End of September 2008 we were riding in Yunnan, south China. One day we had left the Tiger Leaping Gorge and on a long climb on to the Tibetan Plateau we met Hiram. He came from the opposite direction. He is a young man from Taiwan who was making a cycling tour through the whole of China. We had a 15 minute conversation on the road side and we exhanged adresses etc.

He appeared to be a real world traveller and from then we more or less followed him on his blog and had e-mail contact now and then. He uses Google translate to make his Chinese writings readable for westerners, so if you want to try: Hiram’s blog

In May this year he started a trip round the world. He rode through China, Mongolia, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany and last week he entered our country, the Netherlands. He stayed with Peter and Joke in Wormer. They met him in Laos. Then, after a visit to Amsterdam and Rotterdam, he rang our bell last Sunday evening. After having stayed with us for 2 nights he left again for Brussels and Paris. After that, as his visa runs out, he has to leave the Schengen-area and he will go to Great Britain. If he can get a visa (may be difficult for a Taiwanese in Britain) he will continue to the US, if not he will come back into the mainland of Europe.

He is a very special young man, riding the world with his “cargo” bike, and camping in the wild, even in this season.

Some photos of his stay in the Netherlands: Hiram in Holland