Travelling to 10 different countries on a jet plane had no appeal to Dr. Brenda Trenholme of Rossland, BC. Instead, last year she cycled 13,000 kilometres along the Silk Road from Beijing, China, to Istanbul, Turkey, over five months.
Trenholme will share stories and photos of that journey at 7 pm on Sunday, June 2, at The ARC Community Event Centre on Alberni Street. It is part of a road show to 21 BC communities.
Admission is by donation to the Kenya Education Endowment Fund (KEEF) at kenyaeducation.org, a registered BC-based Canadian charity which supports bright but impoverished students in Kenya so they can acquire a high school education.
“I have volunteered for KEEF and have seen the profound and lasting benefits of giving people the tools they need to help themselves out of poverty,” explained Trenholme.
Saying she is “passionate about exploring lands and cultures on my bicycle,” Trenholme added that the slideshow will highlight “the logistics, geography, history and culture of this challenging ride through spectacular and remote landscapes.”
She will share the “experience of the wind of the Gobi Desert, the lush alpine region of western Siberia, the sheer awe of the Pamir Mountains at 4,600 metres and the exotic treasures of the Middle East.”
Trenholme travelled with TDA Global Cycling Tours, a Canadian-based company that provided transportation of camping gear, meals, medical support and route guidance.
Starting in China with 14 international cyclists, ranging in age from 30 to late 60s, 11 completed the trip. They travelled for 150 days, averaging 135 kilometres per day, 40 per cent of them off road, and climbed as many as 2,750 metres in one day. Their route took them through China, Mongolia, Siberia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran and Turkey.
“Travelling by bicycle can be torturous and bone-jarring,” said Trenholme. “On rough stretches in Mongolia, hanging onto the handlebars was like riding a jackhammer.”
That mode of transportation offers the cyclist a rare, personal experience of remote geography and an intimate interface with people and their cultures.
“The pace affords ample time to contemplate the wonders of this awe-inspiring journey,” said Trenholme, adding that as travellers they felt very safe, perhaps safer than in North America.
“People were extremely kind, welcoming and generous,” she added. “The images painted by the media of places like Iran and Turkey as scary and full of religious fanatics are inaccurate and, frankly, incorrect.”
Trenholme said there is real political and religious repression in many of the countries she visited, but the impact on travel is “wildly overstated.”
