La notizia arrivata dal Sud della Cina ha colpito improvvisamente tutto il grande "popolo dei viaggiatori": il 16 settembre ci ha lasciati Giorgio Bettinelli, vinto da un'infezione sulle rive del Mekong. Giorgio, meglio conosciuto come lo Scrittore-in-Vespa e spesso affettuosamente soprannominato "Vespista per Caso" era forse uno degli ultimi grandi avventurieri-esploratori esistenti, quelli che - per intenderci - fanno del viaggio la missione della propria vita e trovano realizzazione nell'incontro con altri popoli, culture e luoghi. Tra i suoi memorabili viaggi in Vespa iniziati per gioco nel 1992, ricordiamo le traversate dall'Alaska alla Terra del Fuoco, da Melbourne a Città del Capo e poi dal Cile alla Tasmania, attraverso Americhe, Siberia, Europa, Africa, Asia e Oceania. Sempre su due ruote, fino all'ultima grande impresa in cui ha toccato per la prima volta tutte le 33 regioni dell'immensa regione cinese.
Giorgio non era "solo" un viaggiatore, ma anche un bravo giornalista e scrittore, capace di accompagnare ogni sua avventura da racconti vividi e appassionanti, diari on the road pubblicati da Feltrinelli, da riviste specializzate, oppure semplicemente sul suo blog personale. Storie che spesso sembrano di fantasia, tra gomme bucate nei momenti meno indicati, passaggi dati a personaggi strambi, panorami colti con il vento in faccia tra la polvere sollevata dalla Vespa, persino rapimenti, come quella volta in Congo in cui...
...La verità è che Giorgio, come tutti i veri avventurieri, sembrava inattaccabile, a dispetto di ogni ostacolo. Questo rende la notizia della sua scomparsa ancora più dolorosa, accompagnata dalle parole della moglie Yapei:
Sono triste, desolata ma Giorgio non è più con noi, vola libero come un uccello, è in viaggio, ma in un altro mondo, freddo.
Giorgio voleva scrivere un libro sul Tibet, ma non può più farlo, ora ha bisogno di dormire.
Non so cosa posso fare per continuare il suo sogno, alle sue parole e al suo amore verso di noi.

www.turistipercaso.it

Le 4 vespe PX utilizzate da Bettinelli si trovano presso il Museo Piaggio a Pontedera (fonte: Piaggio Group).

Around the world bicycle trip memoirs to be released after 80 yrs
Vadodara, April 18 - One of the three men was a Barodian; almost 80 years after it was first published, his son will release a new edition of the book today
Just in their twenties and living off a shoestring budget, three young Parsis, one from Baroda, ventured on the first ever trip around the world on bicycles on October 15, 1923. The trio covered 44,000 miles in three years and three months across 27 countries and four continents. On their return, Adi Hakim from Vadodara, Jal Bapasola from Mumbai and Rustom Bhumgara from Pune, who later became a freedom fighter, wrote a book of their memoirs from the epic journey, of which but a few copies still exist. The original book includes a foreword by Jawarharlal Nehru and comments from leaders around the world like Benito Mussolini and Calvin Coolidge.”
Now, after five years of labour and commitment, Hakim’s son Daryous will release a new edition of the book in Vadodara on Saturday, almost 80 years after it was first published.
Says Daryous, who is fondly called Dara: “The original line-up of cyclists was six, but only three completed the tour, with three others returning to India for various reasons. In their book, the trio believed they wanted to take India to the world, even as they were caught up in the fervour of the freedom movement.” He says the three were left with not much money and did odd jobs while travelling, for meeting their expenses for food, clothing and shelter. They decided on the trip after meeting at the Mumbai Weightlifting Club, he says.
Dara and his wife Roda began their own quest to re-publish the epic memoir in 2003. “Talking to my six brothers in the early nineties, I realised that all of them did not even have a copy of the book and neither did many of the grandchildren,” says Dara.
But as Roda says, not everybody seemed interested in the book till finally Delhi-based Roli Books agreed to publlish the book.
“Even then it took five years for the release of the new edition. It was a famous book when it was released sometime around 1928. But now we have no idea how many even exist. We believe this is a tale that people should know about,” says Roda.
“When the publisher agreed, it took a huge load off our minds, but it was more contentment than anything else. Strangely, My father-in-law and his friends returned from their trip on April 18, 1928,” says Roda.
She adds that they even managed to get in touch with the families of Jal Bapsola and Rustom Bhumgara mostly through the Internet and Parsi magazines. “They seemed even more excited about the release as even they had but few copies of the book,” Roda says.
Dara says it was the spirit of adventure in the book that inspired him to join the Indian Navy in 1951. “It is written in a very witty style full of awe of an unseen world. After reading it in my teens I was enthused to join the Navy, where I served for 10 years,” says Dara, who left the services to pursue a career in management. The book will be released at the Godrej Hall, Parsi Dharamsala in Fatehgunj.
https://parsikhabar.net/history/around-the-world-bicycle-trip-memoirs-to-be-released-after-80-yrs/964/

