Many many times that works out,
39:56
Speaker 5: sometimes it doesn't. Ours was just like a dream team.
40:00
Speaker 5: So it was really good.
40:01
Speaker 3: That's wonderful.
40:03
Speaker 1: So you did you plan out the entire route and
40:06
Speaker 1: plan out where you wanted to camp or which villages
40:08
Speaker 1: you wanted to go, and then gave it to the
40:10
Speaker 1: guide or did they have some input?
40:12
Speaker 2: Roughly the provinces only the provinces.
40:16
Speaker 1: You can choose your own adventure sort of, so you.
40:19
Speaker 5: Can, yeah, and then if you want to go through
40:22
Speaker 5: that province, that's an additional few permits and stuff.
40:25
Speaker 1: Gotcha spending so much time with the guide? Were there
40:29
Speaker 1: things that you learned about China, like politically or just
40:32
Speaker 1: what the life is like for the local people, or
40:35
Speaker 1: anything food related that you that was particularly interesting?
40:40
Speaker 5: I think yeah, so things like again, you know, these
40:43
Speaker 5: things spread among travelers or future travelers like, oh, you
40:48
Speaker 5: have to have a guide in China. He must be
40:50
Speaker 5: a spy who will then report on you to the
40:53
Speaker 5: government in some ways, and it's like it's total bs.
40:57
Speaker 2: You know, it's not.
40:58
Speaker 3: I didn't even think about that.
41:00
Speaker 2: No, that's that's what That's what we actually asked. So
41:03
Speaker 2: are you reporting that it was a joke? By then,
41:07
Speaker 2: because we got to know that it was it was.
41:11
Speaker 2: We became really good friends by then. But so we
41:14
Speaker 2: could actually ask these kind of silly questions and he
41:16
Speaker 2: loved so yeah, and he said no he wasn't. But
41:23
Speaker 2: but then so things like that.
41:24
Speaker 5: And also when we went through the smaller or very
41:29
Speaker 5: tiny villages, but in like the Tibetan culture areas, he
41:33
Speaker 5: told us a lot of information about how they live
41:35
Speaker 5: and what they do and how they.
41:37
Speaker 2: Bury their dead or how for example, food.
41:39
Speaker 5: We were all really interested in food because it was fantastic.
41:43
Speaker 5: There's I've been to a lot of Chinese places around
41:45
Speaker 5: the world a lot, but it doesn't it's not the same.
41:48
Speaker 2: I don't know why, but it's.
41:50
Speaker 6: What were these dishes you were having?
41:52
Speaker 2: I don't know the names.
41:53
Speaker 5: I mean they were a lot of them were vegetable based, yeah,
41:57
Speaker 5: plant based.
41:58
Speaker 3: Yes, sorry, my favorite puck choy. And I'm so happy
42:02
Speaker 3: that in Canada I can buy packtoy anywhere anywhere, so
42:07
Speaker 3: we always have some packed choys in our freez, so
42:09
Speaker 3: that was my favorite. And also broccoli with some mushrooms
42:13
Speaker 3: in you know, oyster sauce. This was another famous Chinese dish,
42:18
Speaker 3: eggs with some tomatoes and they put it on pasta
42:24
Speaker 3: and also on the top of the rice, so you
42:27
Speaker 3: can eat it with pasta or rice whatever you like.
42:30
Speaker 3: So that was These were my favorites. And also we
42:34
Speaker 3: ate Beijing Duck.
42:35
Speaker 2: I think the smallest place is like just on the
42:37
Speaker 2: side of the road.
42:38
Speaker 5: Let's say we drove for three hours and it's lunchtime
42:40
Speaker 5: and we're in a mountain somewhere.
42:42
Speaker 2: It's not even a village, just like a shack.
42:44
Speaker 5: You can go inside and order and it doesn't even
42:48
Speaker 5: look clean or anything.
42:49
Speaker 2: Then we would order. The food was fantastic.
