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After 12 hours on the ferry from Bandar Abbas, Iran, I reached the port of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. It was honestly a bit of a relief to make it out of Iran, after my experience being detained by the Iranian military. I arrived late in the evening, and together with a fellow Russian cyclist we camped near a small mosque. In the morning an Uzbek man was waiting for us to wake up to have breakfast with him, which was a bit of a surprise: When one thinks of Dubai, t

I entered Iran from the Parvez Khan border with Kurdistan-Iraq. The border crossing was quite chaotic, as it is the main trading port between the countries it is very dusty and full of trucks. After some initial confusion about my bicycle and passport they eventually stamped my visa (they only stamp the paper, so don’t lose it) and I was in. Regarding my route, I had chosen to cycle along the Persian gulf instead of the more popular route of passing through the history-rich

The country (that’s officially not a country) where it’s near impossible to camp or pay for things. The Kurds are the largest ethnic minority without their own country – they live in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. The KRG, Kurdistan-Regional-Government in Northern Iraq however, is basically a country. An Autonomous region with its own government, military and visa policy. When I cycled across this region last year, I had to pay for an eVisa, but it was recently announced that

In order to avoid Istanbul’s traffic craze, I decided to take a ferry from Greece to Turkey, from Thessaloniki to Kusadasi to be exact. I wasn’t off to a great start: The ferry was delayed a few hours and arrived late in the evening, and after going through immigration I realised I had forgotten my bicycle helmet on the ferry, and wasn’t allowed to go back to retrieve it. Disappointed, I withdrew some from the inflation suffering Turkish Lira with the hope to find a replaceme

It is August 23rd 2023, and after a few weeks of preparation I set off to leave my home in Germany: Just me and my bike, with no destination in mind, simply cycling east. To be fair, I am from Northern Germany, and decided to take a train south towards the Austrian border, as I wasn’t particularly interested in cycling across Germany, and wanted to reach the Middle East before winter in Europe would arrive. So I soon crossed into Austria, and faced my first major challenge: