Latest / Zone2Speak Podcast / 15,000 Miles Across Asia: Photographer Eleanor Moseman’s Story of Cycling, Art & Transformation

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15,000 Miles Across Asia: Photographer Eleanor Moseman’s Story of Cycling, Art & Transformation · Zone2Speak Podcast

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Now, let's get into the episode. Thank you.
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Today, I am thrilled to host the incredibly talented Eleonore Mosman,
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a photographer, storyteller, and modern-day adventurist.
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Between 2008 and 2020, Eleonore was based in China, and for two years,
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she embarked on an extensive solo cycling journey across Asia,
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covering over 15,000 miles through seven countries.
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This expedition allowed her to intimately document the lives of the people in
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the western borderlands of China, including Tibet and Uyghur,
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providing a unique perspective on those regions.
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In this episode, I will dive into her extraordinary journey,
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exploring the intersection of art,
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culture, and adventure, from stories behind her stunning photography to her
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experiences navigating these remote and complex regions.
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Eleonora brings us a deeply personal and thought-provoking perspective. Fear is her power.
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Get ready for a conversation filled with inspiration, insight,
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and a celebration of humanity through the lenses of a true explorer.
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Leonor, welcome to Zone to Speak.
3:46
Hey, Juliana. Thanks for having me. Your intro is going to make me cry.
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That was very beautiful. Thank you. Oh, it's all you. It's all you.
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I am so happy you made the time.
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I was looking forward to this for a long time. I've been following you,
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and I think you are amazing as a photographer, as a woman, as a cyclist.
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You know, you've been going to these remote regions and documenting,
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you know, stories through your photography.
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So if I take a step back, how did you become even interested in photography? Yeah.
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Well, I was that child that always drew.
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And I've been going through some personal things in life that have made me kind
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of go back to why I was that kid that just kind of retreated to quiet places and drew constantly.
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And I started winning awards for my drawing.
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I remember I won a pizza party for my class of first grade. Awesome.
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So I've never known anything else but being an artist.
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Like that was just, it was my calling from the very beginning.
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And so I took, you know, I was in all the art classes and did all the awards
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and was that, you know, star art student up through high school.
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And then I started applying to colleges and I wanted to go to art schools so badly, so badly.
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And I applied and I was accepted to some of the best art schools in the country.
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But my parents looked at me and said, we can't afford that.
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And I think I can look back at that moment and just realize like some of us
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are dealt a deck of cards where we have to find our own way through it.
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And I think at that young age, I mean, it was 17, just realizing like,
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well, as I used to tell my dad, life isn't fair.
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And he would tell me, you're right, get over it.
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So it was a I just remember crying
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and crying and crying and crying you know wishing that
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I could go to these art schools and so I
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was I just kind of gave up for a brief moment and I ended up going to a university
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that was in my hometown I actually failed out of my painting class because it
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was eight o'clock in the morning and that teacher ripped my paintbrush out of
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my hand she's like you're doing it wrong this is how you do it and she like
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put my paint on my canvas I was like okay hey,
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this world really isn't for me.
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So I was painting and drawing from photographs, and I eventually went back to
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school a year later after taking some time off and went to school in Richmond, Virginia.
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It was actually a public university in the state of Virginia where I grew up,
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so tuition was a little bit more affordable.
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And they have a really good art program. and
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so I took some art foundation courses and
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I applied to the photography program I was around
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20 19 20 and it
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stuck and I excelled in the program I got out I had these grandiose dreams of
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moving to New York City and being a photographer I ended up in New York City
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those dreams again didn't work out the way I thought they were going to.
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And I was photo assisting and I actually worked in a photo studio where we photographed artwork.
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Artwork for private artists, artwork for galleries, artwork for museums.
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I saw some of the most amazing art.
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I've seen original Warhols. I've seen original work that is just unbelievable.
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But I remember having conversations with artists. I remember having conversations with...
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Gallery owners and the mix of like gallery
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owners coming in their fancy cars and suit being like
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oh yeah we found the next young hot artist and then
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the artist coming in and being like Eleanor can you
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take payments on these photography services because
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I don't know how I'm going to pay my bills and so I was like I saw the art world
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I was like this is not what I want to be involved in like it's not me like it's
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not who I am and I met some really amazing artists that gave me words of wisdom about the world.
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And I remember somebody, I remember one artist being like, how old are you?
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And I was like, 23, I'm 24.
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And he's like, give it till you're 35.
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Then you'll have a better idea. And I remember thinking, well,
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what do you mean? I know everything right now.
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But anyway, so this is kind of like, kind of a waffling way of telling how I got into photography.
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I was burned out on it. I took some time off. I had a partner in New York who
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was Taiwanese-American, and his brother was working in Shanghai,
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China, and he offered my partner a job there, and Jason is his name.
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And he looked at me and said, hey, do you want to move to China?
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And I did not like New York City. I was barely making it by. I was photocisting.
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I was, I think, 25 at the time, and I saw this as an opportunity.
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You're like, yeah, get me out of here.
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Like, I want to go. So I got to China and started pushing into the world of
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photography. And that's pretty much where it kind of stuck.
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Wow. Yeah, I can see how you saw the art world clashing, you know,
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with the artists versus gallery owners.
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And I guess this interwined road that brought you to photography,
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I guess it was good because you could see different,
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parts of the industry and you
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are an amazing photographer well well thank
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you but you know another thing that opened me up was that
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I was I I
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say it's so young now but I know at the time I didn't think
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that I didn't have any life experiences and I
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would look at the the art that came in and I
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would like talk to the artist or learn about the art and they had
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such a rich like life of experiences
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and I knew that like being a photo
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assistant and sitting in a studio in New York City was not going to give me
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like the awareness and introspection and all this thing all these things that
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are needed to make like truly like riveting work that people can feel.
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Yeah you're thirst for knowledge for experience so you made your way to Shanghai
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and what drew you to start this journey through tibet and yukur and ladak for your work.
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How blunt do you want me to be as blunt
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as you want you can share with us it's been it's i've
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always kind of held it back a little bit about being completely honest
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and a friend recently asked me he was like so so
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why did you do this and because people still ask me and
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i'm like I hated my life and I wanted to die
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and it was like leaving Shanghai on
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a bicycle was the easiest the most safest and best
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way to just disappear escape yeah
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and I I got to Shanghai
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I couldn't speak the language my partner was working
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long hours he spoke Mandarin and
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if you've ever seen that movie lost in translation like
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it speaks to me on such a deep level and and i'd always been obsessed with asia
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ever since i was in high school and i'm even one of those americans that made
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the poor choice of getting chinese tattoo when i was 18 but luckily the characters are good.
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It's a generational thing right yeah luckily
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the chinese chinese people are like oh i love your tattoo
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but such a nice character I'm like okay thanks and I
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used to New York and every time I went to Chinatown they pointed out and laughed
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but it's okay it's okay well we're around the same generation so yeah that was
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the thing so I got there and I just got so depressed and looking back at it
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you know I still try to make sense of it all.
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I just was so lost. I just didn't know who I was. I didn't know what I wanted
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to do. I didn't know who I wanted to be.
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I kind of had an idea of what I wanted to do.
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And, you know, in my early 20s, I was one of those angry punk rock kids that
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listened to metal and just was
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just so like pent up against the situation that we all see in the world.
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And I don't know if it was because i'm hyper aware or
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just extremely sensitive which i
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was always told and you know i saw it as a
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bad thing but i just i was so
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isolated in china and i felt so alone and so like away it's like just i just
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felt so like just in my own planet i just and i didn't have the money to travel
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china the way I saw most people travel.
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I remember taking a bus ride with my partner to a mountain and I just remember
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sitting in the bus being like, I just want the bus to stop so I can go talk
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to those people in the village.
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I just want to stop and talk to these people.
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And going back a little bit, my interest in looking at people,
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you'll hear photographers, at least I do, a lot of photographers say,
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oh, you know, National Geographic, I used to look at those magazines and just
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want to be that photographer.
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I looked at those magazines. I want to be like, I just want to be a fly on the
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wall and live with these people and just experience it all. That's what I want to do.
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So I got really depressed. And I remember Christmas morning, my partner was working.
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I'd been in China for maybe five to six months.
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Just the lowest of the low of my entire life. And I just remember thinking,
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I have to do something about this.
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Either I'm going to die or I just need to disappear and figure this out.
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And so I looked at my partner one day, a few days after that.
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We were young. He didn't understand what I was going through. And I looked at him.
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I said, let's do a bike tour across China because it was cheap and I could budget
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that. And he looked at me and he goes, no, you do it then. And I was like, okay.
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So I spent months and months and months researching things.
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Looking over maps, talking to people. My partner, we're actually still very
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good friends, and he was very supportive of the whole endeavor.
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And so on May of 2010, I finally rode my bicycle out of Shanghai in the direction
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of west. I had no planned route. I had no serious agenda.
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I was just gonna go west that's that's all I
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thought and incredible and
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did you have so you said you had a bike so you used
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your bike did you you were just like a casual
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leisure cyclist yeah
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so I had I always commuted by bicycle when I was in
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college and then I moved to New York City where I met my
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partner at the time and I was a cigarette smoker
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as well and he said I have this extra a fixed
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gear track bike i'll give it to you if you quit smoking and
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i like him he's a good
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guy he's a very good guy and so
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i've had other boyfriends that had tried to convince
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me to quit smoking i was like okay it's a
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deal so we rode fixed gears
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around new york city that whole scene of the i guess
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that was like around 2004 2005 i would
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go out to the park and do laps with him he would race
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at the velodrome so I got to like learn about all this stuff
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and then when we got to Shanghai he he helped
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me get a road bike and and then
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when I decided to do the bike tour I wrote to Soma
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Fabrications in California and they sponsored me with
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a frame because I had wrote to.
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Them telling them who I was and what made me a little
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bit different than everybody else and it was I was based in
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China and I spoke a little bit of the language so you
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know finding those little pieces that make you a little bit different
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nice okay so you got your bike you got some bike bags you pack your stuff and
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you go west and then what happens next tell me i'm like sitting on the edge
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of my seat well the reason i headed west was because i was at this noodle.
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It was Uyghur food, Xinjiang food.
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And I asked Jason's brother, my partner's brother, I was like, who are these people?
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They do not look Chinese. And he goes, oh, they're from China.
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And so he started explaining to me who the Uyghurs were and the region.
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And so, of course, I just go home. I start researching everything.
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And I'm so like, oh, my God, like this place is like, I just want to ride towards Kashgar.
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I'm just going to go ride west.
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Kashgar is a major trade route on the ancient Silk Road.
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I was familiar a little bit with Tibet because my partner is Buddhist and his
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mother is, you know, believer of Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhism.
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So I kind of knew a little bit about all of that.
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And my partner being Taiwanese, I kind of knew about the situation with Taiwan.
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So I had a little bit of political awareness and geopolitics and such,
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but hopped on the bike, went west, well, planned on going west,
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but I first headed north along the Grand Canal.
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So I was going to go all the way up to the Russian border.
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And then I ended up going into Mongolia for a little while. And Jason,
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my partner at the time, he joined me for a little bit into Mongolia, but I got really sick.
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And my camera, like one of my smaller cameras was taken from me.
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So I was like, I speak Chinese. This is hard.
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Like, I don't like me in Mongolia. It's cold. I'm sick.
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No one, like, I can't speak to people. So we left Mongolia.
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And I looked at my budget for a little while and realized I had some money situations.
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So I went back to Shanghai and worked for a couple months, saved up,
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and then went back out west.
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And within a few months, I found myself in Tibet.
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And then there was, I don't know if it's an arrest, but my passport was confiscated.
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I was put into police custody, escorted out of Tibet, and then took a month
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or two to recover from that.
19:09
Oh, I crossed the border illegally. Okay.
19:14
That will do. Were you distracted on the bike or?
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Distracted with. What do you know what you were doing? um so
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i was in part of tibet eastern
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tibet which is more free to travel through
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and then there's a region called tibet autonomous region which
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is what more lay people think of tibet where you need a permit to get into and
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lassa is there but there's actually three kingdoms of tibet and this can get
19:43
really confusing but anyways i was in eastern tibet and i hear this american
19:49
in cyclists screaming at me, hey, you have my bicycle.
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And he came running up to me and I was like, are you on drugs?
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And he had the same bicycle as me. He had a... Wow, what a coincidence.
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Yeah, he had actually had the prototype because he had lived in San Francisco.
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And we started riding together. I was like, oh, this is fun.
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Like, he's fun. We were riding on single track, really pushing limits.
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We were sneaking back by like police checkpoints at night he's like let's go
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to tibet and i'm like oh well why not you know sure try again so we.
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Yeah and so we there were two coal trucks and
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we had this thing where i would wave down the
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trucks and then he would like jump out and like like wheel
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and deal with them about getting us over the border so my bike was tied to the
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top of a coal truck and his bike was tied tied to the top of another coal truck
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and they took us over the border around four o'clock in the morning and then
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unloaded us and he and I had a major fight a day later in Tibet and we separated.
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He had the maps, he had the gasoline for the stove, he had the working stove,
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because I had just thought, oh, well, we'll ride together so we can,
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like, kind of split up things.
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And that was a point in my life where I told myself I will always,
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always, always be self-sufficient, no matter who's with me, no matter what.
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Like, have my own tools, have everything to keep me alive, because you don't
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know what's going to happen. And yeah, yeah.
21:29
So you get to Tibet and how you start connecting with people,
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with the communities and documenting your journey.
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Yeah, I guess it happened probably leading up to Tibet.
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So even like early on in the bike tour, I went really, really slow.
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I was not looking to race through it.
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I was fortunate to have a work permit, so I didn't need to get out in 90 days.
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I just took it really slow and
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I had studied Chinese
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a little bit but I joke
22:05
and tell people I learned Mandarin Chinese
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on the streets and which I literally did
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like just talking to people and this was before Google Translate so
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you know I was using Chinese math so
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I would type in the character to learn it and so I actually
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learned how to read and write Chinese mostly from
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reading maps but it started off
22:27
really really early about connecting with
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people and I I haven't
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talked about this a lot but being a woman
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we have so many advantages
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over men traveling alone I am
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always invited into homes I'm like to
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the point where I have to like turn them down I'm left with
22:50
children I'm you know and like I
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share my stories with men and it's just a completely different
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story so I don't know if it's fair
22:59
to say but like I tell women who who
23:02
are apprehensive I'm like if you have like look
23:05
for your power as a woman like we have
23:08
something we can offer and give as
23:12
as traveling by ourselves because i'm you.
23:16
Know it's it's to the point where i'm just like no i have to keep riding my
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bike i cannot come in for another cup of tea and you know like i hear this because
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i'm always terrified of being alone on my bike so that it's it's true there
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we need to focus on the positives and not let fear drive and not.
23:36
Be out there and have these adventures or like you it's not just an adventure you are actually,
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capturing true stories and a lot of social and
23:45
environment issues yeah and
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it's just i think just embrace it i there
23:52
haven't been many times where i haven't been able to get help when i've
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been in bad situations and i remember
23:58
in tajikistan after almost going down
24:01
in a river this Russian man comes up
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to me he's like you are a woman we are men we are
24:07
here to help you and I just was thinking okay well
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I get I'm glad that still exists oh yeah
24:13
but yeah I started connecting with people probably from
24:16
the very beginning to speak enough Chinese I could
24:20
talk I met so many women and and young
24:24
girls that like wanted to ask me about America
24:28
ask me about school and I learned so much
24:31
by talking to women like I
24:34
remember this one girl very early on telling me how
24:37
her elder sister couldn't get married because she
24:40
had too good of an education and like
24:44
I just started learning all these things about women and
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and just yeah I was.
24:50
Just they just open up to me because it's like oh
24:53
well there's this woman here that's willing to listen I'm just
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gonna tell her everything and so I've heard so many stories
24:59
and yeah the the
25:02
photography just kind of happened it I
25:06
was actually going through my files yesterday and I can see the progression
25:10
of me as a photographer in the very beginning it was very like voyeur-esque
25:14
very otherly very exoticism just portraits of people and I wasn't recording
25:21
their names within two years I have their names.
25:25
I have their phone numbers. It's more of a story about them rather than just,
25:29
oh, click of the camera, let me move on.
25:31
Your question was about connecting to people in Tibet.
25:34
So in Tibet, that's what captured my heart. That was just the hook.
25:39
It's probably an unhealthy obsession at this point.
25:43
It's just, and especially in East Turkestan, which is also known as Xinjiang,
25:48
That captured my heart, too.
25:49
There's a big chunk of the world that just has just stuck into me and I cannot get rid of it.
25:56
And how has this cultural immersion impact your storytelling and your own personal growth?
26:04
Well, there's a few moments. I was actually just talking to a researcher with
26:11
Tibetan Buddhism today about how explorers 100,
26:17
150 years ago used to take photographs of Tibetans and dress them up and pose
26:22
them and have them act these things out.
26:24
So there's a, I was always stared at in China.
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Well, I'm almost six foot and a white American speaking Chinese on a bicycle
26:35
by herself. So I was always stared at.
26:37
So it's kind of oblivious to me.
26:39
But I remember this one moment I was in Tibet and I had asked for some help.
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And this woman had given me a room with this big window.
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It was probably eight feet wide, five feet high.
26:51
In the middle of nowhere, Tibet. This is when I had entered illegally,
26:55
so I was trying to stay away from the police.
26:57
And I look over, and there's probably 20 Tibetan faces staring at me through the window.
27:03
I felt like I was a zoo animal. And I remember looking at their faces,
27:07
and I remember thinking, I will never, ever, ever, ever allow somebody to feel
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the way I was feeling at that moment.
27:17
And to always be so aware of how I look at somebody, how I photograph somebody.
27:24
I need to know who they are. I need to know their name.
27:27
I need to have permission. I need all of this because that moment,
27:32
I can still, I can close my eyes and still see all these like weather-beaten,
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reddish-purple cheeks just staring at me, but their mouths gaping open and just
27:43
like, yeah, I can't do that to people.
27:45
Like this this is just we're all people like and so that was a moment that was
27:50
like this is this is a big lesson to you and some other things.
27:59
When i'm in really tough situations so i raced the silk road mountain race in 2022,
28:05
i remember being out there and there's other times too that i think about all
28:12
the people that I've met that have told me they would love to do what I want, what I do.
28:17
And I always think about them to get me through tough situations.
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I think about the people that can't, can't do these things.
28:27
And, you know, it's like you use the word inspiration and I've really,
28:31
really been like battling this word of inspiration and.
28:37
Like I said earlier, some of us are dealt a deck of cards, and I know for a
28:41
fact that there are women, and they've told me, they cannot have the life I
28:46
have because of culture, religion, geography.
28:50
It's just not going to happen.
28:53
And so that whole of, oh, well, you're the only person that's standing in your
28:56
way. Find your strength.
28:58
The fact of the matter is they can't, and they won't.
29:02
And there's been other times where I've been sexually assaulted and harassed in Asia.
29:07
And I get so angry. I get so angry.
29:10
The last time it happened, if I had caught that man, I would have ended up in prison.
29:16
And I just think about when I remind myself, I have the privilege to get on
29:22
my bicycle and ride away and never come back. I have the privilege to go to
29:26
the police. I have the privilege to tell my friends in the village.
29:28
But there are young women that this happens to countless times,
29:33
and they can't say anything. And they can't leave.
29:37
And they don't, you know, they have to live it with that for the rest of their lives.
29:40
So these are like, they're very sad. They're very upsetting.
29:44
They're very depressing moments.
29:47
But I keep all of that in me. And I remind myself, like, there's just simply
29:53
women that cannot do what we do.
29:57
And, you know, when bad things happen to me, I'm just like, well,
30:00
I get to put on my backpack and walk out of here.
30:03
Or I get the choice to wave out a taxi and get out of here.
30:07
So those have been moments that have opened my eyes to how to live or how to
30:13
be, but on more positive moments.
30:18
Tibetan and Uyghur culture really taught me how to stand up and fight for what you believe in.
30:27
And like you're
30:30
not supposed to have a photo of the dalai lama in tibet
30:33
but i know plenty of tibetans that have his
30:36
picture uyghurs are continually
30:39
persecuted for everything as
30:43
well and those women are fierce
30:46
i have spent time in
30:49
living rooms and kitchens with these women and they
30:52
are fiery and since then
30:56
when I look at protests when I look at activists it's these women that are just
31:00
using their voice and I think I've told people I think Uyghur women are the
31:07
group of women that taught me what womanhood is like they're so dedicated to their families,
31:14
religion culture but they you know they're willing to stand up and I think I
31:21
think that you know, it's just these lessons.
31:25
Tibetan women, again, a very, very difficult, hard life.
31:30
And with Tibet, it's kind of a caricature.
31:34
And I talked to other people who have spent a lot of time there.
31:38
And I actually brought my mom out once. And she was like, so do the men work?
31:44
And I'm like, oh, you caught on.
31:47
Well, they're going to ride motorcycles around for a while and go smoke cigarettes
31:51
and, you know, come back.
31:52
Not all Tibetan men, but I remember this one day, one of my friends,
31:58
she was carrying a big tea chest out of her house on these old metal steps.
32:04
And her husband is at the bottom directing her on how to do it.
32:07
And she has a big rope and this tea chest on her back that's probably,
32:12
again, five feet wide, six feet high.
32:14
And she's just carrying it down the steps because they've made a little summer
32:19
home. and she sleeps on the floor when her husband and son sleep in a bed.
32:24
So this is just like one story.
32:26
So is that cultural that the women are giving up so much for the man, husband, or son?
32:36
I really hate making broad sweeping stereotypes. I've seen it both ways.
32:42
So I've seen younger generations talk to me about, like younger generations
32:46
will be open with me and they're really trying to change things.
32:49
But you've traveled a bit. You've traveled a bit in conservative areas.
32:55
It's hard to make those stereotypes.
32:58
But, I mean, I've witnessed it. But I've also witnessed beautiful and amazing
33:04
loving relationships. There's this woman named Detchen.
33:07
And I actually wear a necklace that she gave me from years ago.
33:12
Her family is like, oh, Detchen's lucky. She fell in love with her husband.
33:16
They were collecting caterpillar fungus and
33:19
he was singing in the mountains and they fell in
33:22
love and you can see it you can see it between these two
33:25
he is he is an equal partner every way about it she will go out and swing that
33:33
axe and chop the firewood but he will help with the kids and so broad sweeping
33:39
stereotypes i really try to avoid but i've seen both ends of it and i've been in,
33:44
communities and villages and homes where it's just women and they're like we
33:48
don't need men like keep them out of here so.
33:54
Universal thought yeah,
33:58
So, yeah, I have a variety of stories. So I try not to paint a brush on everything
34:04
because I've seen some really beautiful relationships.
34:07
And I've also seen the other end of it.
34:11
And I know that the younger generations are really trying to fight against it.
34:14
I think it's just, you know, a little behind Western thought as well.
34:18
I mean, we still have the same thing here.
34:21
Exactly what I say when people ask me. I spent 10 years in the Middle East, and I love that region.
34:29
It's home to me. My daughter was pretty much raised there from 4 to 14. It's a lot of core years.
34:38
And yeah, I don't like to do general statements either, but it is a beautiful
34:45
region. And all this thing about silencing a woman also happens in the Western world.
34:50
Violence against women happens in the Western world. It's just easier to point
34:54
out just because a woman is covered.
34:57
And I know a lot of amazing and young women that are wearing a bias or covering
35:04
their hairs by her choice.
35:06
Yes, there's also the extreme spectrum where some families will not allow you to not be.
35:14
Be uncovered but there's a lot of women that actually
35:17
choose that it is their culture that's what they're comfortable with
35:20
the end yes oh
35:23
okay here man we need to liberate women from wearing hijabs and
35:27
covering i'm like i remember this
35:30
one moment i was it was the first time in east turkistan i
35:33
just started interacting with uyghurs and this woman
35:36
she's probably around our age at
35:39
the time she goes what is it with you western women you
35:42
wear all this makeup trying to cover up who you
35:45
really are and we're over here covering ourselves
35:48
up because we our family thinks
35:51
we're beautiful why should i share my beauty with just
35:54
anybody or everyone and i was just like okay
35:58
different points of
36:01
view you know it's okay yeah yeah
36:05
liberation is just letting people do what they want to do a hundred percent
36:10
beautifully said beautifully said accepting each other's differences and cultures
36:15
and let let it be yeah so just going back to all these stories,
36:23
at the end i mean there was a lot because you were on the road for two years.
36:30
What was your biggest takeaway what what what
36:33
did you want to say with your storytelling
36:37
through your pictures to bring awareness
36:41
to these people I mean don't know if you want to get political or environmental
36:46
social like or it was just to share their culture you like made me go like zip
36:54
through about a decade and a half in my brain of trying to figure this out.
37:00
So there's actually this one moment this one
37:03
moment so i actually just applied to
37:06
a writing fellowship to write this story about
37:09
the three weeks i was in tibet basically trying to
37:13
avoid the police and on my own and i remember ending that writing relationship
37:20
being like do i continue to be mistreated and continue to be belittled and continue
37:26
to be made to feel this way or trust that I can take care of myself.
37:31
Trust that I have the skills and the experience.
37:35
Get myself through this. I trusted myself.
37:39
I trusted myself. And that was such a pivotal point in my life.
37:44
And so when I think about when I have these moments in regular daily life where
37:48
I don't trust myself, I have to remind myself, trusting myself has gotten me to where I was.
37:55
But about a week and a half in, I have so many weird stories from then.
38:00
I don't know if it was because i was starving i don't know if i was because
38:03
of high altitude i've had people tell
38:06
me i was on a vision quest i don't know what was going on i
38:11
kept i kept it a secret for a couple of years because i
38:14
had people like come in and then it would
38:16
leave i had mental breakdowns on the plateau i have had
38:19
every single emotion but i remember this one moment
38:22
i'm sitting on the plateau i cannot
38:25
see anybody i see two buses a day one in
38:28
one direction one on the other that's how like no
38:31
life no life and there's this tibetan antelope
38:35
that keeps making its appearance to me like one two
38:38
and then i start seeing tracks but i remember i had found
38:41
a water source i had climbed up a bit to find the water source and i remember
38:46
seeing all their hooves hook prints i'm like oh they're around that's part of
38:51
the story for another time but i remember sitting there and the sun was setting
38:55
and i just remember sitting and staring and this is this is why i do things by myself Also,
39:00
it's because I do a lot of sitting and thinking stuff.
39:04
So I was just spitting, and I just remember looking over this plateau and just
39:07
thinking, I could die here and be okay.
39:11
Like, this is so beautiful. I am at such peace with myself.
39:16
I feel complete. I feel like I know who I am. I know what I want to do.
39:20
I could really just die here and be okay.
39:23
And then thinking, but people count on me. It would devastate my mom.
39:28
It would devastate my dad. I had all these people that would be like,
39:33
oh, well, Eleanor never came back.
39:35
And, you know, like, I just started thinking, like, this life really isn't for
39:39
me. It's for other people.
39:43
This is the point of life. It's not to gain money.
39:48
It's not to gain fame. It's not to be Instagram famous.
39:52
It is literally here to
39:54
help other people not suffer
39:58
as much as we all do
40:01
and that's the the buddhist thought
40:04
you know life is suffering and no one's suffering is more or less than the other
40:09
it's all suffering and i just and i was thinking about every little motion i
40:14
do because like i remember like looking at my hands and i could hear my heart
40:18
like pumping blood through my body because it's so silent out there.
40:22
And I remember just thinking every motion I make, every movement I make,
40:28
every pedal stroke, everything is affecting energy in this universe and ultimately
40:33
affecting something else, you know, the butterfly effect.
40:36
But I really like visually saw how every single motion affects something else.
40:43
And that was just like, yeah so
40:46
if you want to have like these enlightenment moments
40:49
don't eat a lot and go out on the plateau but yeah
40:56
that that's like i still just think like i
40:59
is at that moment and my bat
41:02
my my batteries of my camera were
41:05
dying because of the high altitude and the cold so i was really conserving my
41:10
battery power so that whole trip I don't have a lot of photos and I am a firm
41:14
believer that if I don't take photos I remember it more photos like are there
41:21
but if I put the camera down like.
41:24
Like it's like burned into my memory interesting and so it's just that was the
41:31
moment and you know I tell people
41:33
people want to know why my connection is there and I tell people like.
41:40
Rebirth like the person I was before the
41:43
Tibetan plateau she's still here but
41:46
she doesn't exist and I tell people like when I
41:49
go back out to Tibet I'm kind of like honoring or
41:52
like visiting who i was and reminding
41:56
myself who i became and i've talked to
41:58
my monk friends about you know reincarnation and
42:01
our current life and they're like yeah of course it can happen i it it was i
42:06
guess it was september of 2011 i can look at that month and just be like that
42:13
person up to that point doesn't really exist i came back and wrote apology emails to people in high school,
42:20
for like things I had done and said.
42:23
And I was like, I will, I'm not that person.
42:25
I'm not that person. And it just has stuck with me.
42:29
Like life should be somewhat about servitude.
42:34
And only until the last handful of years, I realized that that also includes myself.
42:40
Well, thanks for sharing. I am glad you shared this because I was gonna ask you.
42:47
You started this journey because you were
42:50
in a very low moment mentally and
42:54
I was going to ask you know like how were you evolving
42:57
mentally in this trip and then you just told me about
43:00
this rebirth this amazing experience so I'm
43:04
I'm glad to hear that getting on
43:08
a bike going out there being around all these other people in other cultures
43:13
and really having this experience gave you this self-knowledge and this rebirth
43:23
where you felt like a completely different person. Yeah, I mean...
43:28
I can pin it down and it just sticks with me.
43:32
And I'm sure you can relate to this as well. And I think most anybody that spent
43:36
an extensive time on a bicycle in the middle of nowhere, life and the society
43:43
and culture just eats away at us. It does.
43:47
And I catch myself falling into the traps of, oh, I need to buy this. I need to have that.
43:53
But when I'm out there, it's like, I always tell myself when I go out there,
43:56
I know I come always come home and throw away a bunch of stuff.
44:02
Absolutely yeah I started having this experience when I
44:06
used to alpine climb and I used to go you
44:09
know obviously climb a mountain and you are so many
44:12
days with in isolation almost and when
44:15
I would come back and go to work it was just so hard
44:18
to adapt it's hard to adjust yeah it is and sometimes i say it ruined my life
44:24
you know and it's like i would never go on another bike trip that long it took
44:29
years to recover from that like i literally was having flashbacks because and
44:34
and you know it's like when i see people suffering with addictions or depression,
44:39
i just i just tell myself and sometimes i tell them the world's just too much
44:44
for you you're you know you think too much you feel too much you see too much
44:49
like you haven't built that
44:50
callousness and good for you like don't build that wall like don't don't push
44:57
it out like you just aren't meant for here go find somewhere else where you're
45:01
meant for absolutely and,
45:05
that takes me to you came back to the U.S.
45:10
Recently so how is all this adjustment going Oh, it's been really hard.
45:16
I was actually in Tibet when COVID hit.
45:20
I had already gotten over the borders. I was actually on a train when a friend
45:26
messaged me, hey, there's been an outbreak.
45:29
And my train actually went through Wuhan.
45:31
I got out west. Everything started shutting down. Luckily, with my Chinese ability,
45:37
I was able to beg police officers, show hotel receipts.
45:42
Hey, see, I've already been here. Please don't send me back.
45:44
Please don't send me back.
45:46
Three weeks in Tibet, I was going
45:48
to visit friends that I've been doing a long-term story on since 2014.
45:51
I couldn't see them. I had to leave China.
45:56
I kind of knew what was going to happen, so I cleared out a storage unit as
45:59
much as I could. I had already been making plans on moving back to the U.S., but not in this way.
46:04
I went back to Ohio, the Midwest of the U.S., because that's where my mom was.
46:09
I thought, this is going to be temporary.
46:11
It's just going to be temporary. It was not temporary. Yeah.
46:18
How long were you there? Or are you still there? No, I live in Bend, Oregon now.
46:23
I have a wonderful partner that I met when I was doing my first ultra race here in Oregon.
46:31
So I got back on the bicycle. And so we met and then we started dating about
46:37
a year and a half after we met.
46:40
So I got out of the Midwest. I wanted to be in Oregon or Washington for a while.
46:45
So it's been a tough adjustment.
46:49
Six months, the first six months were really tough, but I stayed active.
46:55
I was making my mom do yoga with me. I was using the trainer.
47:00
I was building a new bicycle, getting interested in ultra endurance racing.
47:06
Tried to well I did open
47:09
a photo studio which I closed down about a year ago
47:12
because I learned that that's not what
47:15
I want and among other things and so
47:18
it's been it will be almost five years
47:21
in about three or four weeks I did
47:25
take the time to start studying
47:28
Tibetan it's something I wanted to do for a
47:31
long long long time and always found a reason that I
47:34
was too busy to do it and it is literally one
47:37
of the hardest things i have ever done but there
47:40
are people i want to communicate with so badly and
47:44
there are a few people that this is why i'm doing it and
47:48
i was working with a
47:50
weight trainer a few months ago and she goes do you
47:53
do anything for yourself i'm like yeah i
47:57
get up at 5 30 in the morning to study tibetan she's like well i'm like this
48:03
is i do it for myself this is me i by seven o'clock in the morning i have done
48:08
the hardest thing i could possibly do for the day and i'm not good at language i'm awful at language.
48:14
But so i've been doing that i don't think you are stunning i don't think you are okay.
48:22
So yeah so and so the first two years back was really tough no international
48:26
travel and then i did the silk road mountain race in 2022 that kind of like
48:31
broke the doors open like get back out there you know do it and then i spent
48:36
six months in india late 2023 and then the,
48:42
How was Silk Road? I would love to do that, but it's just long and I don't know.
48:48
Also, I'm on a bike. I don't have a mountain bike.
48:51
You know, I found you on the internet because I was looking for other women
48:55
my age that were looking for something more in life.
48:59
And I sensed you kind of got it.
49:05
The Silk Road, at first I wanted to do it again.
49:08
And the only the reason i did it initially was
49:11
because i was hired by brooks england to be a
49:14
photographer because i had biked toward kyrgyzstan and
49:17
they needed somebody who knew the place knew the culture i was
49:20
still based in china so i went in 2018 it was my first exposure to ultra endurance
49:25
racing i was like who what what is it sure i'm gonna photograph a race and i
49:29
got there i was like what and i remember interviewing jay peter very and the
49:33
way he talked about mountains and And the way he talked about riding,
49:36
I was like, this dude is insane.
49:38
And I totally relate to him.
49:41
And being a photographer, I got behind scenes of some of these cyclists.
49:47
And to finish that race, you have to understand the mountains. That's all it is.
49:53
And not listen to that voice in your
49:55
head. There were people that were so ill-prepared for mountain exposure.
50:00
And I just remember thinking, this isn't about being fast. This is about being smart.
50:06
And so, like, I was determined, like, I'm going to prove to myself that,
50:11
like, I still have the brains to survive in mountains.
50:14
So I've only done two ultra-endurance races, and I am at the point.
50:18
I have some chronic health issues. I came back from Silk Road just wrecked.
50:22
I have reoccurring Epstein-Barr virus, which is basically, like,
50:25
mono that gets reactivated.
50:28
Yeah. So I'm learning that life is too short, and I don't want to race through it.
50:34
Like, I want to take every little piece as possible. And I finished the Silk
50:38
Road 15 minutes before cutoff.
50:40
I think I was like seven minutes late for checkpoint three. I didn't care.
50:44
I was just going to finish.
50:46
And I remember seeing Nelson at the end of the race. I was like, I didn't want it to end.
50:50
And I learned that I have bike touring brain where I'm like,
50:54
I got two weeks to finish this. I'm going to enjoy it.
50:57
You know, I got two weeks. It's okay.
51:01
That's where I am now. I used to love being competitive and testing my limits,
51:07
but no, I want to soak it in.
51:10
I want to see, I want to be emerged.
51:13
I want to take my time.
51:15
Why rush it? Why not see everything that you can?
51:19
Eat everything that you find on the way and smile at people.
51:26
That's why I like the ultras. You know, there is a route that is usually amazing
51:31
people doing the same thing.
51:33
You meet like-minded people. And I really, really hope we get to ride one day together.
51:39
I would love that. Yeah. I would love that. Gotta make that happen.
51:45
Yeah. So the whole racing thing, and I think that's why we see such a difference in age.
51:51
And I remember meeting these men in their late 50s. They would stop.
51:55
They would chat with me. I was last and one guy was like, don't worry about it.
51:59
You're Lantern Rouge. It's a very important position.
52:02
And like, he was like middle of the race. He finished and he was probably in his late fifties.
52:07
I just noticed such a difference between the attitude of 20 year olds and 50
52:11
year olds. And I'm like, these guys know what's up.
52:14
They're just out here to ride, enjoy, have a good time, keep up with their fitness.
52:19
They're retired, whatever.
52:21
Like, you know, brand sponsorship does not pay your bills.
52:26
And I think you've been around long enough to see like names and fame come and go.
52:31
Like I was telling Eric, my partner, I was like, I can't even remember some
52:34
of these names. You know, it's like they were hot 10 years ago.
52:38
What happened to them? That was the same thing with bike touring.
52:41
When I was bike touring, all these people getting funding and free stuff.
52:44
I literally cannot remember their name or their website.
52:48
It's just like, I'm at a point where I'm just like, just, just live for yourself, like.
52:54
We don't have anything to prove at this point. Absolutely. I'm with you. I'm with you.
53:01
And so what's next for you?
53:03
Oh, and no ill thoughts for people who do race. I understand why people do it.
53:09
It's just not for me anymore.
53:12
At least I tried it. Even I think a lot of people that race,
53:16
my husband, we usually do the same races, but he's there to race.
53:21
And a lot of times, you know, we're looking at pictures and he's just like,
53:24
oh, I didn't see that. Oh, I didn't see that.
53:27
And I'm like, well, you pass it at night. So.
53:34
And it's fine. You know, we all get our different satisfaction out of this.
53:38
Right. So. It's all good. Yeah.
53:39
And life is hard. I don't need to choose more hardness.
53:43
Agree. Agree. And, you know, even doing for fun, it's still a good challenge. It's not easy. Yeah.
53:49
Yeah. I mean, there are some points in that race where I was just crying, bawling my eyes out.
53:57
And like, again, moments of epiphany, you know, and it's like,
54:02
I mean, it does happen out there.
54:05
Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of mental clarity that happens when you are in this
54:09
challenging situations and with your thoughts for a long time.
54:14
Yeah. Yeah. So I was going to ask you, what's next for you in cycling and on
54:20
your photography journey?
54:22
Well, I'll tell you a little bit about Lidoc. I spent some time there last year.
54:28
I met some young women, 18, 19, 20.
54:31
I was doing some volunteer work at a women's empowerment camp,
54:36
doing some photography. And I connected with these young women on everything,
54:41
politics, the way they saw the world, but even their love of mountains.
54:45
And i have stayed in contact with
54:48
them and last summer i'm starting to finally
54:51
get into video finally after all these years and
54:54
i have some video people that are like eleanor your
54:57
access to parts of the world like this adventure
55:01
storytelling is so male dominated like you've got
55:04
to get in there you've got to do this so these
55:08
these young women they're muslim they're from Cargill which
55:11
is border with Pakistan we went
55:14
hiking in the mountains and they're like wearing their hijabs they're like just
55:20
they're little goats in the mountains and I was so impressed and when we talk
55:26
like the love for mountains and how they tell me it makes them feel free and
55:30
it's their therapy and they're like going into little villages and talking to people.
55:35
So for me, I want to tell their stories I've also done some like trying to get
55:40
contacts for me to get training or for other people to have training and come
55:44
in and help these girls like,
55:47
be in the mountains and I told
55:50
them I was like oh I want to come back in the summer we'll do
55:52
a summer camp and and they all want to learn how to drive
55:55
and I'm like yeah well I'll teach you how to drive like it'll
55:58
just be like one of these things and because I
56:01
would reach out to men guides being like hey these women really want
56:04
to guide in the mountains they really want to
56:07
do this they're really good at it they're basically hiking in
56:10
crocs like it's unbelievable we
56:13
think that we need thousands and thousands of dollars of gear
56:16
and these little girls are just like excuse me for
56:19
saying these little girls these young women are like
56:22
just barreling through and
56:26
so there's a part of me that wants to
56:29
share their story through media but there's
56:32
also a part of me that wants to help them like get the support they need to
56:37
to get out there more so that's that's that's there I also did some video and
56:45
photos of a young Indian man that was in Ladovka. He's 18, 19.
56:51
Super talented. I was going to do a story on him, and he was going up to Kashmir
56:58
to ride, and his bicycle got stolen from the top of the bus. Yeah.
57:04
So I've been trying to get a hold of him. He finally has reappeared.
57:09
And I'm like, Sagar, let's do something Let's try to get you a bite.
57:16
So my partner, Eric, he used to race mountain bikes and he's a bike mechanic.
57:22
I would send him photos of cigar. And he's like, this little dude has potential.
57:28
So he's another person. So I have some film and I wanted to follow him to his
57:33
hometown and do more video.
57:35
But he was like, I don't know.
57:38
He was just very depressed after the bike was stolen. And he was just like,
57:43
I don't want to be filmed.
57:44
I don't want to be filmed, ma'am. and i'm like come on
57:47
so i don't i'm also i also don't pressure people
57:50
if once they tell me they don't want filming and
57:53
it's like okay well maybe i'll try a little bit later is that because is
57:56
it it's a unachievable for him to get
57:59
another bike i know it's i think at
58:02
this point i know his parents didn't encourage
58:05
it it was like kind of what he was
58:08
he was it's like
58:11
for many of us it's that extra that like connects us
58:14
to the world and they didn't see value in it and i
58:17
don't want to speak too much for him but he did pop up on
58:19
instagram yesterday after i posted a reel and
58:23
i was like message me like we need to talk so i feel like i get to do my like
58:29
helping and outreach and whatever way i can i have not applied for a chinese
58:36
visa i am hoping to go back to tibet But there is a very high likelihood that I've been blacklisted,
58:43
so we don't know if that's going to happen or not.
58:45
But I will try and see what happens. Does it be a work talking about their communities?
58:51
Yeah, I do use a pen name for some things I do, so people can't really track me down so much.
58:57
And some people have been like, you know, you don't get credit for your work.
59:00
I'm like, it's not about that.
59:01
Like, I also don't want to put these people at risk.
59:04
Like, China, they can go through my WeChat messages.
59:08
They can go through everything and like bus ticket receipts they
59:11
can find out where I've been so it's not
59:14
it's not about that I think that's about it I'm
59:18
at a transition point with career career right
59:22
now career wise commercially
59:26
I am a photographer of interiors
59:30
and buildings and hotel rooms like that's
59:33
where I make my money and that's where my husband
59:36
dies as well really he's a
59:39
photographer yeah for interior yeah and architecture how
59:43
does he feel about it without revealing too much without
59:46
me asking him he likes it he enjoys
59:49
because you know he's been a photographer for since forever he was a pro so
59:54
pro surfer turned photographer and he loved photojournalism but it's just such
1:00:03
a tough life such a tough life he gets it Yeah.
1:00:09
So he's happy doing architecture. Yeah. And it pays the bills.
1:00:14
You just said everything I was going to say. And yeah, I like really cool design.
1:00:19
I like meeting new people every time.
1:00:22
And for the last seven years, I've specialized in hotels. And I always think,
1:00:26
you know, working in a hotel wouldn't be that bad. Like, it's kind of exciting.
1:00:30
Like, there's crazy stuff going on every day.
1:00:33
But yeah, so that's my commercial work. Yeah, and you get to travel too.
1:00:36
You go to different hotels, different countries.
1:00:38
So yeah it's a little bit of a glamour yeah
1:00:41
so it's not it's not too bad I'm a little concerned about AI
1:00:44
but we'll see what happens but also
1:00:48
I've like I made a post on Instagram it's
1:00:51
only been recently that I can look at what I've done for the last 15
1:00:54
years but I don't want to say that it's important but I
1:00:57
can finally look at it as like oh this is kind of
1:01:00
meaningful work when at the
1:01:02
time like even though Instagram existed I
1:01:06
really like I learned that I didn't like posting
1:01:09
my trips in real time because it took me
1:01:12
out of the moment and it was a distraction and it
1:01:15
just like took me away from why I was there and sometimes I think I learned
1:01:20
this during my bike tour it almost becomes performative at the end of my bike
1:01:25
tour after I've been in Tibet the way people interacted with my social media
1:01:29
I can understand how it gets in somebody's head and you think I need to perform for the public.
1:01:35
And I was able to catch that at a young enough age. And so long ago, so 2012 caught it.
1:01:41
Oh, it becomes performative. I don't want that.
1:01:44
So I don't do trips in real time, but then balancing my adventures with real life work.
1:01:52
I have so much footage and media and I had actually forgot about video I had taken in Tibet in 2019.
1:02:02
Because I would go out there, do my trips, come home.
1:02:05
Try to make money to go back out there. And so like 15 years later,
1:02:08
I'm looking at this stuff going, my goodness, like my stacks of notebooks with
1:02:14
notes and like my hard drives.
1:02:16
It's just, so I'm at this point where I'm like, okay, I need to still do my
1:02:20
commercial work, but maybe I'm looking for a new creative outlet.
1:02:24
And I think maybe writing and the video. So that's kind of, and then just going
1:02:29
through these archives and also knowing that the next time I go out there, I'll be better.
1:02:35
Note-taking because i i hate the fact that like
1:02:38
i've lost names i've lost date
1:02:41
and i i really hate that that's happened but i
1:02:45
tell myself maybe this lull and travel has
1:02:48
allowed me to learn what not to do next time yeah
1:02:51
always learning and you are quite busy i
1:02:55
re i am really looking forward to your
1:02:58
writing i think that will be super interesting would there
1:03:01
be pictures you think or just yeah i do
1:03:05
want pictures i took enough that i think it would be unworthy i was actually
1:03:11
thinking about like more of a like a like a newspaper print so things are really
1:03:15
cheap just self-published so for like five dollars i really like that zine like self-publishing diy.
1:03:23
The photos don't need to be high quality but just
1:03:26
you know little things here and there when you go
1:03:29
back would you be on a bike again or
1:03:32
not this time um i i left
1:03:35
my mountain bike in ladak so it's there and then
1:03:40
if i go back to tibet oh i had a list of all these adventures and routes i was
1:03:47
oh i was i was telling eric my partner the other night i was like i had a notebook
1:03:52
of routes that I researched and I talked to locals like old trade routes that were no longer used.
1:03:59
And like people my age didn't know. But when I would talk to their parents who
1:04:03
are in their 70s, they're like, oh, yeah, that's an old like horse trade route.
1:04:07
And I'm just like, yeah, because I researched it. Like I had so many routes that I was gonna do.
1:04:13
Do you still have those routes down somewhere? Yeah, yeah, I know where they
1:04:18
are. So I think you need a bike.
1:04:21
Yeah I there was a holy mountain that I was
1:04:24
going to ride my bike around that was what the I had a that titanium
1:04:27
bike that I had built right after COVID that's what
1:04:30
it was actually set up for was to go back out to Tibet because after my bike
1:04:36
tour I just did on foot adventures a lot of long distance walking a lot of hiking
1:04:41
trekking some hitchhiking because I knew that if I got on a bike, I might never stop.
1:04:48
Once I start pedaling and feel that freedom, it was going to be like,
1:04:52
yeah, I'm not going back.
1:04:54
So I was holding the reins a little bit on that.
1:04:58
But yeah, the whole thing was five years ago and having to leave.
1:05:05
I things were just starting to like kind
1:05:08
of cement with Tibet people people kind of
1:05:11
knew me as like oh that woman that's out in Tibet that
1:05:14
like does all this stuff like it was really starting but then
1:05:17
at the same time it's like oh the government's probably catching on too at the
1:05:20
same time but we'll see what happens a year from now my plans may be completely
1:05:25
different but I do know that creating media to get other people's stories out
1:05:31
is definitely where my heart lies yeah and it's super important.
1:05:35
So I thank you for being this courageous, fearless woman that is going to these
1:05:43
remote regions of the world and telling us those stories.
1:05:49
Thank you so much for sharing so transparently and so deeply.
1:05:55
I am so honored that we met and our past cross,
1:05:59
and I hope we can meet each other some day or maybe we'll join you if possible
1:06:06
in one of those adventures and keep my fingers crossed if you do want to go
1:06:11
that you get your visa and everything goes smoothly.
1:06:14
Well, thanks for having me and thanks for doing what you do.
1:06:18
It's nice to have a unique voice out there that's a little less me,
1:06:24
me, me and a little more look at this and look
1:06:27
them and meet them and let's talk to this person so thank
1:06:30
you for that we need more of that thank you
1:06:33
yeah i really wanted to there's so
1:06:36
many cool people and stories out there and i
1:06:40
wanted to hear more and i thought you know i'm just going to do the podcast
1:06:44
because we need to share a lot of people want to listen so thanks for sharing
1:06:48
yours oh no problem and that's all for today's episode I want to thank the listeners
1:06:55
for tuning in. Your support means everything.
1:06:58
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider following, leaving a review,
1:07:02
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1:07:07
Music.