42:51
Speaker 5: Every single time we've stopped in one of these dodgy places,
42:55
Speaker 5: I was obsessed with food there.
42:56
Speaker 2: So I was at lunch, I was waiting for dinner
42:58
Speaker 2: and dinner for lunch.
43:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, and sometimes the owner of the restaurant allowed me
43:04
Speaker 3: to go back to the kitchen and have a look
43:07
Speaker 3: at the fridge and just decide what we would like
43:10
Speaker 3: to eat. I mean we could pick our vegetables and
43:13
Speaker 3: our meat. Yeah, but thanks to our guides, because of
43:17
Speaker 3: our guide, because she and he was really kind to
43:22
Speaker 3: us and they just wanted to make sure that we
43:25
Speaker 3: have a very good time in China. So they always
43:27
Speaker 3: ask the owners of the restaurants that we could go,
43:32
Speaker 3: you know, to the kitchen and have a look around
43:34
Speaker 3: and to decide what we would like to eat.
43:37
Speaker 6: A cool experience.
43:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, and also they were really open minded about white
43:41
Speaker 3: camping because what we heard from other groups that the
43:45
Speaker 3: guide was really strict about, you know, about camping, so
43:49
Speaker 3: they couldn't camp or they had to go to touristic hotels.
43:54
Speaker 3: So they spent a fortune on our hotels. Yeah, but
43:57
Speaker 3: our guides just are our own very amazing Yeah.
44:01
Speaker 5: Sorry, they had their own tent with them, so they
44:04
Speaker 5: like we came all together in like in really like
44:08
Speaker 5: the Tibetan Plateau or a similar area. We were lucky
44:11
Speaker 5: to go through the remote for us, it seemed remote
44:14
Speaker 5: parts of China.
44:15
Speaker 1: What were some cultural experiences that you had that change
44:20
Speaker 1: the way that you see the world anywhere in that
44:22
Speaker 1: whole trip. It doesn't have to be China, it could
44:24
Speaker 1: be anything.
44:26
Speaker 2: Very very deep question.
44:27
Speaker 5: I have to think, I have to think about it,
44:30
Speaker 5: but I think it's more like in general, like, for example,
44:33
Speaker 5: how careful we need to be with our resources. And
44:36
Speaker 5: it's so that's not necessarily a cultural thing. But on
44:40
Speaker 5: the other hand, we see now waste everywhere, Like we
44:43
Speaker 5: went through China. There's or not China, but like the
44:46
Speaker 5: whole of Asia, and it's just and it's not just there,
44:49
Speaker 5: but talking of distrip, there is garbage everywhere and the
44:52
Speaker 5: beaches are in a really bad shape. So it was
44:55
Speaker 5: an eye opening kind of a trip, I guess, to
44:59
Speaker 5: how careful we need to be with this planet right now,
45:01
Speaker 5: because it could be too late.
45:03
Speaker 2: And it's a cliche because this.
45:04
Speaker 5: Comes from everywhere now, TV, radio, whatever, podcast or whatever,
45:08
Speaker 5: whatever you're reading, it's all about that now, and people
45:10
Speaker 5: may get bored of this, but it's so true. It's
45:13
Speaker 5: so true. So that's yeah. I mean again, Another thing
45:17
Speaker 5: is that we learned is that we maybe now talking
45:20
Speaker 5: of cultures, the local people are always really nice and
45:23
Speaker 5: maybe on a bigger scale of things, politics ruins everything,
45:27
Speaker 5: and that could be true for Iran. We went through
45:29
Speaker 5: Iran in twenty fourteen. The most fantastic people in the
45:32
Speaker 5: world are Iranians or like went through places where I
45:37
Speaker 5: think generally people wouldn't choose as a travel destination necessarily,
45:42
Speaker 5: like Kazakhstan. We've had fantastic people in Kazakhstan. They are
45:45
Speaker 5: very very welcoming and just in general how local people
45:48
Speaker 5: live wherever you go, like where you go very far,
45:51
Speaker 5: people go to like kids go to school, people go
45:53
Speaker 5: to work, parents pick them up and its life goes on.
45:56
Speaker 5: And maybe they are half as rich as the Western world,
46:00
Speaker 5: but life is normal, life is totally fine. I think
46:05
Speaker 5: that's that's that's something that we learned. Or like parts
46:08
Speaker 5: of Southeast Asia that used to be poor now it's
46:10
Speaker 5: kind of very developed. Thailand and Malaysian places like that.
46:14
Speaker 5: Just talking about generally about resources and stuff. You learn
46:16
Speaker 5: how to be resourceful with water very much or electricity actually,
46:21
Speaker 5: because like do you run out of electricity, or your
46:23
Speaker 5: vetter is going to last until the morning, or or
46:26
Speaker 5: your food's gonna go off because the fridge stops working,
46:29
Speaker 5: or you run out of water and you cannot drink
46:32
Speaker 5: in the morning, things like that, and you just care for.
46:34
Speaker 1: And back home. I think we're used to turning the
46:37
Speaker 1: tap on and take it for grown and definitely and
46:41
Speaker 1: so it's your wee rewiring your brain. Use only what
46:46
Speaker 1: you have because you don't know when.
46:48
Speaker 5: And it was funny, wet we met a Canadian girl
46:52
Speaker 5: who they were with, the whole family. They were traveling
46:55
Speaker 5: through to all the way to Malaysia and then back
46:58
Speaker 5: with a camper van. And she said she went back
47:00
Speaker 5: to because we met them like a year later as
47:02
Speaker 5: well in Europe. So she said she went back to
47:05
Speaker 5: the office to work, same job she went back to.
47:07
Speaker 5: And then she was standing around in the in the
47:10
Speaker 5: office kitchen or whatever. Somebody was opening the fridge and
47:13
Speaker 5: then talking to her and just like leaving the fridge open,
47:16
Speaker 5: and she closed the fridge because she got annoyed with
47:18
Speaker 5: the fridge being open. Yeah, because you're really careful with
47:21
Speaker 5: like your you got a small fridge and it's running
47:24
Speaker 5: off of the batteries and you don't want to lose the.
47:27
Speaker 2: Coldness of the fridge. Ye, just careful.
47:31
Speaker 5: I remember closing the faucet on somebody else like we
47:33
Speaker 5: headed run and the running water you use, you're not
47:36
Speaker 5: using that.
47:38
Speaker 1: I remember coming back and doing dishes by hand with
47:42
Speaker 1: hot water and it being like this big deal, and
47:45
Speaker 1: I was. I would be obsessed with washing dishes and
47:48
Speaker 1: then on and people are like, just put it in
47:50
Speaker 1: the dishwasher. I'm like, but I have hot water and
47:52
Speaker 1: soap is so amazing. Like it was weird, but it
47:56
Speaker 1: changes you. What was the most hilarious thing that happened
47:59
Speaker 1: yours to say, a board trap.
48:02
Speaker 2: There was a few funny things happened.
48:04
Speaker 3: Yeah. So we met a Russian family in Kazakstan and
48:09
Speaker 3: next to a campsite and we were just decided to
48:13
Speaker 3: park close to the buildings there. They were like weekend cottages.
48:18
Speaker 3: One of them, the Russian family invited us to their
48:21
Speaker 3: cottage to have a dinner together, but we couldn't cannot
48:24
Speaker 3: speak Russian and they cannot they couldn't speak English. So
48:28
Speaker 3: we had a whole night together, having a really good
48:31
Speaker 3: time together. But we were speaking by the Google translator
48:36
Speaker 3: all night. Yeah, it was fantastic. And also in Mongolia,
48:40
Speaker 3: we went through our national park and there was a
48:44
Speaker 3: really really flooded area, so we just decided, let's take a.
48:48
Speaker 5: Turn go around the field next to it looked better
48:52
Speaker 5: than the road, which is like a track really it's
48:54
Speaker 5: not a road.
48:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it turned out it was horseful that.
49:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, the whole area, and yeah, the whole truck just
49:05
Speaker 2: like just sat in the whole puddle of horsemenure. We
49:10
Speaker 2: stepped out of the car and we sank until like
49:13
Speaker 2: mid thighs.
49:15
Speaker 3: And I lost my fleet from there and they are
49:18
Speaker 3: still there, so it was pretty difficult to recover the
49:23
Speaker 3: truck from there.
49:23
Speaker 5: But we were like, we were covered in crap, really
49:27
Speaker 5: and we were we didn't know what to do. It
49:29
Speaker 5: was just like two hours until the first land cruiser
49:32
Speaker 5: that was big enough to pull us out arrived. So
49:34
Speaker 5: we were sitting there, not not in a level way,
49:36
Speaker 5: and we're like, how are we going to even sleep
49:39
Speaker 5: here if we like we are covered in this thing?
49:41
Speaker 5: And what we're going to do now. Obviously you end
49:44
Speaker 5: up in situations like this and it always resolves itself somewhow.
49:47
Speaker 5: I think the most hilarious story that we have from
49:50
Speaker 5: that trip, and it's not it's not our story, but
49:52
Speaker 5: we heard it from the person that happened with this
49:55
Speaker 5: girl who was running her motorcycle from Switzerland to Mongolia
49:59
Speaker 5: and she stopped in dodgy motel in Kazakhstan and there
50:02
Speaker 5: was this person knocking on her door during the night
50:05
Speaker 5: and then when she opened the door, there was this
50:07
Speaker 5: guy standing with a gun.
50:08
Speaker 2: And when the guy sees her, he says, sorry, wrong door, and.
50:15
Speaker 3: He asked her out. The next day.
50:21
Speaker 1: You guys are now in Canada with yourobacco, and so
50:26
Speaker 1: you finished up your you're sitting a poor trip and
50:28
Speaker 1: then what did you have a couple of few years
50:30
Speaker 1: at home?
50:31
Speaker 2: We went to Australia. No, we went. We had this
50:35
Speaker 2: little road trip in Australia.
50:37
Speaker 5: It wasn't it wasn't necessarily an overlanding trip, but it
50:41
Speaker 5: was a massive but it was a longish road trip
50:44
Speaker 5: on the east coast of Australia, and it was connected.
50:48
Speaker 5: The main purpose of going there was actually a very
50:51
Speaker 5: good friend of mine's wedding. And then we've done obviously
50:53
Speaker 5: a little.
50:54
Speaker 2: Two three weeks trip there and then I think that
50:58
Speaker 2: was the last trip since like after that world has changed.
51:03
Speaker 2: So we've done that, and then we already knew like
51:07
Speaker 2: let's buy then come back to Australia, let's bring our
51:09
Speaker 2: product back to Australia or something like that. But then
51:11
Speaker 2: obviously all those plans went out of we know, and
51:14
Speaker 2: then we're here now because now we can travel again, right, I.
51:17
Speaker 1: Was going to say, So you have this van and
51:19
Speaker 1: you shipped from Germany to Halifax, Canada. How did you
51:23
Speaker 1: decide that the Pan American Highway was next for you?
51:26
Speaker 5: We wanted something as big as the Budapir Singapore trip,
51:30
Speaker 5: and then there's two options. We either drive through Africa
51:35
Speaker 5: or we do this the Pan American and the Pan American.
51:38
Speaker 5: Obviously we've done a bit of Africa already, so let's
51:41
Speaker 5: do something else. So that's how we ended up the
51:44
Speaker 5: Pan American. And I think it's bigger as well, like
51:46
Speaker 5: in terms of like length, and I don't know, I've
51:49
Speaker 5: been to South America before and I just know I
51:51
Speaker 5: want to go back, so I want to do that.
