This is the price of FREEDOM
good afternoon my friends, from somewhere in southern egypt, hello hello, you're here okay and i'm gonna answer your questions, so first before answering your questions thank you, i want to thank christian for giving me... christian from denmark, for giving me this idea of making a q & a video, my first one, because it's true my channel has grown so it's probably time to talk a little bit about myself, and sorry for those who ask me questions, because i can't answer all the questions, so i've selected some questions, quite a lot, but i can't answer all the questions, so sorry about that, let's go up the dune so first question, very simple, are you going back to ethiopia yes i am going back to ethiopia, quite soon, after egypt, first sudan, and then ethiopia what keeps you going, i think it's just uh there's no great ideas, no anything, behind this journey, it's just curiosity, i just like to travel, i just like to meet new people, to discover new cultures, what drives me... drives me the most is probably just curiosity so which is your favorite country, which was your favorite country to visit, in the countries i visited in my life, so not only on this journey, because i've traveled a lot before, i'm not gonna say only one, but among my favorite countries to visit will be ethiopia, iran and i will say nepal, for different reasons, nepal, the people are friendly, nature is unbelievable, iran the hospitality, very friendly secular people ethiopia, just a fascinating culture, the dancing, the friendliness of the people also, nature, nature is gorgeous in ethiopia, just the culture is fascinating in ethiopia, when it is back home, where is your final destination actually i don't really have a final destination, i just keep going as long as i'm happy basically, as long as i'm happy with what i'm doing, i just keep going, so at first i said south africa to to give um... you need to, you need to have goals, so i said south africa to have a target, but
south africa is not going to be the end, for sure, what country, which country is the most hospitable and who has the best food, so our mix of hospitality and best food i would say iran then, because iran is extremely hospitable, and has a great cuisine, so i would say if you have to mix hospitality and food, iran, bonjour from bordeaux, what school did you graduate, and what jobs did you work in, so my background, so i am originally an engineer i graduated from a small school called sea tech, in southern france, that is now called sea tech, then i worked for two years in oil and gas in paris, in la defense, then i traveled the world for two years and a half, as a backpacker, and then i worked... i was laying optic fiber cables, so first working on french cable ships for three years, then freelancing in indonesia for three years, on indonesian cable ships, and then one year uh freelancing uh with the americans, on american ships, during those seven years working on cable ships, that's when i saved money to travel basically, to do what i'm doing now so what were the best and the worst experiences during my journey, well the worst is obviously uh well the beqaa valley, yeah i got really scared, i got robbed, they sabotaged my bike, so obviously the worst experience, and the best experience, probably the best in my mind is when i met um dragoslav in bosnia, in republic of srpska, in rogatica, mlin sorak, so for me that's the best video i filmed, it was what i dreamed to film, and i and i managed to film it yeah that was the best experience, how they invited me for food, and gave me gave me so many drinks, and got me completely drunk, and then it was just unbelievable this afternoon with dragoslav, dragoslav and his family, that was probably the best experience on this journey, what inspired your journey, um probably it's not nothing that fancy, it's just like, i was working, so as an engineer in la defense, in a big building, in a big glass tower, and i was bored, i was very very bored, so i was looking for things, i was just uh wandering in the internet, and looking for things to do... just and i i... i stumbled on blogs of guys traveling with bicycles, and uh and that's when i thought ah, that looks cool, that looks less boring than working in an office, so then i that's how i got the idea, then ten years ago i tried with a bike but. after two days, i failed, and
then i went as a backpacker, but this time thanks to the e-bike idea, i tried again, and this time it worked, so... but originally it was just yeah, just boredom inspired me, and i looked for things to do, and i found guys doing that, and i thought well, why not doing it, a question from gourish, my friend from india, from my internship in india, uh how many years ago... 15 years ago, how and when are you planning to go to asia, for example pakistan, india, nepal, indonesia, china, i will go to asia, but uh, so okay let's talk to you about... let's let's tell you about the real... my real plan for this journey, because the plan is so big that you can't really talk about it, because people won't believe you, maybe maybe now that you've seen the very beginning, maybe you think, you'll believe me more, so the plan is to go first to africa, because i'm young now i'm still... i'm not so old, i'm 37, so i think it's better to do africa first because it's probably the hardest continent to do, so that's why i start with africa, so the plan is to basically somehow go down through the east coast to south africa, then back up to europe via the west coast, so via congo, cameroon, ghana, senegal, up to spain, and then once, once i will be back up in europe, probably cross again europe towards asia this time, so then towards iran, india, all the way to indonesia, but that's a long time... i travel very slowly, so that's a long time from now, so to answer your question gourish, i will come, i will come to see you at some point, but not very soon, so because probably... i would say africa, i think
it's gonna take me four or five years to go uh, to go all the way around africa basically, and uh i imagine i'll take more time for europe, next time i reach europe, uh so i would say probably seven to eight years before uh, before i reach india, i don't know, that's what i think now, it could change, i'm... i do... i don't mind changing my plans, but that would be the plan now, probably, probably seven or eight years before i reach india, but once i will reach india, i will probably stay a long time, probably... if i can, probably at least a year in india, yeah so that's the time scale approximately for when i will reach asia, how do you pay for your trip savings, well now with the money from youtube, from patreon, uh the first year was uh, i was relying on savings, um yeah just savings from when i was working on the cable ships, my family watches your videos every week, what was your motivation for this trip, so basically my motivation is quite simple it's just uh, i do that because i know what i like in life, what i like to do in my life is to travel, so i just do what makes me happy, basically that's why, even if i would not do a youtube channel, i would live the exact same life, so i just live the life i want to live basically without caring about what people think, or what people think what a normal life should be, i just live the life i like to live, and that's all, so my motivation to do that is just to be happy, because i've studied myself a lot, and i know that that's what makes me truly happy, that's all, where did your love for travel and adventure come from, well probably part of it is from my mother, because she likes to move also, she did not travel much, but uh but she has this... she was always talking about that... so probably a bit for my mother, and then i don't know, i'm not someone who... i don't feel i belong anywhere, for some reasons, so then uh i just like to be on the move i don't really know where it comes from, that's just the way i am, it's just... that's it, yeah, it's uh i observed myself as being like that, like that, i did not... uh i just saw that that's what
what makes me happy, i don't know.. i don't really fully understand why i am like that... how much money does the overall trip cost, uh the overall trip i don't know, in average for the... before i was earning money from youtube i was spending uh about one thousand dollars or euros per month, now i'm probably spending more than one thousand five hundred, between one thousand and two thousands somehow, per month, so now it's been uh 15 months i'm on the road, probably let's say an average of 1 500 euros or dollars per month, you just multiply by 15 months and you'll see the cost... hello before traveling to a new country that you don't know, how do you prepare yourself, which app do you use... okay so to prepare myself what i did before going, before leaving, when i was working on the ships, uh i had i had a job where i had uh... sometimes it was busy, but most of the time i had
just some things to watch... just watch computers and make sure everything goes right, but it was not active, it was passive, so i had a lot of time to kill, because i was working 12 hours every day, seven days a week, so then during my last job, what i did is i... i briefly, i quickly read all the lonely planets in the world, and i made uh summaries of them, so that's my basis about uh to know where i want... what do i want to visit in the country, and then for more practical things, for money and visas, i mostly rely on... now on facebook groups, for uh the middle east and africa, also forums, there is a forum called voyage forum in french for the visas, but then i don't prepare that much actually anymore because in the end the only things you need to know, if you don't really care what you're gonna see, if you just want to see normal life in the country, because it's what i want to see now then i the only thing you need to know is how to get money in the country, and how to get the visa, so yeah that's it, you just need to get those informations from somewhere in the internet, mostly on facebook now, from facebook groups, so and for the money, it's just about knowing whether you can use your credit card or not, in the country, if you can't use the credit card, then you have to come with cash, or use western union, but what app do i use, then yeah facebook, um i overlander also for the visas, that's it, do you miss your home your friends, no now i'm just used to my life, for me it's normal... i don't miss home, i don't miss friends, i just... that's
the way i live since more than 10 years, so it's normal for me now, and yeah and home actually, it's funny because that's actually one of the reasons why i like to travel also, actually i don't like to have a home, if i have a home and i look at myself in the mirror, and i think 20 years from now i will be in the exact same place, in front of the same mirror, i want to kill myself, i think this is... this cannot happen, i have to do something to avoid this situation, so so then i just... that's why i just move and go to travel, i don't like to have a home actually what has been your favorite country to visit so far on your journey, so if i talk about this journey on the back the journey you've seen uh in youtube, my favorite country so far is lebanon, have you ever peed at any attractions from doo doo da la la, do do da la la, justin oh my god, so it's a friend, a malaysian friend from cairo not recently as far as i know... the bike name, um it's an azub ti fly 26
you have been solo traveling for a long time, do you ever feel loneliness, do you ever feel lonely, sometimes, not often actually, but uh yeah like, when you spend a long time in countries where you... like when i was in iraq, people are very friendly, but you don't really make true connections with the people, so in the end you... every day, during three months, you go back to your hotel, you have no friends, nobody to talk to, and so it gets lonely yeah, when it's like this for three or four months, after some time you start to feel a little bit lonely, but then in normal countries let's say, in other places, then i go to hostels, and then i have friends in the hostels, i meet, i make new friends, and then you don't feel lonely anymore, so most of the time i would say no, but yeah when, if it's like a long time without going to a hostel, or without without making like normal friends, then uh yes after three or four months, then i start to feel lonely, but i am very solitary, i'm someone who is... i'm happy with myself, so i could stay like two three months
with like not many people to talk to, i do i don't care, i'm happy with myself from your experience, which country has the best food, so i will take from... not from this journey, but from where i have been in my life, i would say, for me, definitely china hey i watched since your first videos, why did you choose uh e-bike over a normal bike, uh e-bike over normal bike, because i tried with a normal bike 10 years ago, and i failed, i pushed too hard at the beginning, i had a very strong knee pain, but also it was probably just too brutal for me, so i chose an e-bike because i don't look for the physical effort, i like to do some sport on the way, so i'm happy with the effort i do, but i'm not looking for a huge effort, and i'm not... i don't try to prove myself that i can cross continents on a normal bicycle, for me the bike is just a tool to meet people, because it's so much easier to meet people with a bicycle than when you travel with a car, so yeah, basically for me the bike is just a tool to force myself to travel slowly also, because i like to travel slowly, and to force myself to go through uh areas where tourists don't go, and to to... to make that i'm more open to to the outside world, and to meet people basically... name one place in the world where you have not been in which you are most excited to visit, without hesitation afghanistan if you had to stay in one country for the rest of your life, which one would you choose also also almost without hesitation spain, they have great... they have probably the best quality of life in the world, i would say, their culture is uh, it's just the most pleasing country to live in, i think... are there any countries you would like to visit but are too dangerous
or unstable to do so... right now countries that are too unstable to go, and where i really would like to visit, i would say yemen... what are the perks of a trike instead of a bike for long distance traveling, i mean the perks is you can't fall, obviously, so then you have much less chances of having an accident, then with the seat, it's much less painful for the wrists, for the neck, it's a little bit painful for the knees and for the back, but uh it creates... there are less uh strains on your body with this type of bike, and also it's much easier to handle, the problem with an overloaded bicycle, a normal bicycle, is when you have heavy bags on the wheels, it's very hard to handle the bike, while as i have three wheels i don't have this issue with my bike, so just comfort, i would say, in general, the perks how often do you use the electric boost your bike has, uh all the time actually, oh yeah, and does it make it a lot easier, uh so to give you an idea of the effort i make, from what i've seen when i was in europe, when i was riding next to other cyclists, sometimes, normal cyclists with a normal bike, i go a little bit slower than a normal cyclist basically, so somehow the engine almost compensates completely for the weight of my bags, so it's almost as if i was traveling around the world with just my bicycle, and no bags, so yeah it just compensates for the weight of the bags, wouldn't your journey be more pleasant if you had a company, a friend of yours, not at all, for me uh, a company in my journey would be a weight, would be a liability, it would be a burden, no i like to travel alone, because it's... i think you see much more the countries because
basically the difference is, if you're not alone, if you are two person, you will create a small cultural bubble around the two people, so you will live inside your... if i have another european traveling with me, we will create a bubble of european culture, and we would still be inside europe in our small bubble on our bicycles, so then you just... and then you just watch from your bubble, you watch the country, and so you see the country, but you don't really feel it, you don't really... it's much harder to get into the country, while you when you are alone, you have no one to talk to, so you need to talk to people, so that breaks your bubble, when you're alone you don't create this small cultural bubble because you need social interactions, and so and so you see the country but you also interact with the country, you live in it truly, so you really, you feel it somehow, also, so that's why for me traveling is only alone, i don't want to travel with anyone else who is your favorite arabic and english singers arabic singer, that's probably why i love lebanon also, it's fairuz, i was amazed, it's just fantastic to every... breakfast you have to listen to fairuz and... yeah it's just i love fairuz, so fairuz
english singer, i don't really have a favorite english singer, maybe if i would understand the words maybe i would be a fan of bob dylan, but i don't speak english good enough to understand what he says somehow, so no, so then i will answer for the french singer then, french singer obviously jacques brel, in what country was it the hardest to find english french speakers so strangely enough because it's quite a... well it's a very developed country, but strangely enough, for me, well in turkey people just don't speak english, if you go away from uh from istanbul and the main tourist areas, absolutely nobody speaks english, it's unbelievable and they were... actually it's very funny because they were saying sorry sorry, it's just they don't teach us at school... would you consider your e-bike reliable overall, yeah definitely it's extremely reliable, well uh well, yeah it's true i broke the engine, so i would say no, i don't... i mean it's... i would say everything is very reliable except the engine, because i broke it once
so is it reliable, yes everything is very reliable, except the engine... uh ciao yves, i've just uh, are you married, no i'm not married, what's your job, my job now is to make videos on youtube, so have you contracted some type of travel assistance in case you need it, the insurance thing, i'm not very good with insurance, so no i don't have a travel insurance though i do have a health, french... i have the french social security, but i paid for it on a voluntary basis, and then i have it worldwide, it's called the cfe, cfe for the french, maybe it's stupid, i don't know, maybe i'll get it i'll get... maybe i will get one at some point,
if something happens to me, i guess i'll pay for it and that's all what can i do... out of all the countries you've been in what's the most safe country and the most friendly and the most hospitable and generous, uh the safest country i've been to in my life, it's probably new zealand, i would say, the most friendly, the most friendly countries, that's... it's very subjective, because it depends a lot on your own culture, i mean for me i was...
i was amazed by the serbs, like how friendly they were, uh in the past i find like of course iranians are extremely friendly, i get along very well with iranians, armenians also extremely friendly, ethiopians are not, i mean, sometimes it's a country which is very difficult to travel, but in the big cities, i find ethiopian people extremely friendly, really, really, for me i make friends very very easily in ethiopia, yeah that's it... the most hospitable and generous, i would say, oh yeah definitely, definitely it's tajikistan, tajik tajik people are unbelievable, in the mountains when i was in tajikistan 10 years ago, i would not even need to book an accommodation, you arrive in the village you just sit on the sidewalk, and someone is gonna tell you, just come to my house, so i would say tajikistan, and that's probably one of the reasons why i'm also fascinated by afghanistan, because i think afghan people are probably among the most hospitable people... are probably, maybe the most hospitable people in the world it's very related to the very harsh climate, tajikistan has a very harsh climate also in the mountains, so probably... that's surely why... but in the... yeah in tajikistan the hospitality was beyond
belief, really... oh yeah i have a quick question from barefoot jeff, barefoot jeff, do you have your route planed for africa, the whole way, or just plan as you go, i just plan as i go because, i mean, i have a rough route, but then i plan as i go because it depends on so many things, so you have to be flexible, so i just plan as i go.. a quite different question, hi yves, i hear you have a lot of interest in the arts, i was wondering what are your favorite french writers, indeed i like, i love art, so favorite french writers, that's something... very good question, i really like this question, for the poets uh, Arthur Rimbaud, of course, that's actually why i discovered ethiopia, i discovered ethiopia thanks to him, because he lived for seven years in harar, in eastern ethiopia, so ethiopia somehow is a kind of poetical pilgrimage for me... poets, of course charles baudelaire, probably, i mean, they're very different, Rimbaud revolutionized the international poetry, because he destroyed all the structures, so he's in unbelievable in this sense, and he wrote the one among the most beautiful poems in french, but Baudelaire, as a poet, is... has... his work is much much bigger and much uh
and also fascinating, so yeah Rimbaud and Baudelaire, for the writers, for literature uh i used to be a huge fan of balzac, i still like him a lot, but i don't consider him as the greatest french writer anymore, during covid, covid gave me the chance... the lockdowns gave me the chance to actually discover Proust, Marcel Proust, so it's the longest... he wrote the longest, i think probably the longest book ever written, and during the lockdowns the french... some french actors, french theater actors were reading it during the lockdowns, so i listened to this book during five months, one hour every day, and it was a pure beauty, i mean french language written like that is unbelievable, it's unbelievably beautiful when it's so well written, but the best one in terms of quality of writing would be probably, well very controversial but Louis Ferdinand Celine, which i read not so long ago actually the voyage au bout de la nuit, unbelievable, it's like, Proust is more like all the beauty, and all the cancan, and all the all the bourgeois france, all the beauty of the sophisticated french culture, of the... and celine is the opposite, it's the beauty of the dirt, the beauty of trash, the beauty of... i don't know how you say that in english, yeah the beauty of the horror somehow, it's like but... it's... for me the voyage au bout de la nuit is the most beautiful book i ever read, it's like...
it's very hard, very rough, very dirty somehow, very filthy, but it's unbelievably beautiful, so my favorite french writer, i mean his life was of course very very very controversial because he participated in the third reich, but as... if you separate the man and the writer, as a writer celine, is probably the best, for me, the best french writer ever, and i will finish with some extra questions from the man who inspired me this video, so from christian from denmark do you only use paper maps, or what about google maps when traveling... i use google maps almost all... i use in... actually in europe i was using google maps, now i use like maps me, or i don't use maps me, i use a mappy dot cz, uh it, but it's the exact same, it's just the display, the map is a little bit different, but basically it's offline maps like maps me, so that's what i use all the time for when i bike, when i ride the bike, google maps was very good in europe because you could choose ride with a bicycle, and google maps would find your way to go with a bike, so your google maps was great for that, but google maps outside of europe doesn't have the option for a bicycle, so then, then i have to pretend to be a car, and then it's a bit complicated, so i'd rather use offline maps then... do you keep contact, phone call with your family at home, i am not a phone person at all,
my family don't like phone, i think, either, so no i don't call, i never call i send a whatsapp message from time to time, that's all, but phone calls, no i don't like phone calls... how do you edit your videos, do you carry a laptop around with you, yes i edit all my videos myself, so i do carry a laptop with me... do you use wi-fi on hotels to upload videos or do you have a phone with unlimited data... no i use all weather wi-fi from the hotels, or otherwise i buy a sim card in the country where i am, and i use the data from the from the sim card... do you buy new cloth as you go yes i do buy, i'm very bad with buying cloth, well now this is new for example, but as you saw before... and you maybe you didn't see the videos yet but... uh i have a lot of t-shirts with a lot of holes now,
and uh, and i still wear them because i don't like to buy clothes, so it's really... i only buy clothes when i really really need it, when there is no other option, but yeah i buy on the way then... how do you know so much about history where you go, uh basically what i do is oh i've traveled a lot before, so in the places where i've been before, i probably know already a bit of the history, you know the history also by talking to other people, like in hostels, other the tourists, or the other locals running the hostels, and if i don't know enough, then what i do is, i read a little bit the wikipedia page about the country, about the city, and and then i know a little more, and so yeah so it's whether by talking to people, or in the past to know the history i used to read always... i used to have guidebooks, now i don't have them anymore, i
don't use them anymore, but when i had guide books, i used to read the history pages, very good to have a very short version, a very brief version of the history of the country, now i use wikipedia to know a very quick version of the history of the country... what other interests do you have uh it's funny because actually my hobbies when i was working... well now i'm working actually, but it doesn't feel like working because i do what i like actually, it's funny... my hobbies, well i used to love... i love cinema, so now what i'm doing is not cinema, but still i do films... so it's funny because i was very very passionate about cinema, like yesterday
today is the 14th... yesterday Jean Luc Godard died, i'm a huge fan of Jean Luc Godard, Pierrot le fou, breathless, oh my god, le mepris, so i'm a big fan of cinema, mostly old cinema, the french new wave, the the hollywood of the golden age of hollywood, the 30s 40s 50s ingmar berman, iranian cinema, nowadays, probably the best cinema in the world, i would say, for me is iranian cinema, they have an amazing inventivity, so it's really crazy what they do there in iran, well the artists, what the directors do in iran so hobby cinema uh, and my hobby was traveling but now that's what i do of my life so... except that i don't really... i just like to do a bit of sport just to keep myself in a correct shape, but that's just for health... at what age did you start becoming a normal type of person,
at 26... what other country have you lived in besides france, uh actually i only lived in france, but i worked three years in indonesia, but i was working on ships, so i was... when i was in indonesia i was always on the ship, so i saw the people on the ships, but i did not really visit the country, and i did not live anywhere really, because we were moving all the time, so but still i kind of lived in indonesia, a bit of malaysia also, so i kind of lived in indonesia malaysia, a little bit, but i didn't have a stable home when i was there... what do you really mean when you say nomad, did you live in another country, for one two years and then moved to a new country before... when i say i'm a nomad since 11 years, it's because just physically i was moving all the time, all year round, so and i would never settle somewhere for more than two or three months basically, so in this sense since 11 years i've never lived in the same house for more than three months, probably three consecutive months, yeah, when i mean nomad, it's because physically i've been moving all the time... since 11 years i don't really have something you call home basically, personal question do you have...
and that will be the last question, do you have a wife and kids, no no wife, no kids, and my lifestyle... i know that's what i like, so i will never change my lifestyle now, uh well i think i will never change my lifestyle, so, so so, it's probably complicated with the lifestyle have to have a wife and kids, so i doubt i will have... but who knows
2022-09-18 04:22