Fred Birchmore’s Amazing Bicycle Trip Around the World. The American cyclist crossed paths with Sonja Henje and Adolf Hitler as he transversed the globe on Bucephalus, his trusty bike

Fred Birchmore of Athens, Georgia, belongs to an exclusive club: he’s a round-the-world cyclist. The club’s charter member, Thomas Stevens, pedaled his high-wheeler some 15,000 miles across North America, Europe and Asia between 1884 and 1887. Mark Beaumont of Scotland set the current world record in 2007-08, covering almost 18,300 miles in 194 days and 17 hours.

Birchmore finished his epic two-year, 25,000-mile crossing of Eurasia 75 years ago this October. (North America came later.) And unlike the American Frank Lenz, who became famous after he disappeared in Turkey while trying to top Stevens’ feat in 1894, Birchmore lived to tell of his journey. He will turn 100 on November 29.

Birchmore got his first look at Europe from a bicycle seat in the summer of 1935, shortly after he earned a law degree from the University of Georgia. He was on his way to the University of Cologne to study international law when he stopped in central Germany and bought a bicycle: a one-speed, 42-pound Reinhardt. (It is in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History.) He named it Bucephalus, after Alexander the Great’s horse. Before his classes started, he toured northern Europe with a German friend and Italy, France and Britain by himself.

“I had some wonderful experiences that had nothing to do with the bicycle,” Birchmore recalled in a recent interview at Happy Hollow, his Athens home, which he shares with his wife of 72 years, Willa Deane Birchmore. He cited his climb up the Matterhorn, his swim in the Blue Grotto off Capri, and his brush with the Norwegian Olympic skater and future Hollywood actress Sonja Henie. “I just happened to ice skate on the same lake where she practiced,” he said. “Well, I never had skated. I figured, ‘I’m going to break my neck.’ She came over and gave me a few pointers. Beautiful girl.”

Back in Cologne, he attended a student rally—and came face to face with Adolf Hitler. Working up the crowd, Hitler demanded to know if any Americans were present; Birchmore’s friends pushed him forward. “He nearly hit me in the eye with his ‘Heil, Hitler,’ ” the cyclist recalled. “I thought, ‘Why you little.…’ He was wild-eyed, made himself believe he was a gift from the gods.” But Birchmore kept his cool. “I looked over and there were about 25 or 30 brown-shirted guys with bayonets stuck on the end of their rifles. He gave a little speech and tried to convert me then and there.” The Führer failed.

Although he enjoyed a comfortable life as the guest of a prominent local family, Birchmore was increasingly disturbed by Nazi Germany. From his bicycle, he saw firsthand the signs of a growing militarism. “I was constantly passing soldiers, tanks, giant air fleets and artillery,” he wrote in his memoir, Around the World on a Bicycle.

