The mission of four Swiss students was to raise funds for the construction of an elementary school for nomad children in the Tibetan Highlands. As if there was not enough challenge to this, they decided to cross the Himalayan Mountains with their fully-packed bicycles. After 11 weeks in beautiful but tough outdoors, having pedaled 3394km and over 30’000 meters of ascents over countless passes, they finally arrived at their destination with a collection of roughly 30’000 US Dollars for charity.
Bikeventure 2002 started with a dream. In August 2001, the four Swiss
students, Marc Huber, Martin Jeker, Padi Jeannerat and Stephan Ramseyer, decided
to cross the Himalaya with their bicycles, starting in Kathmandu, Nepal,
visiting the city of Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region, and ending in the little
town of Tongren in the north-east of the Chinese Province of Qinghai. At least
three motivations for this time- and energy consuming journey were pushing
their dream to come true: The sense of a unique outdoor adventure in a highly
spiritual environment, the fundraising for an action of charity, and the search
of the own physical limits. The combination of extreme biking and venturing for
charity brought out Bikeventure. 2002, the year of the horse and UN year of the
mountains seemed a good time to realize the journey.
It took the guys an entire year to
prepare Bikeventure 2002. They had to win sponsors and donators for their
project. The right equipment had to be chosen, and a lot of paper work had to
be done. The huge efforts resulted in the contribution of more than 42’000
Swiss Francs towards the construction of a primary school in a nomadic area in
the Province of Qinghai.
The charitable bike expedition
started in August 2002 in Kathmandu, Nepal. Having the longest ascent in the
world ahead, the team spent one week in Kathmandu in their “base camp” in order
to locally check out the safety situation and prepare every detail concerning
travel permits, food, equipment and press work. On August 6th they set off with
their fully packed bikes, and for almost a week climbed up from 500 meters
above sea level to as high as 5220 meters. To prevent symptoms of the high
altitude sickness they had a couple of whole-day breaks. This way they easily
got used to the thin air in extreme altitudes. Over the following 10 weeks of
the journey, they constantly stayed between levels of 3500m and 5000m above sea
and never suffered serious altitude problems any more, in contrary to various
digestion and knee problems. After 17 days and one third of the entire route,
they reached Lhasa where they relaxed and wrote postcards to all the supporters
and donators at home. Thanks to five nights in a comfortable guest house, they
then left the bustling city with new motivation and force.
Martin, Padi, Marc and Stephan went
on riding their bikes heading north-east through the Tibetan Highlands. In
those regions, weather situation changes very rapidly. Heavy rain and snow
falls cause landslides and muddy roads, strong winds and cold temperatures
raise the challenge of the bike adventurers to the extreme. Towards the end,
temperatures fell well under 10 degrees below zero. To keep their bodies warm
and recover, the four boys spent more than 12 hours per day inside their
wind-shielding tents and warm down-sleeping bags. The equipment turned out to
be one of the most important success factors beside mental strength and a
strong friendship among the four team-members. After another 40 days of
pilgrimage-like, hard but unforgettably great cycling, they finally arrived in
Tongren. Looking a bit dirty, but very happy about this extraordinary moment,
the team enjoyed the warm welcome in the streets of Tongren.
Next day, Stephan, Marc, Martin and
Padi were invited to visit the local Tibetan Abbot Kunga Thubten. He was in
charge of lending his valuable support in co-ordinating the efforts of the
various parties involved, like the local government, the education bureau, the
Tibetan population and of course the support group of Bikeventure 2002. Up to
now, the areas of Tongren and Ceku have received much aid by various other
Swiss support groups. It started in 1988, when a few Swiss, who were living in
Beijing, initiated modest private aid program for the community around Tongren.
The strong relationships between Kunga Thubten and the Swiss community lasts
until today and resulted in a wide range of programmes undertaken by the Swiss
community and other organizations, also in other remote areas of China.
For the Bikeventure 2002 group,
Kunga Thubten proposed to transfer the funds to the commune of Gartse in order
to realize the construction of a Primary school. Marc, Martin, Padi, and
Stephan agreed after having visited the children, parents, monks and
authorities of the village and talked to the important leaders of the local
government and the education bureau in Tongren.
The main problems in Gartse are that
many nomadic people do not want to send their children to school due to the
dangers on their way to school, the risk of diseases in the winter passed
around from child to child, and the lack of money. The new school will provide simple
dormitories and medical support, therefore the children can avoid the long
walks to school during the week.
The implementation of the
construction project will be monitored by the Bikeventure 2002 team thanks to
staying in contact with Kunga Thubten and other Swiss groups who will visit the
sites. They will help to ensure that the donations are exclusively used for the
schools, without any deductions for administration, banquets, travel or
printing costs. The authorities at all levels have clearly understood the
purely humanitarian ideal of the Bikeventure 2002 program and hence fully
support it with the same spirit. The contribution of Bikeventure 2002 to the
school in Gartse has been roughly 30’000 US Dollars. The other part of the
financing will be carried out by the regional government of the Province of
Qinghai that manages the contacts with various international development
foundations.
The team of Bikeventure 2002
considered the Buddhist area of Tongren to be one of the most promising to
support. Bikeventure contributed to leveraging the possibilities of a community
that has strong confidence in preserving their cultural heritage. Having done
the journey, the adventurers discovered happily that it is well worth it to
combine travels into completely different cultures with a humanitarian gesture
of friendship towards the local community. Having made this experience on their
very own, they will now be able to pass over this message to other people
effectively. Therefore, they have specially prepared a multi-media slide show,
besides countless articles in various media and a great website fully dedicated
to Bikeventure. If you want to further find out how Marc, Martin, Padi and
Stephan made their dream come true, do not hesitate to contact them by email
(just append “@bikeventure.info” to their first names).
Tashi Delek!