51:53
Speaker 5: And I've never been to Central America and Evelyn's never
51:56
Speaker 5: been on the American continents. So it's all like the
52:00
Speaker 5: I don't know, the scale was tipping towards the Americas.
52:04
Speaker 5: We are really overwhelmed with what we've seen in the
52:07
Speaker 5: last four weeks already, So I don't know what this
52:11
Speaker 5: next year and five months brings. If that's how it's
52:14
Speaker 5: long's going to be, I don't know.
52:16
Speaker 1: So you've come from the Maritimes of in Canada across
52:21
Speaker 1: the country and you're actually getting close to the western side,
52:26
Speaker 1: so you've made it almost all the way across. Actually,
52:29
Speaker 1: what are some You've never been to North America before?
52:32
Speaker 2: No?
52:33
Speaker 1: Never, What is it like like? Did you have preconceived
52:36
Speaker 1: notions of what it would be like here? Are there
52:38
Speaker 1: weird things that you're like, why is this like this?
52:41
Speaker 1: What's surprising?
52:42
Speaker 3: May sound cilly, but I just that everything is like
52:46
Speaker 3: in the movies, you know, this big Mick in the
52:51
Speaker 3: in the Supermarke.
52:54
Speaker 5: Just little things, little details seems very funny or strange
52:58
Speaker 5: to Evelyn.
52:59
Speaker 3: Yeah. And also the scenery is proper camp sites. They're
53:04
Speaker 3: just like in the movies. So for me, it's just wonderful. Yeah. Like,
53:09
Speaker 3: I love Canada, especially the people here. They are so friendly.
53:12
Speaker 3: They are really I know, chattiv us. They are really
53:17
Speaker 3: friendly and always asked us how do we feel ourselves here?
53:22
Speaker 3: Do we have a good time here? They also invite
53:26
Speaker 3: us to their feel to stay there, I mean, to
53:29
Speaker 3: their garden or to their house to stay there.
53:34
Speaker 2: Yeah.
53:34
Speaker 3: So and they are very helpfuless, So.
53:37
Speaker 1: I'm glad to hear that. As a Canadian, I'm always like, oh,
53:40
Speaker 1: I hope they're having a good time. That's great, So
53:44
Speaker 1: you're going to head up to so yeah.
53:46
Speaker 2: So we're near Bench.
53:47
Speaker 5: Now we're going to have to Alaska towards Alaska, and
53:51
Speaker 5: we're going to discover north western side of Canada as
53:54
Speaker 5: well a bit of Alaska. Now we know we're probably
53:57
Speaker 5: not going to go to talk, which is fine, I think.
54:01
Speaker 5: I think the only reason why we would have gone
54:03
Speaker 5: to all the main reason we would have gone to
54:05
Speaker 5: talk is just to be able to say that we
54:06
Speaker 5: went to the northern coast.
54:08
Speaker 2: So we can say that we went to the Arctic.
54:10
Speaker 5: We're going to go north enough, I think, and it's
54:12
Speaker 5: not the point is not to be able to say
54:14
Speaker 5: something importance is to you have to, you know, enjoy
54:16
Speaker 5: our trip and discover whatever we want to discover. And
54:19
Speaker 5: we're going to go into Alaska and then we turn
54:22
Speaker 5: around and start heading south. And I've never spent a
54:26
Speaker 5: bit of time on the east coast of the US,
54:28
Speaker 5: but never been on the west coast or on the
54:30
Speaker 5: western side, so that's going to be really great.
54:32
Speaker 2: And going into those in the southwest of the US.
54:35
Speaker 2: Really looking forward to that.
54:36
Speaker 5: And I've never been south of the US in Central America,
54:39
Speaker 5: only to South America, so.
54:41
Speaker 1: There are one or two questions that I usually ask
54:43
Speaker 1: on every podcast, and in this one, I'm going to
54:48
Speaker 1: ask you if you could choose any country in the
54:50
Speaker 1: whole world to go to right now, where would you
54:52
Speaker 1: go and why you go first?
54:54
Speaker 3: Oh, it's hard to choose. I would say Chile because
54:59
Speaker 3: I have never in there, but I saw some pictures
55:02
Speaker 3: on the internet and I also heard stories from it
55:04
Speaker 3: or overland.
55:05
Speaker 2: There's that is just a.
55:06
Speaker 3: Beautiful country, so diverse. I'm really looking forward to see
55:11
Speaker 3: it in person. Yeah, I would say chially, but also
55:16
Speaker 3: so it's hard to too, it's really.
55:18
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah, I had these twenty seconds
55:22
Speaker 5: to think about it, but I don't have a good
55:24
Speaker 5: answer because there's too many options.
55:25
Speaker 2: There's too many.
55:26
Speaker 5: I mean, I guess the reason why we're here because
55:28
Speaker 5: this was our choice to be here. So that's why
55:31
Speaker 5: we're here. I mean right now, I don't want to
55:33
Speaker 5: be anywhere else. I want to see I want to see, Yeah,
55:35
Speaker 5: I want to see what's you know, north of here.
55:38
Speaker 2: I want to see what's there.
55:39
Speaker 5: But then, you know, we were looking through the we
55:42
Speaker 5: went through the plans of where we can go, and
55:44
Speaker 5: based on your advice, where we could be in Central
55:47
Speaker 5: and South America and all those places, and I said, like,
55:50
Speaker 5: I cannot wait to be around there. But then I
55:53
Speaker 5: don't want to wish this trip away in terms of
55:55
Speaker 5: like you know, like okay that that place can wait,
55:59
Speaker 5: and we.
55:59
Speaker 1: See here and be in the moment, we soak it
56:03
Speaker 1: all in because you never know when you're going to
56:05
Speaker 1: be back.
56:05
Speaker 5: Yeah, and then people are gonna ask which was which
56:08
Speaker 5: part was the highlight of the trip, and I won't
56:10
Speaker 5: won't have an answer for that because I don't have
56:12
Speaker 5: an answer for the Singapore trip either or the Bolupest
56:16
Speaker 5: to Africa trip, or I just cannot choose because there
56:21
Speaker 5: are too many good places to see and I think
56:23
Speaker 5: we've seen a big part of the planet, but still
56:25
Speaker 5: very little.
56:26
Speaker 2: There's still too much to see.
56:28
Speaker 1: If people want to find you online, where should they go.
56:32
Speaker 1: I know your website is very, very thorough and has
56:36
Speaker 1: a lot of resources and a lot of times but
56:39
Speaker 1: have put into it, so yeah, let us know where
56:41
Speaker 1: we can find you.
56:42
Speaker 5: Yeah, the website is over landside dot com as in
56:45
Speaker 5: si te verlandside dot com, and of course the Instagram,
56:49
Speaker 5: which is over inside underscore com. And we're trying to
56:52
Speaker 5: build a YouTube channel now, we have a lot of
56:54
Speaker 5: footage from our earlier trips as well that I just
56:56
Speaker 5: never had the energy to add it together or like
57:00
Speaker 5: create the stories, which I will.
57:02
Speaker 2: I promise.
57:03
Speaker 5: But now right now we're building or creating the videos
57:06
Speaker 5: about this stript so pretty much as we go, pretty
57:10
Speaker 5: much live, same.
57:11
Speaker 1: Name for the YouTube channel. Thank you guys so much
57:14
Speaker 1: for being guests on the Overland Journal podcast. I so
57:17
Speaker 1: appreciate you sharing your experiences and all the funny things
57:20
Speaker 1: that happen, your goals and everything. So thank you for
57:23
Speaker 1: having me as a guest in your a echo. We're
57:25
Speaker 1: really excited to follow your journey south.
57:28
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you really.
57:31
Speaker 1: Thank you so much to all of the Overland Journal
57:34
Speaker 1: listeners and subscribers for tuning into this episode, and we
57:38
Speaker 1: will catch you next time.
57:41
Speaker 3: Bye.