In February 1936, after completing his first semester, Birchmore cycled through Yugoslavia and Greece and sailed to Cairo. After he reached Suez that March, disaster struck: while he slept on a beach, thieves made off with his cash and passport. Birchmore had to sell off some of his few possessions to pay for a third-class train ticket back to Cairo. On board, he marveled at how “great reservoirs of kindness lay hidden even in the hearts of the poorest,” he wrote. “When word passed around that I was not really one of those brain-cracked millionaires, ‘roughing it’ for the novelty, but broke like them, I was immediately showered with sincere sympathies and offers of material gifts.”


Six weeks passed before he received a new passport. He had already missed the start of the new semester. Having little incentive to return to Cologne, he decided to keep going east as far as his bike would take him. He set off for Damascus and then on to Baghdad, crossing the scorching Syrian desert in six days.

By the time he reached Tehran, he was in a bad way. An American missionary, William Miller, was shocked to find the young cyclist at the mission’s hospital, a gigantic boil on his leg. “He had lived on chocolate and had eaten no proper food so as not to make his load too heavy,” Miller marveled in his memoir, My Persian Pilgrimage. “I brought him to my house. What luxury it was to him to be able to sleep in a bed again! And when we gave him some spinach for dinner he said it was the most delicious food he had ever tasted. To the children of the mission, Fred was a great hero.”

In Afghanistan Birchmore traversed 500 rugged miles, from Herat to Bamian to Kabul, on a course largely of his own charting. Once he had to track down a village blacksmith to repair a broken pedal. “Occasionally, he passed caravans of city merchants, guarded front and rear by armed soldiers,” National Geographic would report. “Signs of automobile tire treads in the sands mystified him, until he observed that many of the shoes were soled with pieces of old rubber tires.”

While traveling along the Grand Trunk Road in India, Birchmore was struck by the number of 100-year-olds he encountered. “No wonder Indians who escape cholera and tuberculosis live so long,” he wrote. “They eat sparingly only twice a day and average fifteen hours of sleep.” (He added: “Americans eat too much, sleep too little, work too hard, and travel too fast to live to a ripe old age.”)

Birchmore’s travails culminated that summer in the dense jungles of Southeast Asia, where he tangled with tigers and cobras and came away with a hide from each species. But a mosquito got the better of him: after collapsing in the jungle, he awoke to find himself abed with a malarial fever in a Catholic missionary hospital in the village of Moglin, Burma.

After riding through Thailand and Vietnam, Birchman boarded on a rice boat to Manila with Bucephalus in tow. In early September, he set sail for San Pedro, California, aboard the SS Hanover. He expected to cycle the 3,000 miles back home to Athens, but he found his anxious parents on the dock to greet him. He and Bucephalus returned to Georgia in the family station wagon.

Nevertheless, Birchmore looked back on his trip with supreme satisfaction, feeling enriched by his exposure to so many people and lands. “Surely one can love his own country without becoming hopelessly lost in an all-consuming flame of narrow-minded nationalism,” he wrote.

Still restless, Birchmore had a hard time concentrating on legal matters. In 1939, he took a 12,000-mile bicycle tour around North America with a pal. He married Willa Deane later that year, and they honeymooned aboard a tandem bike, covering 4,500 miles in Latin America. After serving as a Navy gunner in World War II, he opened a real estate agency. He and Willa Deane raised four children, and he immersed himself in community affairs.

After he retired, in 1973, he embarked on a 4,000-mile bicycle ride through Europe with Danny, the youngest of his children. Two years later, they hiked the 2,000 miles of the Appalachian Trail. While in his 70s, he hand-built a massive stone wall around Happy Hollow. He cycled into his 90s, and he still rides a stationary bike at the local Y. A few years ago, he told a journalist, “For me, the great purposes in life are to have as many adventures as possible, to brighten the lives of as many as possible, and to leave this old world a little bit better place.”

