SINGAPORE – Ms Gracia Ng, 26, and Mr Ooi Yee Jia, 28, spent most of 2023 riding a tandem bike from Britain to Singapore, covering a distance of more than 20,000km.
Starting from London in March 2023, they cycled to the south-east of England to catch a ferry to the Hook of Holland, a town in the Netherlands that was their entry to Europe.
Riding a pre-loved, breakdown-prone tandem bike older than them, they wended their way through countries such as Germany, Austria, Croatia, Hungary, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, China, Laos and Thailand, before arriving home in time for Christmas on Dec 21.
The plan for 2024 is for Mr Ooi to find a job in finance – he has a post-graduate degree from the United States – while Ms Ng plans their next project: sharing their love of adventure by organising bicycle tours in countries such as New Zealand and Thailand in the coming months.
He says: “I wanted to bring this experience to other Singaporeans. I think there’s an adventure out there for everyone. It’s a very different kind of education.”
The couple’s momentous bike ride came on the heels of another epic road trip. Mr Ooi’s dream, fanned by YouTube videos about van life, had been to live out of his own van to save costs while taking in new vistas.
After he graduated from the US, and Ms Ng finished her master’s in English Literature in Britain, they set off in December 2021 in a van they outfitted themselves across 48 states in the US, excluding Hawaii and Alaska. In Singapore, Mr Ooi had never used a drill, but they learnt how to wire their vehicle for electricity and installed solar panels.
Shortly after their American travels were over a year later in December 2022, he proposed to her with a ring made out of the spoke of a wheel from their van. She said “yes”. They then wondered how they would get back to Singapore and decided to return home “on wheels”, says Ms Ng.
They bought their second-hand Ford Transit Connect 2013 van for US$6,000 (S$7,900) and, after outfitting it for their travels, sold it for US$12,500, which they used to fund their next tandem bike adventure in 2023. They bought a second-hand, 32-year-old Santana tandem for US$300.
Confining themselves to spending an average of US$1,000 a month over the past two years, they post about their budget travels as The Proper Paupers on Instagram and YouTube.
Whether living in a van or travelling on a tandem, they have been sustaining themselves on financial investments made by Mr Ooi, their personal savings and part-time work. While travelling, Ms Ng provides online consulting services for university admissions or teaches English online. When expenses spiked, due to unexpected van repairs, they lived on beans and rice to tide themselves over.
But bike life, they soon found, was a very different beast from van life.
Before, they always had a (van) roof over their heads and could take showers whenever they wanted at Planet Fitness gyms across the US, using a US$10 monthly membership pass they bought.
https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMibGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnN0cmFpdHN0aW1lcy5jb20vbGlmZS9hZnRlci10d28teWVhcnMtb24tdGhlLXJvYWQtdmFuLWxpZmUtYW5kLXRhbmRlbS1iaWtpbmctY291cGxlLWhvbWUtYXQtbGFzdNIBAA?oc=5
2024-01-06 06:00:00Z
CBMibGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnN0cmFpdHN0aW1lcy5jb20vbGlmZS9hZnRlci10d28teWVhcnMtb24tdGhlLXJvYWQtdmFuLWxpZmUtYW5kLXRhbmRlbS1iaWtpbmctY291cGxlLWhvbWUtYXQtbGFzdNIBAA
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar