Why? – The Tales of Two Travelling Turtles

Why?

Around the world by land and sea – not as easy as you might think

When I dreamt up the idea of travelling around the world without taking any flights, it seemed a pretty straightforward idea. There was an established market in passenger cabins on trans-ocean cargo ships to get me across the Pacific and Atlantic, and travel between China and Europe required taking the Trans-Siberian express and changing trains in Moscow. So, Bob’s your uncle!

Or, at least he WAS your uncle, because not now, he isn’t. So much so that at the moment the journey can’t be done – not, at least, if you won’t travel through countries with hostile régimes, which I won’t. Right now Azerbaijan’s land borders are closed, blocking off the only safe route between East and West: squeezing between Russia and Iran by ferry across the Caspian Sea. (To get the point, try getting out a world map and working out another way to get between Asia/Africa and Europe!) And COVID has killed off the cargo ship passenger cabin market, so the ocean passages, while not impossible, are hard to come by. (It’s true that you could spend the entire trip on a round the world cruise, but that’s a different proposition entirely.)

Is it still worth it? Well …I thought… at least it’ll be a more carbon-friendly way to see the planet than flying. But then I found out that cruise ships emit twice as much carbon per passenger mile than flying, and the meandering diesel train across Canada emits twice as much too. I haven’t done the sums yet, but my transport across Asia and Europe is going to have to be very frugal indeed if I am to end up emitting less carbon than if I had flown instead. (I am at least offsetting my travels.)

So why do it? To get a sense of the scale and diversity of our planet. That, I reckon, is a rare privilege that I feel fortunate to be able to experience, and worth a bit of hassle. Flights are amazing things, but they pick you up in one place and culture, and then dump you jetlagged in a totally different one. After a life of snatched holidays in wildly different places, I’m aching to join some dots, experience the transitions of cultures and peoples, and get a feeling of the distances involved. For example, Vancouver to Tokyo is a 10 hour flight. How long do you think that takes by ship? 15 days. Yep, that’s over two weeks. That’s how big the Pacific is.

Will I make it? Heavens knows, but while I fret about my carbon emissions, it’s possible that the world’s climate crisis will paradoxically come to my aid. Azerbaijan is hosting the global climate change conference COP29 in November, and with a bit of luck this will oblige them to open their land borders by the time I get there in the summer. In the end, Bob might be your uncle after all. Fingers firmly crossed!

22 August 2024 update: I wrote this blog in January, optimistic and excited about the trip ahead. On March 28th, three weeks before Jackie and I were due to leave, I was diagnosed with colon cancer. In the absence of knowing what treatment would be necessary, we cancelled most of the trip. The fortnight spent unwinding the various elements organised – meeting our children in Toronto and staying there with friends, the train across Canada, the (one-off) May repositioning cruise from Vancouver to Tokyo, the Sumo wrestling tournament, the Tibetan trek and many, many more things – was the most dispiriting time of my life. At least the cancer was caught early and all removed. But even so, I have been left demoralised by this unexpected kick in the teeth. Musing about my fate a few days ago, I realised that right now, I would have been in Kazakhstan or Turkmenistan, trying to get across the Caspian Sea. I wondered: would I have made it?

Curiosity got the better of me, and I checked in with Central Asia Lonely Planet writer Mark Elliott who is in Tajikistan at the moment.

It seems I would not have made it without taking a flight after all. He says: “the Azerbaijan border is still closed inbound… and a couple of nights ago I heard some tales of woe from travellers who took the Caspian ferry in the other direction”. It looks like the Azerbaijani authorities are all set to stop delegates attending the climate-change conference in November from arriving by land, or even by the Caspian Sea. Let’s see if they wake up to that PR disaster in time! If not, it looks like the only way around the world by land for the foreseeable future, avoiding hazardous Russia and Iran or the Sahara, is to take a Round the World cruise. And that really WOULDN’T give me the answers I was looking for to the question Why?

by Chris