www.smithsonianmag.com

Life of a Victorian adventuress: Incredible story of clergyman's daughter who braved malaria, floods and wars to trek across China
At a time when few women would leave their houses alone, Isabella Bird braved war, floods and male scorn to complete arduous solo journeys in America and the Far East.
From 1894 to 1897 the Victorian explorer trekked across China while it was with war with Japan, documenting the lives of the men and women she met through detailed written accounts and a collection of vivid photographs.
Some of her incredible journeys, published in her 1899 work in The Yangtze and Beyond, are now the subject of a new book by Deborah Ireland.
'She was the most incredible woman, and a true role model for women today,' Ireland told MailOnline Travel.
'Isabella didn't become famous as a travel writer until she was 44 - at that time women just didn't have careers as writers. And it wasn't until she was 60 that she discovered photography. She broke the mould.'
In her book, Ireland charts Bird's three years spent travelling in China and reprints her stunning photographs of Chinese daily life gradually being infiltrated by European clothing and customs.
Isabella Bird turned to writing as a way to make money for her and her unmarried sister
Born in 1831 the daughter of a clergyman, as Ireland writes: 'The adventuress who travelled and rode in all weathers, exploring remote and dangerous regions, was writing about a life in sharp contrast to the one originally envisaged for her.'
The intrepid Yorkshire woman started writing in 1854 when she travelled to America to mend a broken heart. But it wasn't until 1875 that she found fame with an account of her experiences in Hawaii.
Bird was on her way home from an ill-fated trip to Australia when she fell in love with the islands. She initially wrote extensive accounts of her escapades to her sister, and decided that writing would provide a much-needed income for the unmarried pair.
On her return, Bird embarked on her publishing career and her candid accounts of her travel became instant bes-sellers, and she hasn't been out of print since.
Ireland writes: 'As a respected international traveller her views were sought by prime ministers, ambassadors and the newspaper men of the day.
'Her books were engaging, accessible and entertaining and she opened up a world of travel to the armchair explorer.'
Despite saying she was too old for arduous journeys, Bird travelled 8,000 miles during an extended trip to China, travelling on horseback and in carts, by boat and in a sedan chair, using her newly acquired camera and photographic skills to document her journey.
She traversed the country, from Hangchow (Hangzhou) to Hong Kong and from one end of the River Yangtze to the other as well as venturing into Korea and Japan.
In 1894 she set off from Liverpool to the Far East unaware she was travelling into the First Sino-Japanese War between China and Japan over control of Korea.
She was deported from Korea on a Japanese steamer with no money and luggage and only the clothes on her back and was forced to take refuge in China.
There she experienced a flood on the Manchurian Plain and risked her life helping drowning villagers in terrific storms before succumbing to malaria. She then broke her arm when the cart she was travelling in overturned just miles from the house of the missionary who was to take her in.
Confined to the town of Mukden (Shenyang) by her injuries, she spent time getting to know the missionary doctors and photographing their patients, many of whom suffered from leprosy or the effects of opium addiction.
Her photographs of this time show pagodas and palaces as well as the mean back streets and the ravaged faces of disese sufferers.
While travelling in the Chinese interior she managed to avoid the plagues of rats and other vermin by suspending her clothes and boots on the tripod of her camera.
She adopted Chinese dress as the tight fitting, tailored clothes she was used to were considered offensive by the local population.
However she did not quite escape the curiosity or hostility of the locals who were not used to seeing a foreigner, let alone a foreign woman, travelling.
Ireland writes: 'Overnight halts were a problem because of the stir she created by her arrival. This could range from curiosity to extreme hostility – from holes drilled through the walls of her room followed by whispering and giggling, to a full-blown riot with shouts of "Foreign devil", "Child eater".'
She also received the scorn of her countrymen, with archaeologist Sir Austen Henry Layard writing to her publisher's son: 'I must say I think the woman must be devoid of all delicacy and modesty who could travel as she did, without a female attendant among a crowd of dirty Persian muleteers and others.'
However Bird's account of her travels was hailed by one reviewer at the time as 'one of the most thoroughly documented accounts of late nineteenth century China ever written.'
In response to Sir Austen criticism, Ireland writes: 'Not bad for an account of a journey "undertaken for recreation an interest solely" or "but to satisfy her curiosity and love of travel".'
And what about Bird's legacy? 'Never give up! And don't think you're ever too old to do anything,' Ireland tells us. 'If you want, it's possible to have a new career at 60. She certainly did.'
www.dailymail.co.uk